e's afraid of everything."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the
open sea. She swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back.
She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on
the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry
heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered
that she must live, live. . . . A sailing-boat darted by her rapidly
and vigorously, cleaving the waves and the air; the man sitting at
the helm looked at her, and she liked being looked at. . . .

After bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together.

"I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don't get thin," said
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the
bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances.
"I've always been plump, and now I believe I'm plumper than ever."

"That, my dear, is constitutional. If, like me, one has no
constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use. . . .
But you've wetted your hat, my dear."

"It doesn't matter; it will dry."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking
on the sea-front and talking French; and again she felt a sudden
thrill of joy, and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she
had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And
something at the bottom of her soul dimly and obscurely whispered
to her that she was a pretty, common, miserable, worthless
woman. . . .

Marya Konstantinovna stopped at her gate and asked her to come in
and sit down for a little while.

"Come in, my dear," she said in an imploring voice, and at the same
time she looked at Nadyezhda Fyodorovna with anxiety and hope;
perhaps she would refuse and not come in!

"With pleasure," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, accepting. "You know
how I love being with you!"

And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinovna sat her down and
gave her coffee, regaled her with milk rolls, then showed her
photographs of her former pupils, the Garatynskys, who were by now
married. She showed her, too, the examination reports of Kostya and
Katya. The reports were very good, but to make them seem even better,
she complained, with a sigh, how difficult the lessons at school
were now. . . . She made much of her visitor, and was sorry for
her, though at the same time she was harassed by the thought that
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a corrupting influence on the morals
of