At the present moment, notwithstanding the heat of the June day, Davidka, with his head covered by his sheep-skin,[32] was fast asleep, curled up on one corner of the oven. The panic-stricken hen, skipping up on the oven, and growing more and more agitated, took up her position on Davidka's back, but did not awaken him.
Nekhliudof, seeing no one in the hovel, was about to go, when a prolonged humid sigh betrayed the sleeper.[33]
"Holloa! who's there?" cried the prince.
A second prolonged sigh was heard from the oven.
"Who's there? Come here!"
Still another sigh, a sort of a bellow, and a heavy yawn responded to the prince's call.
"Well, who are you?"
Something moved slightly on the oven. The skirt of a torn sheep-skin[34] was lifted; one huge leg in a dilapidated boot was put down, then another, and finally Davidka's entire figure emerged. He sat up on the oven, and rubbed his eyes drowsily and morosely with his fist.
Slowly shaking his head, and yawning, he looked down into the hut, and, seeing the prince, began to make greater haste than before; but still his motions were so slow, that Nekhliudof had time to walk back and forth three times from the puddle to the loom before Davidka got down from the oven.
Davidka Byélui or David White was white in reality: his hair, and his body, and his face all were perfectly white.