Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/80

74 of the musicians, then, suddenly retreating, they continued to dance in a squatting posture, and beat the hard-trodden earth rapidly and vigorously with their silver heels. The earth hummed dully all about the neighbourhood, and afar, through the air, resounded the hopák and the trepák, beaten out by the ringing heels of their boots.

But one shouted more vivaciously than all the rest, and flew after the others in the dance. His scalp-lock streamed in the wind, his powerful chest was all uncovered; his warm winter fur coat was hanging by the sleeves, and the perspiration poured from him like hail, as though from a bucket.

"Take off your jacket!" said Taras, at last: "Just see how he's steaming!"—"I can't!" shouted the kazák—"Why?"—"I can't: my character is such that whatever I take off I drink up"—and the young man had not had a cap for a long time past, nor a belt to his kaftan, nor an embroidered kerchief: all had travelled the fated road.

The throng increased: more men joined the dance; and it was impossible to observe without inward emotion, how it swept everything before it, that dance, the freest, the wildest the world has ever seen, which is called from its mighty originators, the Kazáchka.