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