y and sadly:

"Along the Volga river A little boat is flo-o-oating."

The brunette, snapping her large, stern eyes with contempt, said,
without looking at her: "We feel gloomy enough without this."

"Don't touch her. Let her sing!" entreated Foma, kindly, looking into
his lady's face. He was pale some spark seemed to flash up in his eyes
now and then, and an indefinite, indolent smile played about his lips.

"Let us sing in chorus!" suggested the man with the side whiskers.

"No, let these two sing!" exclaimed Ookhtishchev with enthusiasm.
"Vera, sing that song! You know, 'I will go at dawn.' How is it? Sing,
Pavlinka!"

The giggling girl glanced at the brunette and asked her respectfully:

"Shall I sing, Sasha?"

"I shall sing myself," announced Foma's companion, and turning toward
the lady with the birdlike face, she ordered:

"Vassa, sing with me!"

Vassa immediately broke off her conversation with Zvantzev, stroked her
throat a little with her hand and fixed her round eyes on the face of
her sister. Sasha rose to her feet, leaned her hand against the table,
and her head lifted haughtily, began to declaim in a powerful, almost
masculine voice:

"Life on earth is bright to him, Who knows no cares or woe, And whose
heart is not consumed By passion's ardent glow!"

Her sister nodded her head and slowly, plaintively began to moan in a
deep contralto:

"Ah me! Of me the maiden fair."

Flashing her eyes at her sister, Sasha exclaimed in her low-pitched
notes:

"Like a blade of grass my heart has withered."

The two voices mingled and floated over the water in melodious, full
sounds, which quivered from excess of power. One of them was complaining
of the unbearable pain in the heart, and intoxicated by the poison
of its plaint, it sobbed with melancholy and impotent grief; sobbed,
quenching with tears the fire of the suffering. The other--the lower,
more masculine voice--rolled powerfully through the air, full of the
feeling of bloody mortification and of readiness to avenge. Pronouncing
the words distinctly, the voice came from her breast in a deep stream,
and each word reeked with boiling blood, stirred up by outrage, poisoned
by offence and mightily demanding vengeance.

"I will requite him,"

sang Vassa, plaintively, closing her eyes.

"I will inflame him,
I'll dry him up,"

Sasha promised sternly and confidently, wafting into the air strong,
powerful tones, which sounded like b