'Masha!' cried Tchertop-hanov, striking himself a blow on the chest with his fist; 'there, stop it; hush, you have tortured me... now, it's enough! O my God! think only what Tisha will say; you might have pity on him, at least!' 'Remember me to Tihon Ivanitch, and tell him...' Tchertop-hanov wrung his hands. 'No, you are talking nonsense--you are not going! Your Yaff may wait for you in vain!' 'Mr. Yaff,' Masha was beginning.... 'A fine _Mister_ Yaff!' Tchertop-hanov mimicked her. 'He's an underhand rascal, a low cur--that's what he is--and a phiz like an ape's!' For fully half-an-hour Tchertop-hanov was struggling with Masha. He came close to her, he fell back, he shook his fists at her, he bowed down before her, he wept, he scolded. ...'I can't,' repeated Masha; 'I am so sad at heart... devoured by weariness.' Little by little her face assumed such an indifferent, almost drowsy expression, that Tchertop-hanov asked her if they had not drugged her with laudanum. 'It's weariness,' she said for the tenth time. 'Then what if I kill you?' he cried suddenly, and he pulled the pistol out of his pocket. Masha smiled; her face brightened. 'Well, kill me, Panteley Eremyitch; as you will; but go back, I won't.' 'You won't come back?' Tchertop-hanov cocked the pistol. 'I won't go back, my dearie. Never in my life will I go back. My word is steadfast.' Tchertop-hanov suddenly thrust the pistol into her hand, and sat down on the ground. 'Then, you kill me! Without you I don't care to live. I have grown loathsome to you--and everything's loathsome for me!' Masha bent down, took up her bundle, laid the pistol on the grass, its mouth away from Tchertop-hanov, and went up to him. 'Ah, my dearie, why torture yourself? Don't you know what we gypsy girls are? It's our nature; you must make up your mind to it. When there comes weariness the divider, and calls the soul away to strange, distant parts, how is one to stay here? Don't forget your Masha; you won't find such another sweetheart, and I won't forget you, my dearie; but our life together's over!' 'I loved you, Masha,' Tchertop-hanov muttered into the fingers in which he had buried his face.... 'And I loved you, little friend Panteley Eremyitch.' 'I love you, I love you madly, senselessly--and when I think now that you, in your right senses, without rhyme or reason, are leaving me like this, and going to wander over the face of the earth--well, it strikes me that if I weren't a poor penniless devil, you wouldn't be throwing me over!' At these words Masha only laughed. 'And he used to say I didn't care for money,' she commented, and she gave Tchertop-hanov a vigorous thump on the shoulder. He jumped up on to his feet. 'Come, at least you must let me give you some money--how can you go like this without a halfpenny? But best of all: kill me! I tell you plainly: kill me once for all!' Masha shook her head again. 'Kill you? Why get sent to Siberia, my dearie?'