"Just see my father!" thought the elder son, Ostap, to himself; "he knows all about it, and yet feigns ignorance, the old dog!" "I think the Abbot didn't so much as let you smell brandy,"[5] continued Tarass Boolba. "Now, own, sons, they famously thrashed your back, and whatever else a Cossack possesses, with fresh birch rods? or, perhaps, as you grew cleverer, you were flogged with scourges? and I should think not only on Saturdays, but on Wednesdays and Thursdays[6] too, you got your allowance." "What is the use of talking about what is past?" answered Ostap; "what is past can never come back." "Let any one try it now," said Andrew; "let any one touch us now! If a Tartar were to come within our reach, now, we would soon let him know what sort of a thing a Cossack's sabre is." "Well said, son, well said indeed! If things stand so, I will go with you! By Heavens, I'll do it! What the devil have I to wait here for? Am I then to turn sower or farmer, or to pasture sheep or swine, and make love to my wife? Let them all perish! I am a Cossack, and will not be anything else but a Cossack! There is no war? Well, what then? I'll go with you just to have a look at the Zaporoghians! By Heavens, I will!" and old Boolba grew warmer and warmer in his speech, and at last, becoming quite fierce, rose from the table, drew himself up to his full height and stamped with his foot. "Why should it be put off? Let us ride there to-morrow! Of what use would it be for us to wait? What is this house to us? Of what use is all this furniture? Of what use this crockery?" and with these words he began knocking about and dashing on the ground jugs and dishes. His poor old wife, seated on a bench, mournfully watched these proceedings of her husband, to which she was accustomed. She dared not interfere, but could not restrain her tears at hearing a decision so awful to her; she looked at her sons, from whom she was threatened to part so soon, and none could describe the extent of the silent intensity of sorrow which seemed to quiver in her eyes and in her convulsively compressed lips.