"If she were a virtuous girl one might pity her. But as it is ... it seems rather queer, doesn't it?" The other man did not answer; he watched the boat making a circle, and turning its bows towards land. Sereja's ruddy face wore an open, good, and simple expression.
As he watched him, Vassili's feelings grew softer.
"You are right, she is a good woman ... she is only light-hearted; I shall have something to say to Jakoff, the young dog!"
"I can't stand him.... He smells of the village, and that's a smell I can't put up with!" Sereja declared.
"Is he running after her?" Vassili asked between his teeth, whilst he stroked his beard.
"I should rather think so! You'll see, he'll put himself between you two like a wall."
Far out over the sea the rosy rays of the morning sun opened out fan-shaped, as the sun rose from the gilded water. Over the noise of the waves a faint cry came from the boat "Heave!... Ahoy!..
"Up with you, lads! Give way with the rope!" cried Sereja, jumping to his feet And soon all the five were hauling at their end of the net There stretched from the water to the shore a long rope, supple and vibrating, at which the fishermen, holding on to the extreme end, pulled and shouted.
The other end of the net was being drawn ashore by the boat which glided through the waves, whilst the mast as it swung from side to side seemed to cut the air to right and left The sun, brilliant and dazzling, shed its beams across the sea.
"When you see Jakoff, tell him to come and see me to-morrow," said Vassili to Sereja.
The boat ran up on the beach, and the fishermen, jumping on to the sand, pulled up their end of the net The two groups were gradually merged one in the other, whilst the cork floats, bobbing about on the waves, showed a regular outline in the water.
Very late, the evening of the same day, when the work-people at the fisheries had finished their supper, Malva, tired and dreamy, had seated herself on a broken, upturned boat, and was watching the sea, over which twilight was gradually falling. Out yonder a fire was burning, and Malva knew that it was Vassili who had lit it Half hidden and solitary in the sombre distance, the flame flashed up every now and then, and then died down as if crushed. And Malva felt sad as she watched this red spot, abandoned in the waste of waters, and palpitating feebly amidst the ceaseless and incomprehensible murmur of the waves.