The sisters descended into the hollow near Trirodov’s colony, ascended it again to the other side, walked along the already familiar path, and opened the gate--this time it yielded without effort. They entered. Soon they saw a lake before them. The children and their instructresses were bathing. There was a spirit of buoyancy in the brown nakedness disporting itself in the buoyant waters--buoyant were the splashes, the laughter, and the outcries! The children and the instructresses walked out of the water upon the dry ground and ran naked upon the sand. Their legs, bare and sunburnt, seemed white in the green grass, like young birch-saplings growing out of the earth. They suddenly caught sight of the sisters, formed a ring of beautiful wet bodies around them, and twirled in a circle at a fast, furious pace. The discarded clothes that lay there close by seemed unnecessary to the sisters at that moment. What, after all, was more beautiful and lovely than the nude, eternal body? The sisters learnt afterwards that they more often walked about naked here than in their clothes. The radiantly sad Nadezhda said to them: “To lull the beast to sleep and to awaken the human being--that is the reason of our nakedness.” The dark, black-haired Maria said with ecstasy: “We have bared our feet in order to come in closer contact with the earth; we have become simple and happy, like people in the first garden. We have discarded our clothes in order to come closer to the elements. Caressed by these, clothed by the fire of the sun’s rays, we have discovered the human being in us. This being is not the uncouth beast thirsting for blood, or the townsman counting his profits--it is the human being, clean in body and alive with love.” So natural, indispensable, and inevitable seemed the nakedness of these young, beautiful bodies that it appeared rather stupid to put on one’s clothes afterwards. The sisters joined in with the naked dancers, and went into the water and lay on the grass under the trees. It was pleasant to feel the beauty, the grace, and the agility of their bodies among these other twirling, beautiful, strong bodies. Elisaveta’s observant glance detected two types among the girl instructresses. There were the rapturous ones and the dissembling ones. The rapturous ones gave themselves up with a bacchic joy to a life lived in the embrace of chaste nature: they fervently carried out all the rites of the colony, joyously divested themselves of all fear and shame, made great efforts and self-denials; and they laughed and they flamed, overcome by a passionate thirst of noble actions and of love--a thirst which not all the waters of this poor earth can quench. Among this number were the sad Nadezhda and the ecstatic Maria.