Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/148

142 see whether they were asleep or dead; and, at the same moment, he stumbled over something which lay at his feet. It was the dead body of a woman, evidently a Jewess. She appeared to have been young, though this was not discernible in her distorted and emaciated features. Upon her head was a red silk kerchief; two rows of pearls, or pearl beads adorned the ear-pieces of her head-dress; from beneath it two or three long curls in curl-papers hung down upon her withered neck, with its tightly-drawn sinews. Beside her lay a baby, clutching convulsively at her withered breast, and squeezing it with its fingers in involuntary wrath, at finding no milk there. He neither wept nor screamed, and only the gentle rise and fall of his body would lead one to think that he was not dead, or at least on the point of breathing his last.

They turned into a street, and were suddenly stopped by a madman who, catching sight of Andríi's precious burden, sprang upon him like a tiger, and clutched him, yelling, "Bread!" But his strength was not equal to his madness. Andríi repulsed him: he fell to the ground. Moved with pity, Andríi tossed him a loaf, upon which he flung himself like a mad dog, gnawing and biting it; and immediately, there in the street, he expired