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st in time to catch Boris by the arm; enmeshed in a net of water-lilies and water-plantains, he was just rising again, his eyes weirdly wide and black in his bluish face. Moritz towed him away, and when he got to standing depth he took him in his arms to conduct him to the shore. He spoke kindly to him: "Water swallowed, my boy, yes, that's the dickens when you get into that mess yonder. Wait, we'll be on dry land directly." Boris spat out the water and struggled for breath. Once on shore, he lay down in the grass; he felt a deadly exhaustion and closed his eyes. Moritz sat beside him and looked at him. Suddenly Boris raised himself up, threw his arms about his knees, and his strangely dark eyes, still wide with fear, looked straight ahead of him. "Sleep, why don't you?" said Moritz kindly. "I can't," replied Boris; "as soon as I close my eyes, I feel as if those cursed smooth stems were winding around my legs again and dragging me under. The strangest feeling. I had the thought: 'Now comes dying;' but there was no time to think it, I felt such measureless torturing rage against those stems, against the water that was pressing me down, all banded together against one--something of that sort I must have felt." He pondered awhile in silence, the handsome face quite pale and angry, then he suddenly smiled his proud, reckless smile. "So you have saved my life, brother," he resumed. Moritz shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, stuff," he said. "Yes, you have," continued Boris. "You are my deliverer, and I thank you. But I should like to know one thing: you hate me, don't you?" Moritz flushed: "A lot of hate I'm likely to have for you." "Of course you hate me," asseverated Boris. "Now I should like to know, when you found me there in the last extremity, whether you didn't think: 'if I just look on now I'll be rid of him.' Or didn't you for a minute feel like laying your hand on my head and pressing down just a little? Eh?" Moritz looked at Boris in amazement: "No, nobody thinks that sort of thing." Boris lay back again, his hands clasped behind his neck The excitement of what he had just gone through was still quivering in him and impelling him to speak, dreamily, a little as if intoxicated. "Oh really, nobody thinks of that!--what sort of people are you?--I thought of it the moment you suggested that we go swimming; after all, we don't have the catechism in our bodies by way of a soul. Doing, yes, that's another
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