"Hold your tongue! Don't let me see you any more! Go away!" cried Vassili. "I shall not go to the village.... I shall spend the winter here," said Jakoff, without paying any attention to his father's shouts, though he watched his every movement "One is better here.... I quite understand that.... I am not a fool. Work is less hard here, and there is more liberty.... There you would be always ordering me about but here, just try it on!" He put his thumb to his nose, and laughed a quiet laugh, but in such a way that Vassili once more seized with fury bounded to his feet, and seizing hold of an oar shouted-- "That's the way you treat your father?... Ah! I will kill you!" But when, mad with rage, he reached the boat, Jakoff was already far away. He ran on, and the tom sleeve of his shirt floated in the breeze behind him. Vassili threw the oar after his son, but did not succeed in hitting him. Having exhausted his strength he let himself fall at the side of the boat, and tore the wood with his nails, whilst his son called out to him in the distance-- "What, arn't you ashamed of yourself? You are getting old, and you put yourself into this state for a woman!... I'm not going back to the village.... I've had enough of it ... Go back yourself! ... You've nothing to do here!" "Jakoff, hold your tongue!" shouted Vassili; and his voice rose above that of Jakoff's. "I shall kill you.... Get away with you!" But Jakoff was walking away now, and laughing. Vassili watched him with furious eyes. Now he was getting smaller; his legs seemed to be hidden in the sand ... half his body had disappeared ... now his shoulders ... and now his head.... He was no longer to be seen. But some minutes afterwards, at a few paces from the spot where he had disappeared, his head showed once more, then his shoulders, then all his body.... He looked quite small. He was turning round and saying some-thing-- "Curse you!... Curse you!" cried Vassili. The son made a gesture with his hand, and continued to walk away till he was hidden by a sandhill. Vassili looked out in that same direction for a long time, till his back hurt him from sitting in such an uncomfortable attitude--half crouched down against the boat, the palms of his hands resting on the sand. Cramped and aching all over, he rose and staggered, for his limbs pained him. His belt had got pushed up under his arms, he unfastened it with his stiff fingers, looked at it and threw it on the sand. Then he went towards his hut, but stopped as he reached a hollow in the ground, remembering that it was there that he had fallen, and that if it had not been for that he might have caught his son.