Everything has an air of legendary antiquity about it. One thinks of the return of Stenka Razin from his Persian campaign.

Blue-clad Persian seamen, with the bony look of camels, are watching the merry-making of the Russian folk, and bare their pearly teeth in friendly grins—the sleepy eyes of the men of the East glow with strange smiles.

A sullen old man, rumpled by the wind, with a crooked nose protruding from the hairy face of a sorcerer, stumbles over the woman’s foot as he passes by the couple. He stops, shakes his head with a vigor unusual for an old man, and shouts:

“Devil take you! What are you blocking the way for! The shameless creature, look at her, faugh!”

The woman does not even budge, does not so much as open her eyes, only her lips quiver slightly, and the lad, straightening up, sets the mug down on the deck, places the other hand too on the woman’s breast, and says firmly:

“What, Yakim Petrov, you’re envious? Be off with you! Don’t burst with envy, don’t pine in vain. This sugar isn’t for your tooth.”

He lifts his paws and placing them again on the woman’s breast, he says triumphantly:

“We’ll nurse the whole of Russia!”

At this the woman gives a slow smile, and just then everything, the schooner and all the people on it, heave up, like one swelling breast, a wave crashes against the side of the boat and splashes everybody, including the woman, with salty spray. Then she half-opens her dark eyes, casts a friendly glance at the old man, the lad, and everything about her, and unhurriedly starts to cover herself.

“Don’t,” says the lad, seizing her hands. “Let them look. Don’t begrudge it to them.”

Astern, men and women are playing a dance-tune. A clear, thrilling, young voice sings in rapid tempo:

Boots are thumping on the deck, someone is hooting like a huge owl, a triangle chimes thinly, Kalmuck pipes are sounding, and a woman’s voice, rising higher and higher, sings gaily:

People are shrieking with laughter, and someone shouts deafeningly:

“How do you like it, old men?”

The wind is sowing the waves with holiday laughter.

The stalwart youth has lazily covered the woman’s breast with the skirt of his coat, and meditatively rolling his round, childlike eyes, he says, looking ahead of him:

“When we get home we’ll make things hum! Oh, Marya, won’t we make things hum!”

On fiery wings the sun is flying westward. The clouds chase it, and unable to overtake it, settle in snowy hills upon the black ribs of the mountains.

1912.