the day after the quarrel jakoff went off with a party of workmen in a boat, which was taken out by a tug. they were going out to a distance of about thirty versts to fish for sturgeon in a bay.

he returned to the fishery at the end of five days, alone and in a sailing-boat; he had been sent ashore to fetch provisions. it was noon when jakoff arrived; the workmen were resting after their dinner. it was intolerably hot, the sand burnt the feet, the fish-bones and scales pricked them. jakoff walked carefully towards the huts, wishing all the time he had put his shoes on. he hesitated about returning to the boat, he wanted to eat his dinner quickly and to find malva. during the tedious hours at sea he had often thought of her. he would have liked to have known if his father and she had seen each other, and what had passed between them.... perhaps the old man had beaten her? that wouldn't have mattered; it would have made her more gentle.

otherwise she was too provoking, too bold. the deserted fishery slumbered: the long wooden huts with all the windows standing open, seemed exhausted with the heat. in the inspector's office a child was crying.... behind a heap of barrels the whisper of voices was heard.

jakoff went in that direction; he thought he distinguished malva's voice. but when he reached the barrels he stopped and paused. in the shade, lying on his back, his arms under his head, was the red-headed sereja. near him, on one side, was vassili, and on the other side malva.

jakoff thought, "what is my father doing here? has he left his employment so as to be near malva, and to watch her? the old devil!... if only my mother knew what he was up to?" should he speak to them or not?

"that's it," sereja was saying. "therefore you must say good-bye to each other. and then be off, and go and scratch your land ..."

jakoff started, and his face grew joyful.

"i am going," said vassili.

then jakoff stepped forward boldly.

"good-morning, all of you!"

his father threw a rapid glance at him, and then turned away. malva did not move. sereja kicked out his leg, and said in a forced voice—

"here is our well-beloved son jakoff, who is returning from a far country."

then he added in his ordinary voice—

"let us skin him alive, and mate drums out of his skin."

malva laughed softly.

"it's hot," said jakoff, sitting down by them.

vassili glanced at him once more, as if unwillingly.

"i have been expecting you here all the morning, jakoff. the inspector told, me that you were to come." his voice seemed to the young man to be weaker than usual, and his face seemed altered.

"i have come to fetch some provisions," said jakoff.

and he asked sereja for a cigarette.

"i have no tobacco for a fool like you!" replied the latter without moving.

"i'm going home, jakoff!" said vassili gravely, digging at the sand with his finger.

"why?" asked his son innocently.

"never mind.... shall you remain here?"

"yes, i shall remain.... what could both of us do at home?"

"very well. i have nothing to say. do as you choose i you are no longer a child. only remember that i shan't live very much longer. i shall keep alive perhaps, but i don't know how i shall manage to work.... i have lost the habit of working on the land.... don't forget therefore that you have your mother there."

it was evidently painful to him to speak. the words seemed to stick between his teeth. whilst he twisted his beard, his hand trembled.

malva watched him. sereja had half closed one eye, and with the other which was wide open he watched jakoff. the boy was glad, but fearing to betray his feelings, he was silent, and hung his head.

"don't forget your mother therefore, jakoff. remember that you are all that is left to her!" said vassilli.

"i know!" said jakoff, shrugging his shoulders.

"that's all right if you know it," added his lather, with a distrustful glance. "i only warn you not to forget it."

"all right!"

vassili sighed deeply. they were all silent for some minutes.

then malva said—

"they will soon be ringing the bell for work."

"i am going," said vassili, rising.

and they all rose with him.

"good-bye, sereja. if you ever come to the volga, perhaps you will remember to come and see me?... the district of simbirsk, the village of malso, near nikolo-livolvsk."

"all right," said sereja.

he shook vassili's hand, holding it for a long time in his big, thick-veined paw, covered with red hairs. he smiled into the sad, serious face of vassili.

"nikolo-livolvsk is a big town, every one knows it, and we are only four versts from there," the peasant explained.

"all right, i will come and see you if i am that way."

"good-bye."

"good-bye, my dear fellow."

"good-bye, malva!" whispered vassili, without raising his eyes to her.

she wiped her lips leisurely with, her sleeve, threw her two white arms round his neck, and kissed him three times, on his lips and on his cheeks.

he was overcome, and muttered some indistinct words. jakoff dropped his head to hide a smile; but sereja was unmoved, and even yawned slightly as he looked up at the sky.

"it will be hot walking," he said.

"nevermind!... good-bye to you also, jakoff."

"good-bye."

they were face to face with one another, without knowing what to do. the sad word "good-bye," which had just been repeated so many times, awoke in the soul of jakoff a feeling of tenderness for his father, but he did not know how to express it should he embrace his father as malva had done, or shake hands with him like sereja?... and vassili was wounded by this hesitation which was visible in the attitude of his son, and at the same time he felt something like shame. he remembered what had taken place at the cape, and he thought of malva's kisses.

"well, think of your mother!" said vassili at last.

"oh! yes!" replied jakoff cordially. "don't be anxious ... i know."

and he shook his head.

