Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XI).djvu/21

Rh back in ragged tufts, it gave the old man's figure a resemblance to a crested hen—a resemblance the more striking, that under the dark-grey mass nothing could be distinguished but a beak nose and round yellow eyes.

'Luise will run fast, and I can't run,' the old man went on in Italian, dragging his flat gouty feet, shod in high slippers with knots of ribbon. 'I've brought some water.'

In his withered, knotted fingers, he clutched a long bottle neck.

'But meanwhile Emil will die!' cried the girl, and holding out her hand to Sanin, 'O, sir, O mein Herr! can't you do something for him?'

'He ought to be bled—it's an apoplectic fit,' observed the old man addressed as Pantalcone.

Though Sanin had not the slightest notion of medicine, he knew one thing for certain, that boys of fourteen do not have apoplectic fits.

'It's a swoon, not a fit,' he said, turning to Pantaleone. 'Have you got any brushes?'

The old man raised his little face. 'Eh?'

'Brushes, brushes,' repeated Sanin in German and in French. 'Brushes,' he added, making as though he would brush his clothes.

The little old man understood him at last.

'Ah, brushes! Spazzette! to be sure we have!'