"Eh? He has come to have a look at me before I die."
Vasena promptly answered: "Lord! you are not so young as to…."
They were silent. The old man lay back on the sofa and slept.
"Ippolyte Ippolytovich, you must take your walk!"
"Eh?"
It was a "St. Martin's Summer." Over the scattered blood-red vine leaves on the terrace, which was deluged in mellow autumnal sunshine, the bent-up old man walked, leaning heavily on a bamboo cane, and supported by the sturdy Vasena. He had a skull-cap pulled down low over his forehead, and wore a long, black overcoat.
IV
Sometimes the old man relapsed into a state of coma, lasting several hours. Then life seemed to have ebbed from him entirely. A clay-like pallor over-spread his face, he had the lips and open, glassy eyes of a corpse, and he scarcely breathed. Then they sent post-haste for the doctor, who sprinkled him with camphor, gave him oxygen and produced artificial respiration. The old man slowly came to, rolling his eyes.
"Another minute and it would have been death," the doctor would say in a deep, grave voice.
When the old man had at length recovered, Vasena used to say to him: "Lord! We were so frightened, we were so frightened! … We thought you were quite gone. Yes, we did. For you know, you are not so young as to…."