Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/279

Rh  obeisance, the ever-renewed adoration which filled the hearts of his enchanted fellow-citizens!

April 1878.

returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running in front of me.

Suddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though tracking game.

I looked along the avenue, and saw a young sparrow, with yellow about its beak and down on its head. It had fallen out of the nest (the wind was violently shaking the birch-trees in the avenue) and sat unable to move, helplessly flapping its half-grown wings.

My dog was slowly approaching it, when, suddenly darting down from a tree close by, an old dark-throated sparrow fell like a stone right before his nose, and all ruffled up, terrified, with despairing and pitiful cheeps, it flung itself twice towards the open jaws of shining teeth.

It sprang to save; it cast itself before its nestling. .. but all its tiny body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange. Swooning with fear, it offered itself up!