ush the wheat straw, ran
unwillingly as though with effort, swinging their tails with an offended
air. The wind raised up perfect clouds of golden chaff from under their
hoofs and carried it away far beyond the hurdle. Near the tall fresh
stacks peasant women were swarming with rakes, and carts were moving,
and beyond the stacks in another yard another dozen similar horses were
running round a post, and a similar Little Russian was cracking his whip
and jeering at the horses.

The steps on which I was sitting were hot; on the thin rails and here
and there on the window-frames sap was oozing out of the wood from the
heat; red ladybirds were huddling together in the streaks of shadow
under the steps and under the shutters. The sun was baking me on my
head, on my chest, and on my back, but I did not notice it, and was
conscious only of the thud of bare feet on the uneven floor in the
passage and in the rooms behind me. After clearing away the tea-things,
Masha ran down the steps, fluttering the air as she passed, and like
a bird flew into a little grimy outhouse--I suppose the kitchen--from
which came the smell of roast mutton and the sound of angry talk in
Armenian. She vanished into the dark doorway, and in her place there
appeared on the threshold an old bent, red-faced Armenian woman wearing
green trousers. The old woman was angry and was scolding someone. Soon
afterwards Masha appeared in the doorway, flushed with the heat of
the kitchen and carrying a big black loaf on her shoulder; swaying
gracefully under the weight of the bread, she ran across the yard to the
threshing-floor, darted over the hurdle, and, wrapt in a cloud of golden
chaff, vanished behind the carts. The Little Russian who was driving the
horses lowered his whip, sank into silence, and gazed for a minute in
the direction of the carts. Then when the Armenian girl darted again by
the horses and leaped over the hurdle, he followed her with his
eyes, and shouted to the horses in a tone as though he were greatly
disappointed:

"Plague take you, unclean devils!"

And all the while I was unceasingly hearing her bare feet, and seeing
how she walked across the yard with a grave, preoccupied face. She ran
now down the steps, swishing the air about me, now into the kitchen, now
to the threshing-floor, now through the gate, and I could hardly turn my
head quickly enough to watch her.

And the oftener she fluttered by me with her beauty, the more acute
becam