Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/68

62 was accessible to other sentiments. The demand for love flamed ardently within him; when he had attained his eighteenth year woman began to present herself more frequently in his burning dreams: while listening to philosophical discussions he beheld her each moment, rosy, black-eyed, tender; before him flitted constantly her gleaming, elastic bosom, her soft, beautiful bare arms; the very gown which clung about her virginal yet vigorous limbs exhaled, in his visions, a certain inexpressible sensuousness. He carefully concealed from his comrades this impulse of his passionate young soul, because, in that age, it was considered shameful and dishonourable for a kazák to think of love and a wife before he had tasted battle. On the whole, during the concluding years of his course, he served more rarely as the leader of a gang; but he roamed about more frequently alone in the remote corners of Kiev, buried in cherry-orchards, among low-roofed little houses, which peeped forth alluringly along the street. Sometimes he betook himself to the street of the aristocrats, in the old Kiev of to-day, where dwelt little Russian and Polish nobles, and where the houses were built in somewhat fanciful style. Once as he was thus lounging along, a huge, old-fashioned carriage, belonging to some Polish nobleman, almost drove over him; and the