“What is it to you? Lie down!” answered his wife without taking her eyes off the flaxen head. Savely angrily puffed all the air out of his chest and turned abruptly to the wall. Three minutes later he turned over restlessly again, knelt up on the bed, and with his hands on the pillow looked askance at his wife. She was still sitting motionless, staring at the visitor. Her cheeks were pale and her eyes were glowing with a strange fire. The sexton cleared his throat, crawled on his stomach off the bed, and going up to the postman, put a handkerchief over his face. “What’s that for?” asked his wife. “To keep the light out of his eyes.” “Then put out the light!” Savely looked distrustfully at his wife, put out his lips towards the lamp, but at once thought better of it and clasped his hands. “Isn’t that devilish cunning?” he exclaimed. “Ah! Is there any creature slyer than womenkind?” “Ah, you long-skirted devil!” hissed his wife, frowning with vexation. “You wait a bit!” And settling herself more comfortably, she stared at the postman again. It did not matter to her that his face was covered. She was not so much interested in his face as in his whole appearance, in the novelty of this man. His chest was broad and powerful, his hands were slender and well formed, and his graceful, muscular legs were much comelier than Savely’s stumps. There could be no comparison, in fact. “Though I am a long-skirted devil,” Savely said after a brief interval, “they’ve no business to sleep here.... It’s government work; we shall have to answer for keeping them. If you carry the letters, carry them, you can’t go to sleep.... Hey! you!” Savely shouted into the outer room. “You, driver. What’s your name? Shall I show you the way? Get up; postmen mustn’t sleep!” And Savely, thoroughly roused, ran up to the postman and tugged him by the sleeve. “Hey, your honour, if you must go, go; and if you don’t, it’s not the thing.... Sleeping won’t do.” The postman jumped up, sat down, looked with blank eyes round the hut, and lay down again. “But when are you going?” Savely pattered away. “That’s what the post is for--to get there in good time, do you hear? I’ll take you.” The postman opened his eyes. Warmed and relaxed by his first sweet sleep, and not yet quite awake, he saw as through a mist the white neck and the immovable, alluring eyes of the sexton’s wife. He closed his eyes and smiled as though he had been dreaming it all. “Come, how can you go in such weather!” he heard a soft feminine voice; “you ought to have a sound sleep and it would do you good!” “And what about the post?” said Savely anxiously. “Who’s going to take the post? Are you going to take it, pray, you?” The postman opened his eyes again, looked at the play of the dimples on Raissa’s face, remembered where he was, and understood Savely. The thought that he had to go out into the cold darkness sent a chill shudder all down him, and he winced.