drey Grigoritch,"
said Kalashnikov, clinking glasses with Merik. "When he was alive
we used to gather together here or at his brother Martin's, and--
my word! my word! what men, what talks! Remarkable conversations!
Martin used to be here, and Filya, and Fyodor Stukotey. . . . It
was all done in style, it was all in keeping. . . . And what fun
we had! We did have fun, we did have fun!"

Lyubka went out and soon afterwards came back wearing a green
kerchief and beads.

"Look, Merik, what Kalashnikov brought me to-day," she said.

She looked at herself in the looking-glass, and tossed her head
several times to make the beads jingle. And then she opened a chest
and began taking out, first, a cotton dress with red and blue flowers
on it, and then a red one with flounces which rustled and crackled
like paper, then a new kerchief, dark blue, shot with many colours
--and all these things she showed and flung up her hands, laughing
as though astonished that she had such treasures.

Kalashnikov tuned the balalaika and began playing it, but Yergunov
could not make out what sort of song he was singing, and whether
it was gay or melancholy, because at one moment it was so mournful
he wanted to cry, and at the next it would be merry. Merik suddenly
jumped up and began tapping with his heels on the same spot, then,
brandishing his arms, he moved on his heels from the table to the
stove, from the stove to the chest, then he bounded up as though
he had been stung, clicked the heels of his boots together in the
air, and began going round and round in a crouching position. Lyubka
waved both her arms, uttered a desperate shriek, and followed him.
At first she moved sideways, like a snake, as though she wanted to
steal up to someone and strike him from behind. She tapped rapidly
with her bare heels as Merik had done with the heels of his boots,
then she turned round and round like a top and crouched down, and
her red dress was blown out like a bell. Merik, looking angrily at
her, and showing his teeth in a grin, flew towards her in the same
crouching posture as though he wanted to crush her with his terrible
legs, while she jumped up, flung back her head, and waving her arms
as a big bird does its wings, floated across the room scarcely
touching the floor. . . .

"What a flame of a girl!" thought Yergunov, sitting on the chest,
and from there watching the dance. "What fire! Give up everything
for her, and it would be too little . .