“Perhaps I won’t give you a good beating?” cried Vassili hoarsely, and bending his back like a cat about to make a spring.

“Here we are equal,” said Iakov, watching him warily.  “You are a fisherman, I too.  Why do you attack me like this?  Do you think I do not understand?  You began.”

Vassili howled with passion, and raised his arm to strike so rapidly that Iakov had no time to avoid it.  The blow fell on his head.  He staggered and ground his teeth in his father’s face.

“Wait!” cried the latter, clenching his fists and again threatening him.

They were now at close quarters, and their feet were entangled in the empty sacks and cordage on the floor.  Iakov, protecting himself as best he could against his father’s blows, pale and bathed in perspiration, his teeth clenched, his eyes brilliant as a wolf’s, slowly retreated, and as his father charged upon him, gesticulating with ferocity and blind with rage, like a wild boar, he turned and ran out of the cabin, down towards the sea.

Vassili started in pursuit, his head bent, his arms extended, but his foot caught in some rope, and he fell all his length on the sand.  He tried to rise, but the fall had taken all the fight out of him and he sank back on the beach, shaking his fist at Iakov, who remained grinning at a safe distance.  He shouted: 

“Be cursed!  I curse you forever!”

Bitterness came into Vassili’s soul as he realized his own position.  He sighed heavily.  His head bent low as if an immense weight had crushed him.  For an abandoned woman he had deserted his wife, with whom he had lived faithfully for fifteen years, and the Lord had punished him by this rebellion of his son.  His son had mocked him and trampled on his heart.  Yes, he was punished for the past.  He made the sign of the cross and remained seated, blinking his eyes to free them from the tears that were blinding them.

And the sun went down into the sea, and the crimson twilight faded away in the sky.  A warm wind caressed the face of the weeping peasant.  Deep in his resolutions of repentance he stayed there until he fell asleep shortly before dawn.

* * * * *

The day following the quarrel, Iakov went off with a party to fish thirty miles out at sea.  He returned alone five days later for provisions.  It was midday when he arrived, and everyone was resting after dinner.  It was unbearably hot.  The sand burned his feet and the shells and fish bones pricked them.  As Iakov carefully picked his way along the beach he regretted he had no boots on.  He did not want to return to the bark as he was in a hurry to eat and to see Malva.  Many a time had he thought of her during the long lonely hours on the sea.  He wondered if she and his father had seen each other again and what they had said.  Perhaps the old man had beaten her.

The deserted fisheries were slumbering, as if overcome by the heat.  In the inspector’s office a child was crying.  From behind a heap of barrels came the sound of voices.