ut on seeing the pair exchanging a strange glance
(as though involuntarily they had surprised one another), had left the
words unspoken. My companions then set themselves to a mutually eager
questioning with respect to their respective identities, past
experiences, places of origin, and destinations, even as though they
had been two kinsmen who, meeting unexpectedly, had discovered for the
first time their bond of relationship.

Meanwhile the black, fringed boughs of the pine trees hung stretched
over the flames of the Molokans' fire as though they would catch some
of the fire's glow and warmth, or seize it altogether, and put it out.
And when, at times, their red tongues projected beyond the corner of
the barraque, they made the building look as though it had caught
alight, and extended their glow even to the rivulet. Constantly the
night was growing denser and more stifling; constantly it seemed to
embrace the body more and more caressingly, until one bathed in it as
in an ocean. Also, much as a wave removes dirt from the skin, so the
softly vocal darkness seemed to refresh and cleanse the soul. For it is
on such nights as that that the soul dons its finest raiment, and
trembles like a bride at the expectation of something glorious.

"You say that she had a squint?" presently I heard Vasili continue in
an undertone, and the ex-soldier slowly reply:

"Yes, she had one from childhood upwards--she had one from the day when
a fall from a cart caused her to injure her eyes. Yet, if she had not
always gone about with one of her eyes shaded, you would never have
guessed the fact. Also, she was so neat and practical! And her
kindness--well, it was kindness as inexhaustible as the water of that
rivulet there; it was kindness of the sort that wished well to all the
world, and to all animals, and to every beggar, and even to myself! So
at last there gripped my heart the thought, 'Why should I not try a
soldier's luck? She is the master's favourite--true; yet none the less
the attempt shall be made by me.' However, this way or that, always the
reply was 'No'; always she put out at me an elbow, and cut me short."

Vasili, lying prone upon his back, twitched his moustache, and chewed a
stalk of grass. His eyes were fully open, and for the second time I
perceived that one of them was larger than the other. The ex-soldier,
seated near Vasili's shoulder, stirred the fire with a bit of charred
stick, and sent sparks of gold flying