And the peasant woman (who had come, it may be, to complain of "a lifting with the gripes"—an expression which probably she herself could not have explained) would bow, then proffer the three or four eggs which would be tied up in a corner of her neckcloth.
Also, when Bazarov extracted a tooth from the jaw of a travelling pedlar, Vasili Ivanitch could not allow even the very ordinary character of the tooth to prevent him from preserving it as a rarity, and showing it to Father Alexis.
"See what a fang!" he said. "And to think of the strength which Evgenii must possess! He lifted the pedlar clean from the ground! It was like uprooting an oak tree!"
"Splendid!" was Father Alexis' comment—he knew not what else to say, nor, for that matter, how else to get rid of the enthusiastic veteran.
Lastly, there was an occasion when a peasant from a neighbouring village brought his brother to be treated. Suffering from typhus, the patient was lying face downwards on the straw in the cart, and had reached the last stage, since already his body was covered with spots of a hectic nature, and he had long lost consciousness. To an expression of regret that resort had not sooner been had to medical aid, Vasili Ivanitch could add no more than an intimation that no hope was left: nor was he wrong, seeing that even before the peasant succeeded in conveying his brother back to the village, the sick man had breathed his last.
Three days later Bazarov entered his father's room with an inquiry for some hell-stone.
"I have some," said Vasili Ivanitch; "but what do you want it for?"
"For the cauterisation of a wound."
"A wound on whom?"
"A wound on myself."