simply bleed.
Here's to your health, little cadet!"

They clinked glasses. Jennka was just as attentively scrutinizing
Gladishev.

"And you, Jennechka?" he asked, extending a glass.

"I don't want to," she answered listlessly, "but, however, ladies,
you've drunk some wine, chatted a bit--don't wear the welcome off the
mat."

"Perhaps you'll stay with me the whole night?" she asked Gladishev,
when the others had gone away. "Don't you be afraid, dearie; if you
won't have enough money, I'll pay the difference for you. You see, how
good-looking you are, that a wench does not grudge even money for you?"
she began laughing.

Gladishev turned around to her; even his unobserving ear was struck by
Jennka's strange tone--neither sad, nor kindly, nor yet mocking.

"No, sweetie, I'd be very glad to; I'd like to remain myself, but I
can't possibly; I promised to be home toward ten o'clock."

"That's nothing, dear, they'll wait; you're altogether a grown-up man
now. Is it possible that you have to listen to anybody? ... But,
however, as you wish. Shall I put out the light entirely, perhaps; or
is it all right the way it is? Which do you want--the outside or near
the wall?"

"It's immaterial to me," he answered in a quavering voice; and, having
embraced with his arm the hot, dry body of Jennka, he stretched with
his lips toward her face. She slightly repulsed him.

"Wait, bear a while, sweetheart--we have time enough to kiss our fill
yet. Just lie still for one little minute... So, now... quiet,
peaceful... don't stir..."

These words, passionate and imperious, acted like hypnosis upon
Gladishev. He submitted to her and lay down on his back, putting his
hands underneath his head. She raised herself a little, leant upon her
elbow, and placing her head upon the bent hand, silently, in the faint
half-light, was looking his body over--so white, strong, muscular; with
a high and broad pectoral cavity; with well-made ribs; with a narrow
pelvis; and with mighty, bulging thighs. The dark tan of the face and
the upper half of the neck was divided by a sharp line from the
whiteness of the shoulders and breast.

Gladishev blinked for a second. It seemed to him that he was feeling
upon himself, upon his face, upon his entire body, this intensely fixed
gaze, which seemed to touch his face and tickle it, like the cobwebby
contact of a comb, which you first rub against a cloth--the sensation
of a thin, imponderous, living matter.

H