He held my thoughts continually, in a stubborn effort to understand him, but it was an unsuccessful effort. I saw nothing else but him. He shut out everything else with his broad figure. The stewardess bore herself towards me with suspicious kindness. In the morning, I was deputed to take hot water for washing to her, although this was the duty of the second-class chambermaid, Lusha, a fresh, merry girl. When I stood in the narrow cabin, near the stewardess, who was stripped to the waist, and looked upon her yellow body, flabby as half-baked pastry, I thought of the lissom, swarthy body of "Queen Margot," and felt disgusted. And the stewardess talked all the time, now complainingly and scolding, now crossly and mockingly. I did not grasp the meaning of her speech, although I dimly guessed at it--at its pitiful, low, shameful meaning. But I was not disturbed by it. I lived far away from the stewardess, and from all that went on in the boat. I lived behind a great rugged rock, which hid from me all that world. All that went on during those days and nights flowed away into space. "Our Gavrilovna is quite in love with you." I heard the laughing words of Lusha as in a dream. "Open your mouth, and take your happiness." And not only did she make fun of me, but all the dining-room attendants knew of the weakness of their mistress. The cook said, with a frown: "The woman has tasted everything, and now she has a fancy for pastry! People like that----! You look, Pyeshkov, before you leap." And Yaakov also gave me paternal advice. "Of course, if you were a year or two older, I should give you different advice, but at your age, it is better for you to keep yourself to yourself. However, you must do as you like." "Shut up!" said I. "The whole thing is disgusting." "Of course it is." But almost immediately after this, trying to make the limp hair on his head stand up with his fingers, he said tersely, in well-rounded periods: "Well, one must look at it from her point of view, too. She has a miserable, comfortless job. Even a dog likes to be stroked, and how much more a human being. A female lives by caresses, as a mushroom by moisture. She ought to be ashamed of herself, but what is she to do?" I asked, looking intently into his elusive eyes: "Do you begrudge her that, then?" "What is she to me? Is she my mother? And if she were----But you are a funny fellow!" He laughed in a low voice, like the beating of a drum. Sometimes when I looked at him, I seemed to be falling into silent space, into a bottomless pit full of twilight. "Every one is married but you, Yaakov. Why have n't you ever married?"'