Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/255

 XI

T the time when the above-described incidents took place, there were, as yet, in the frontier settlements, no custom-house officials and guards,—those terrible menaces to enterprising people,—therefore, any one could bring across anything he liked. If any one made any search or inspection, he did it chiefly for his own pleasure, especially if there happened to be in the wagon objects attractive to the eye, and if his own hand possessed a certain weight and power. But the bricks found no admirers, and they entered the principal gate of the city unmolested. Bulba, in his narrow cage, could only hear the noise, the shouts of the drivers, and nothing more. Yankel, bouncing away on his short, dust-covered trotter, turned, after taking several circuitous bends, into a dark, narrow street bearing the name of "The Muddy" and also of "the Jews' Street," because, as a matter of fact, Jews from nearly every quarter of Warsaw were to be found there. This street greatly resembled a back-yard turned wrongside out. The sun, apparently, never shone in there. The totally black wooden houses, with innumerable