"Night had just enclosed the sky in its embrace; but Bulba always retired early. He spread himself out on the mat and covered himself with the sheep-skin; for the night air was quite fresh, and Bulba, moreover, was fonder of warmth when at home. He soon began to snore, and it was not long before the entire household did the like. Whatever lay in the various corners of the court began to snore and to whiz. Before everybody else fell asleep the watchman; for in honor of the return of the young Cossaks he had drunk more than the rest. "The poor mother alone was awake. She nestled herself close to the heads of her dear boys, who were lying side by side. She combed their young, carelessly bunched-up locks, and moistened them with her tears. She gazed upon them with all her eyes, with all her feelings; she was transformed into nothing but sight, and yet she could not look enough at them. She had fed them from her own breast. She had raised them, had fondled them, and now she sees them again only for a moment! 'My boys, my darling boys, what is to become of ye, what is in store for ye?' she spake, and the tears halted on her wrinkles, which had changed her once handsome face. In truth, she was to be pitied, as every woman of that rough age was to be pitied. Only a moment had she lived in love, only in the first fever of passion, in the first fever of youth, and already her rough charmer had forsaken her for the sword, for his companions, for the wild excitement of war. During the year she saw her husband perhaps two--three times, and then again for some years there was not even a trace of him. And when they did come together, when they did live together, what sort of life was hers! She suffered insult, even blows. She received her fondlings as a kind of alms; she felt herself a strange creature in this assemblage of wifeless knights, to whom the loose life of the Cossaks had given a coloring sombre enough. Youth flashed by her joylessly, and her beautiful fresh cheeks and fingers had withered away without kisses, and were covered with premature wrinkles. All her love, all her tenderness, whatever was soft and passionate in woman, was merged in her into the one feeling of a mother. With heat, with passion, with tears, like a gull of the steppe, she was circling about her babes. Her boys, her darling boys, are to be taken from her,--taken from her never to be seen again. Who knows, perhaps at the very first battle the Tartar shall cut off their heads, and she shall not know where their castaway bodies are lying to be pecked in pieces by the bird of prey, while for every drop of their blood she would have given up her whole life. Groaning, she looked into their eyes, when almighty sleep began to close them, and she thought to herself, 'Perhaps