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"
"How can we? Am I a match for you?"
"Well, strike up!"
"May I sit down?"
"Come over here, to the table."
"How lively this is!" exclaimed Zvantzev, wrinkling his face.
"If you find it tedious, go and drown yourself," said Sasha,
angrily flashing her eyes at him.
"No, the water is cold," replied Zvantzev, shrinking at her
glance.
"As you please!" The woman shrugged her shoulders. "But it is
about time you did it, and then, there's also plenty of water
now, so that you wouldn't spoil it all with your rotten body."
"Fie, how witty!" hissed the youth, turning away from her, and
added with contempt: "In Russia even the prostitutes are rude."
He addressed himself to his neighbour, but the latter gave him
only an intoxicated smile in return. Ookhtishchev was also drunk.
Staring into the face of his companion, with his eyes grown dim,
he muttered something and heard nothing. The lady with the bird-
like face was pecking candy, holding the box under her very nose.
Pavlinka went away to the edge of the raft and, standing there,
threw orange peels into the water.


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