he side whiskers.

"Vassa," cried Zvantzev to his lady, "dress yourself!"

"Yes, it's time to go," said the red-haired lady to Ookhtishchev. "It is
cold, and it will soon be dark."

"Stepan! Clear everything away!" commanded Vassa.

All began to bustle about, all began to speak of something. Foma stared
at them in suspense and shuddered. Staggering, the crowd walked
along the rafts. Pale and fatigued, they said to one another stupid,
disconnected things. Sasha jostled them unceremoniously, as she was
getting her things together.

"Stepan! Call for the horses!"

"And I'll drink some more cognac. Who wants some more cognac with
me?" drawled the gentleman with the side whiskers in a beatific voice,
holding a bottle in his hands.

Vassa was muffling Zvantzev's neck with a scarf. He stood in front of
her, frowning, dissatisfied, his lips curled capriciously, the calves of
his legs shivering. Foma became disgusted as he looked at them, and
he went off to the other raft. He was astonished that all these people
behaved as though they had not heard the song at all. In his breast
the song was alive and there it called to life a restless desire to do
something, to say something. But he had no one there to speak to.

The sun had set and the distance was enveloped in blue mist. Foma
glanced thither and turned away. He did not feel like going to town with
these people, neither did he care to stay here with them. And they were
still pacing the raft with uneven steps, shaking from side to side and
muttering disconnected words. The women were not quite as drunk as the
men, and only the red-haired one could not lift herself from the bench
for a long time, and finally, when she rose, she declared:

"Well, I'm drunk."

Foma sat down on a log of wood, and lifting the axe, with which the
peasant had chopped wood for the fire, he began to play with it, tossing
it up in the air and catching it.

"Oh, my God! How mean this is!" Zvantzev's capricious voice was heard.

Foma began to feel that he hated it, and him, and everybody, except
Sasha, who awakened in him a certain uneasy feeling, which contained
at once admiration for her and a fear lest she might do something
unexpected and terrible.

"Brute!" shouted Zvantzev in a shrill voice, and Foma noticed that he
struck the peasant on the chest, after which the peasant removed his cap
humbly and stepped aside.

"Fo-o-ol!" cried Zvantzev, walking after him and lifting his hand.