After supper Kalashnikov prayed to the holy image without getting up from his seat, and shook hands with Merik; the latter prayed too, and shook Kalashnikov’s hand.  Lyubka cleared away the supper, shook out on the table some peppermint biscuits, dried nuts, and pumpkin seeds, and placed two bottles of sweet wine.

“The kingdom of heaven and peace everlasting to Andrey Grigoritch,” said Kalashnikov, clinking glasses with Merik.  “When he was alive we used to gather together here or at his brother Martin’s, and—­ my word! my word! what men, what talks!  Remarkable conversations!  Martin used to be here, and Filya, and Fyodor Stukotey. . . .  It was all done in style, it was all in keeping. . . .  And what fun we had!  We did have fun, we did have fun!”

Lyubka went out and soon afterwards came back wearing a green kerchief and beads.

“Look, Merik, what Kalashnikov brought me to-day,” she said.

She looked at herself in the looking-glass, and tossed her head several times to make the beads jingle.  And then she opened a chest and began taking out, first, a cotton dress with red and blue flowers on it, and then a red one with flounces which rustled and crackled like paper, then a new kerchief, dark blue, shot with many colours —­and all these things she showed and flung up her hands, laughing as though astonished that she had such treasures.

Kalashnikov tuned the balalaika and began playing it, but Yergunov could not make out what sort of song he was singing, and whether it was gay or melancholy, because at one moment it was so mournful he wanted to cry, and at the next it would be merry.  Merik suddenly jumped up and began tapping with his heels on the same spot, then, brandishing his arms, he moved on his heels from the table to the stove, from the stove to the chest, then he bounded up as though he had been stung, clicked the heels of his boots together in the air, and began going round and round in a crouching position.  Lyubka waved both her arms, uttered a desperate shriek, and followed him.  At first she moved sideways, like a snake, as though she wanted to steal up to someone and strike him from behind.  She tapped rapidly with her bare heels as Merik had done with the heels of his boots, then she turned round and round like a top and crouched down, and her red dress was blown out like a bell.  Merik, looking angrily at her, and showing his teeth in a grin, flew towards her in the same crouching posture as though he wanted to crush her with his terrible legs, while she jumped up, flung back her head, and waving her arms as a big bird does its wings, floated across the room scarcely touching the floor. . . .

“What a flame of a girl!” thought Yergunov, sitting on the chest, and from there watching the dance.  “What fire!  Give up everything for her, and it would be too little . . . .”

And he regretted that he was a hospital assistant, and not a simple peasant, that he wore a reefer coat and a chain with a gilt key on it instead of a blue shirt with a cord tied round the waist.  Then he could boldly have sung, danced, flung both arms round Lyubka as Merik did. . . .