Sasha felt distressed, dropped his arms and looked guiltily at the white marks of his fingers on Liudmilla's left cheek. Liudmilla took advantage of his confusion. She quickly pulled the shirt from both shoulders to his elbows. Sasha recovered himself, tried to get away from her but only made things worse--Liudmilla pulled the sleeves off his arms and his shirt fell down to his waist. Sasha felt cold, and a new flood of shame, hard and pitiless, made his head whirl. He was now naked to the waist. Liudmilla held his arms tightly and patted his back with her trembling hand, looking at the same time into his downcast, strangely gleaming eyes under their blue-black eyebrows. Suddenly these eyelashes trembled, his face was wrinkled by a pitiful, childish grimace, and he began to sob. "You wicked girl!" he exclaimed in a sobbing voice. "Let me go!" "Cry-baby!" said Liudmilla angrily, and pushed him away. Sasha turned away, drying his tears on the palms of his hands. He felt ashamed because he was crying. He tried to hold back his tears. Liudmilla looked eagerly at his naked back. "How much beauty there is in the world!" she thought. "People hide so much beauty from themselves. Why?" Sasha, shrinking ashamedly with his naked shoulders, tried to put on his shirt, but it only became entangled in his trembling hands and he could not get his arms into the sleeves. Sasha caught hold of his blouse--let the shirt remain as it was for the present. "Oh, you're afraid for your property. No, I shan't steal it!" said Liudmilla in a loud, angry voice, ringing with tears. She threw him the belt impetuously, and turned towards the window. Much she wanted him, wrapped up in his grey blouse, the horrid boy! Sasha quickly put on his blouse, somehow arranged his shirt and looked at Liudmilla cautiously, indecisively and shamefacedly. He saw that she was wiping her cheeks with her fingers; he walked up to her timidly and looked into her face--and the tears which were trickling down her cheeks weakened him into pity--and he felt no longer ashamed and angry. "Why are you crying, dear Liudmillotchka?" he asked quietly. And suddenly he flushed--he remembered that he had struck her. "I hit you--forgive me! I didn't do it on purpose," he said timidly. "Are you afraid you'll melt away, you silly boy, that you won't sit with your shoulders naked?" said Liudmilla reproachfully. "Or are you afraid that you'll get sunburnt, or your beauty and innocence be lost?" "But why do you want me to do it, Liudmillotchka?" said Sasha with a grimace of embarrassment.