Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/274

268 lack of all far-sighted policy, their childish self-love and petty pride, converted the Diet into a satire on government.

Ostap endured the tortures and torments like a giant. Not a cry, not a groan was audible; even when they began to break the bones in his arms and legs, when the horrible cracking could be heard by the most remote spectators amid the deathlike stillness of the throng, when even the young ladies turned aside their eyes, nothing even resembling a groan escaped his lips, nor did his face quiver. Taras stood in the crowd with bowed head; but at the same time, rasing his eyes proudly, he said with approbation: "Well done, son! Well done!" But when they took him to the last deadly tortures, it seemed as though his strength were on the point of failing. And he turned his eyes about him on all sides.

O God! All strangers, all unknown faces! If only some one of his near relatives were but present at his death! He would not have wished to hear the sobs and anguish of his feeble mother, or the unreasoning shrieks of a wife, tearing her hair and beating her white breast: he would have liked to see a strong man who could refresh him with a wise word, and cheer him at the end. And his strength failed him, and he cried aloud,