"that's all be happy! may god protect you.... don't think ill of me.... the boiler, sereja, is buried in the sand, near the bows of the green boat."

"what does he want with the boiler?" asked jakoff suddenly.

"he has taken my place over there at the cape," explained vassili.

jakoff glance at sereja enviously, then at malva, and hung his head to hide the flash of joy in his eye.

"good-bye, brothers, i am going."

vassili nodded to them. malva followed him.

"i am going to walk with you a little bit of the way."

sereja flung himself on the ground and seized jakoff's leg as this latter was about to follow malva.

"stop! where are you going to?"

"leave me alone!" said jakoff, moving a step forward. but sereja had seized his other leg.

"sit down beside me."

"why!... what new nonsense are you up to?"

"it's not nonsense i sit down."

jakoff set his teeth, and obeyed.

"what do you want?"

"wait hold your tongue ... whilst i think; and then i'll talk to you."

he looked the lad up and down, and jakoff submitted.

malva and vassili walked on for a few moments in silence. malva's eyes had a strange sparkle in them. and vassili was gloomy and preoccupied. their feet sank into the sand, and they walked with difficulty.

"vassia!"

"well?"

he looked at her, and turned away immediately.

"it was i who made you quarrel on purpose with jakoff.... you might have both lived here without quarrelling," she said, in a voice that was even and unmoved.

there was not a shade of regret in her words.

"why did you do that?" vassili asked, after a moment's silence.

"i don't know ... for no reason."

she shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"that's a nice thing you have done," he said irritably.

she was silent.

"you will make me lose my boy, lose him altogether; you sorceress! have you no fear of god? are you not ashamed?... what are you going to do?"

"what ought i to do?" she said.

a mixture of agony and of despair sounded in her voice.

"what ought you to do?" cried vassili, flashing out suddenly into rage.

he felt a passionate desire to strike her, to throw her down and bury her in the sand, to kick her in the face and on the bosom....

he clinched his fists and cast a look behind him.

over there near the barrels he saw sereja and jakoff, and their faces were turned in his direction.

"get along with you; or i shall do for you!..."

he stopped and breathed curses into her face. his eyes were bloodshot, his beard trembled, and his hands were stretched involuntarily towards malva's hair, which appeared above her shawl.

her green eyes were fixed on him.

"you deserve to be killed!... but wait a bit. some one will break your head one of these days!"

she smiled, but remained silent. then sighing deeply, she said—

"that's enough now. good-bye!"

and turning quickly on her heels, she walked back.

vassili yelled after her and ground his teeth. malva, as she walked tried to put her feet into the footmarks which vassili had made, and when she succeeded she carefully destroyed all traces of his footprints. finally she reached the barrels, when sereja received her with the question—"well, you walked a bit of the way with him?"

she made an affirmative sign with her head, and sat down by him.

and jakoff watching her, smiled softly, moving his lips as if he were saying things to her that no one else heard.

"and when you left him did you cry?" asked sereja.

"when are you going over there to the cape?" she asked him, indicating the sea with a movement of her head.

"this evening."

"i shall go with you."

"bravo!... i like that."

"and i also, i shall go!" said jakoff.

"who invites you?" said sereja, screwing up his eyes.

the harsh tinkle of a cracked bell was heard; it was the call to work. the sounds rang out through the air, one following rapidly the other, as if they feared to be late, or to be drowned in the sound of the waves.

"she will invite me," said jakoff.

he glanced at malva defiantly.

"i?... what should i want with you?" she replied, with surprise in her voice.

"let's speak plainly, jakoff," said sereja. "if you bother her i'll beat you into a jelly. and if you touch her with a finger, i'll crush you like a fly. i'll give you one over the head that will just finish you altogether. i'm very straightforward in my ways." his face, his whole figure and his knotted arms threatened jakoff's throat, and seemed to prove eloquently, that in reality, to kill a man was to sereja a very simple matter.

jakoff stepped back and said in a stifled voice—

"wait a minute! it's she who..."

"hold your tongue, and there's an end of it! what does all this mean? it's not you, you dog, who are going to eat the lamb. if you get the bones thrown to you, you may say thank you. we've had enough of this."

jakoff looked at malva. her green eyes were laughing in a way that wounded him, and she rubbed up against sereja in such a coaxing way that jakoff felt the perspiration break out all over him.

they walked off side by side, and then both of them burst out laughing. jakoff crushed his right foot hard into the sand, and remained standing thus, his body stretched forward, his face red, his heart beating.

far away over the dead ripples of the sand, the outline of a small dark human figure was moving; on his right shone the sun and the mighty sea, and on his left, as far as the horizon, there was sand, nothing but sand, smooth, vast and silent. jakoff watched the solitary man and blinked his eyes, which were full of tears—tears of humiliation and of painful uncertainty—and he rubbed his chest roughly with both his hands.

at the fishery, work was going on briskly. jakoff heard the deep, melodious voice of malva, saying angrily—

"who has taken my knife?"

the waves rippled, the sun shone, the sea laughed.