“That’s right,” said Serejka, with a tone of encouragement, and he sat down beside them on the sand.  “Always do what I tell you and you’ll be happy.  And you,” he went on, turning to Malva—­“when are you going to marry me?  Better be quick.  I don’t like to wait long.”

“You are too ragged.  Begin by sewing up your holes and then we’ll see,” replied Malva.

Serejka regarded his rents with a reproachful air and shook his head.

“Give me one of your skirts, that’ll be better.”

“Yes, I can,” said Malva, laughing.

“I’m serious.  You must have an old one you don’t want.”

“You’d do better to buy yourself a pair of trousers.”

“I prefer to drink the money.”

Serejka rose and, jingling his twenty kopeks, shuffled off, followed by a strange smile from Malva.

When he was some distance away, Iakov said: 

“In our village such a braggart would goon have been put in his place.  Here, every one seems afraid of him.”

Malva looked at Iakov and replied, disdainfully: 

“You don’t know his worth.”

“There’s nothing to know.  He’s worth five kopeks a hundred.”

She did not reply, but watched the play of the waves as they chased one after the other, swaying the fishing boat.  The mast inclined now to right, now to left, and the bow rose and then fell suddenly, striking the water with a loud splash.

“Why don’t you go?” asked Malva.

“Where?” he asked.

“You wanted to go to town.”

“I shan’t go now.”

“Well, go to your father’s.”

“And you?”

“What?”

“Shall you go, too?”

“No.”

“Then I shan’t either.”

“Are you going to stay round me all day?”

“I don’t want your company so much as that,” replied Iakov, offended.

He rose and moved away.  But he was mistaken in saying that he did not need her, for when away from her he felt lonely.  A strange feeling had come to him after their conversation, a secret desire to protest against the father.  Only yesterday this feeling had not existed, nor even to-day, before he saw Malva.  Now it seemed to him that his father embarrassed him and stood in his way, although he was far away over the sea yonder, on a narrow tongue of sand almost invisible to the eye.  Then it seemed to him, too, that Malva was afraid of the father; if she were not afraid she would talk differently.  Now she was missing in his life while only that morning he had not thought of her.

And so he wandered for several hours along the beach, stopping here and there to chat with fishermen he knew.  At noon he took a siesta under the shade of an upturned boat.  When he awoke he took another stroll and came across Malva far from the fishing ground, reading a tattered book under the shade of the willows.

She looked up at Iakov and smiled.