Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/246

Rh frame, representing a perfectly naked child of four years old, with a quiver on her shoulder and a blue ribbon round her breast, trying the points of the arrows with the end of her little finger. The child was very curly and smiling, and had a slight squint. Fimushka showed the miniature to her visitors.

'That was I!' she observed.

'You?'

'Yes, I. In my childhood. There was an artist, a Frenchman, who used to come and see my father─a splendid artist! And so he painted a picture of me for my father's birthday. And what a nice Frenchman he was! He came to see us afterwards, too. He would come in, scraping his foot as he bowed, and then giving it a little shake in the air, and would kiss your hand, and when he went away he would kiss his own fingers and bow to right and to left, and before and behind! He was a delightful Frenchman!'

They praised his work; Paklin even professed to discern a certain likeness.

Then Fomushka began talking of the French of to-day, and expressed the opinion that they must all be very wicked!

'Why so, Foma Lavrentyevitch?'

'Why, only see what names they have now!'

'What, for instance?'