"Just think a little, isn't it amusing to see how people knock each other about because of you? You just wag your tongue once or twice, and it's done." Sereja for some time went on exposing to her in a flattering light, and with much enthusiasm the charms of the part which he proposed she should play. He was both joking and serious, and was himself carried away. "Ah! if only I were a beautiful woman! How I would turn the world topsy-turvy!" he cried at the end of their talk. Then he took his head into his hands, pressed it, closed his eyes and was silent. The moon was high when they separated After they had left, the beauty of the night intensified. There remained but the boundless, marvellous sea, flecked by the silver of the moon; and the star-sown sky. The little sand-hills, the bushy willows, and the two long rows of huts like two enormous coffins, appeared quite insignificant in the face of the sea, and of the stars, which twinkled coldly as they contemplated it. CHAPTER V The father and son were seated in the hut opposite each other, and were drinking vodka, which the son had brought to conciliate the elder man, and to prevent them being bored in each other's company. Sereja had told Jakoff that his father was angry with him because of Malva, and that he had threatened to beat Malva till she was half dead. The young woman had been told of this threat, and that was why she had not yielded to Jakoff. Sereja had mischievously misled him. "He'll punish you for your larks. He'll pull your ears till they are half-a-yard long. You had better not get in his way!" This red-headed, disagreeable fellow's chaff provoked in Jakoff a sharp feeling of resentment against his father ... and against Malva, with whom he could not get a bit further. Sometimes her eyes seemed to lead him on, sometimes they looked sad, and then the desire within him pained him to an extent that became exasperation. Jakoff went to see his father. He looked upon him as an obstacle in his path, which it was impossible to get over, or to push on one side. But feeling himself as strong as his adversary, Jakoff met his eyes with a look which seemed to say--"Touch me if you dare!" They had each already taken two glasses, without having exchanged a word, excepting some ordinary remarks about the life at the fisheries. Alone, in the midst of the sea, they were accumulating within themselves hatred, and both of them knew that very soon this hatred would burst out and flame forth. The matting of the hut swayed in the wind, the bark of which it was built creaked, the red rag at the top of the mast was murmuring something. All these sounds were like a timid, endless, and uncertain lisping of a prayer. But the waves murmured--free and unmoved. "And Sereja, does he still get drunk?" asked Vassili in a harsh voice. "He is drunk every evening," replied Jakoff, pouring out some more vodka for his father.