eck and dark eyes flashed before him. Then he
understood that it was Sasha.

The dull horror, which had suddenly seized him, vanished, replaced now
by wild, rebellious joy. Having dragged the woman out of the water, he
grasped her by the waist, clasped her to his breast, and, not knowing
what to say to her, he stared into her eyes with astonishment. She
smiled at him caressingly.

"I am cold," said Sasha, softly, and quivered in every limb.

Foma laughed gaily at the sound of her voice, lifted her into his arms
and quickly, almost running, dashed across the rafts to the shore. She
was wet and cold, but her breathing was hot, it burned Foma's cheek and
filled his breast with wild joy.

"You wanted to drown me?" said she, firmly, pressing close to him. "It
was rather too early. Wait!"

"How well you have done it," muttered Foma, as he ran.

"You're a fine, brave fellow! And your device wasn't bad, either, though
you seem to be so peaceable."

"And they are still roaring there, ha! ha!"

"The devil take them! If they are drowned, we'll be sent to Siberia,"
said the woman, as though she wanted to console and encourage him by
this. She began to shiver, and the shudder of her body, felt by Foma,
made him hasten his pace.

Sobs and cries for help followed them from the river. There, on the
placid water, floated in the twilight a small island, withdrawing from
the shore toward the stream of the main current of the river, and on
that little island dark human figures were running about.

Night was closing down upon them.

CHAPTER IX

ONE Sunday afternoon, Yakov Tarasovich Mayakin was drinking tea in his
garden and talking to his daughter. The collar of his shirt unbuttoned,
a towel wound round his neck, he sat on a bench under a canopy of
verdant cherry-trees, waved his hands in the air, wiped the perspiration
off his face, and incessantly poured forth into the air his brisk
speech.

"The man who permits his belly to have the upper hand over him is a
fool and a rogue! Is there nothing better in the world than eating and
drinking? Upon what will you pride yourself before people, if you are
like a hog?"

The old man's eyes sparkled irritably and angrily, his lips twisted with
contempt, and the wrinkles of his gloomy face quivered.

"If Foma were my own son, I would have made a man of him!"

Playing with an acacia branch, Lubov mutely listened to her father's
words, now and then casting a close and searching