r love of deceiving
their husbands.

"The impudent rascal!" comments the woman from Penza sleepily.

After a while the young fellow springs to his feet, and grates his
teeth. Then, reseating himself, and clutching at his head, he says
gloomily:

"I intend to leave here tomorrow, and go home. I do not care WHAT
becomes of me."

With which he subsides on to the floor as though exhausted.

"The blockhead!" is Konev's remark.

Amid the darkness a black shape rises. It does so as soundlessly as a
fish in a pond, glides to the door, and disappears.

"That was she," remarks Konev. "What a strong woman! However, if you
had not pulled me away, I should have got the better of her. By God I
should!"

"Then follow her, and make another attempt."

"No," after a moment's reflection he rejoins. "Out there she might get
hold of a stick, or a brick, or some such thing. However, I'LL get even
with her. As a matter of fact, you wasted your time in stopping me, for
she detests me like the very devil."

And he renews his wearisome boastings of his conquests; until suddenly,
he stops as though he has swallowed his tongue.

All becomes quiet; everything seems to have come to a halt, and to be
pressing close in sleep to the motionless earth. I too grow drowsy, and
have a vision amid which my mind returns to the donations which I have
received that day, and sees them swell and multiply and increase in
weight until I feel their bulk pressing upon me like a tumulus of the
steppes. Next, the coppery notes of a bell jar in my ears, and, struck
at random intervals, go floating away into the darkness.

It is the hour of midnight.

Soon, scattered drops of rain begin to patter down upon the dry thatch
of the hut and the dust in the street outside, while a cricket
continues chirping as though it were hurriedly relating a tale. Also, I
hear filtering forth into the darkness a softly gulped, eager
whispering.

"Think," says one of the voices, "what it must mean to have to go
tramping about without work, or only with work for another to do!"

The young fellow who has been so soundly thrashed replies in a dull
voice:

"I know nothing of you."

"More softly, more softly!" urges the woman.

"What is it you want?"

"I want NOTHING. It is merely that I am sorry for you as a man yet
young and strong. You see--well, I have not lived with my eyes shut.
That is why I say, come with me."

"But come whither?"

"To the coast, where I kno