e
seated here by my side."

And taking Foma by the hand, she made him sit down, like a child, in
her lap, pressed his head close to her breast, and, bending over him,
pressed her lips to his for a long time.

"What are you crying about?" asked Foma, caressing her cheek with one
hand, while the other clasped the woman's neck.

"I am crying about myself. Why have you sent me away?" she asked
plaintively.

"I began to feel ashamed of myself," said Foma, lowering his head.

"My darling! Tell me the truth--haven't you been pleased with me?" she
asked with a smile, but her big, hot tears were still trickling down on
Foma's breast.

"Why should you speak like this?" exclaimed the youth, almost
frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her
beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and
how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his
cheeks, his neck, his head and his uncovered breast.

He became silent--then she began to speak--softly and mournfully as
though speaking of the dead:

"And I thought it was something else. When you said, 'Be gone!' I got
up and went away. And your words made me feel sad, very sad. There was
a time, I remembered, when they caressed me and fondled me unceasingly,
without growing tired; for a single kind smile they used to do for me
anything I pleased. I recalled all this and began to cry! I felt sorry
for my youth, for I am now thirty years old, the last days for a woman!
Eh, Foma Ignatyevich!" she exclaimed, lifting her voice louder, and
reiterating the rhythm of her harmonious speech, whose accents rose and
fell in unison with the melodious murmuring of the water.

"Listen to me--preserve your youth! There is nothing in the world better
than that. There is nothing more precious than youth. With youth, as
with gold, you can accomplish anything you please. Live so that you
shall have in old age something to remind you of your youth. Here I
recalled myself, and though I cried, yet my heart blazed up at the very
recollection of my past life. And again I was young, as though I drank
of the water of life! My sweet child I'll have a good time with you, if
I please you, we'll enjoy ourselves as much as we can. Eh! I'll burn to
ashes, now that I have blazed up!"

And pressing the youth close to herself, she greedily began to kiss him
on the lips.

"Lo-o-ok o-u-u-u-t!" the watch on the barge wailed mournfully, and,
cutting short t