with honey and raisins, which is brought to the church on the
celebration of memorial masses] What was to be done with this
unrepentant man? Father Athanasii contented himself with announcing that
any one who should make the acquaintance of Basavriuk would be counted a
Catholic, an enemy of Christ's church, not a member of the human race.

In this village there was a Cossack named Korzh, who had a laborer whom
people called Peter the Orphan--perhaps because no one remembered either
his father or mother. The church starost, it is true, said that they had
died of the pest in his second year; but my grandfather's aunt would not
hear to that, and tried with all her might to furnish him with parents,
although poor Peter needed them about as much as we need last year's
snow. She said that his father had been in Zaporozhe, taken prisoner by
the Turks, underwent God only knows what tortures, and having, by some
miracle, disguised himself as a eunuch, had made his escape. Little
cared the black-browed youths and maidens about his parents. They merely
remarked, that if he only had a new coat, a red sash, a black lambskin
cap, with dandified blue crown, on his head, a Turkish sabre hanging by
his side, a whip in one hand and a pipe with handsome mountings in the
other, he would surpass all the young men. But the pity was, that the
only thing poor Peter had was a gray svitka with more holes in it than
there are gold-pieces in a Jew's pocket. And that was not the worst of
it, but this: that Korzh had a daughter, such a beauty as I think you
can hardly have chanced to see. My deceased grandfather's aunt used to
say--and you know that it is easier for a woman to kiss the Evil One
than to call anybody a beauty, without malice be it said--that this
Cossack maiden's cheeks were as plump and fresh as the pinkest poppy
when just bathed in God's dew, and, glowing, it unfolds its petals, and
coquets with the rising sun; that her brows were like black cords, such
as our maidens buy nowadays, for their crosses and ducats, of the Moscow