His scalp-lock streamed in the wind, his muscular chest was bare, his warm, winter fur jacket was hanging by the sleeves, and the perspiration poured from him as from a pig.

"Take off your jacket!" said Taras at length: "see how he steams!"-- "I can't," shouted the Cossack.

"Why ?"--"I can't: I have such a disposition that whatever I take off, I drink up." And indeed, the young fellow had not had a cap for a long time, nor a belt to his caftan, nor an embroidered neckerchief: all had gone the proper road.

The throng increased; more folk joined the dancer: and it was impossible to observe without emotion how all yielded to the impulse of the dance, the freest, the wildest, the world has ever seen, still called from its mighty originators, the Kosachka.
"Oh, if I had no horse to hold," exclaimed Taras, "I would join the dance myself." Meanwhile there began to appear among the throng men who were respected for their prowess throughout all the Setch--old greyheads who had been leaders more than once.

Taras soon found a number of familiar faces.