Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/25

Rh for she observed all the fasts appointed by the Church (and they are onerously numerous in the Orthodox Russian Church!), never missed a church service on Sundays and Holy Days, and was very zealous in the matter of money donations and of gifts to the Church. When she was about to set out on a piratical expedition, she was accustomed to go first to the priest at Kosáchya Dubróva, and order him to hold a Prayer-Service, and entreat God to grant success to her undertaking. "Hearken, bátko!" she would say to the priest, "if we are successful, we'll bring you a present, because that will mean that you have obtained success for us from God by your prayers. But if we are not successful, then you must excuse me, but we'll warm your hide for you!" So when the priest heard that Marfa Durov had been unsuccessful he apprehended disaster for himself; and she would ride up and administer a sound horsewhipping, because he had not understood how to pray luck for her from God!—Probably she made him hold a Te Deum service in case of success. Assuredly, the unhappy priest of Kosáchya Dubróva had on his hands one of the most complicated cases of conscience and faith upon record!

When Marfa's sons grew up they participated in their mother's crimes—and she instigated them to forms of crime which she could not perpetrate