Cossacks? No, you
must let us see them. Since you have taken the money, you have no right
to refuse."

"Go, go to the devil! If you won't, I'll give the alarm this moment.
Take yourselves off quickly, I say!"

"My lord, my lord, let us go! in God's name let us go! Curse him! May he
dream such things that he will have to spit," cried poor Yankel.

Bulba turned slowly, with drooping head, and retraced his steps,
followed by the complaints of Yankel who was sorrowing at the thought of
the wasted ducats.

"Why be angry? Let the dog curse. That race cannot help cursing. Oh, woe
is me, what luck God sends to some people! A hundred ducats merely for
driving us off! And our brother: they have torn off his ear-locks, and
they made wounds on his face that you cannot bear to look at, and yet no
one will give him a hundred gold pieces. O heavens! Merciful God!"

But this failure made a much deeper impression on Bulba, expressed by a
devouring flame in his eyes.

"Let us go," he said, suddenly, as if arousing himself; "let us go to
the square. I want to see how they will torture him."

"Oh, my lord! why go? That will do us no good now."

"Let us go," said Bulba, obstinately; and the Jew followed him, sighing
like a nurse.

The square on which the execution was to take place was not hard to
find: for the people were thronging thither from all quarters. In
that savage age such a thing constituted one of the most noteworthy
spectacles, not only for the common people, but among the higher
classes. A number of the most pious old men, a throng of young girls,
and the most cowardly women, who dreamed the whole night afterwards of
their bloody corpses, and shrieked as loudly in their sleep as a
drunken hussar, missed, nevertheless, no opportunity of gratifying their
curiosity. "Ah, what tortures!" many of them would cry, hysterically,
covering their eyes and turning away; but they stood their ground for a
good while, all the same. Many a one, with gaping mouth and outstretched
hands, would have liked to jump upon other folk's heads, to get a
better view. Above the crowd towered a bulky butcher, admiring the whole
process with the air of a connoisseur, and exchanging brief remarks with
a gunsmith, whom he addressed as "Gossip," because he got drunk in the
same alehouse with him on holidays. Some entered into warm discussions,
others even laid wagers. But the majority were of the species who, all
the world over, look on at the worl