Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/280

 said, turning to the student. “We'd have been all burnt up in an hour. Your honour, good gentleman,” he added shamefacedly. “It's a cold morning; we want warming badly. . . a half a bottle from your kindness. . .”

Osip's hint proved vain; and, grunting, he staggered home. Olga stood at the end of the village and watched as the two carts forded the stream, and the pretty girls walked through the meadow towards the carriage waiting on the other side. She returned to the hut in ecstasies —

“And such nice people! So good-looking. The young ladies, just like little cherubs!”

“May they burst asunder!” growled sleepy Fekla angrily.

VI

Marya was unhappy, and said that she wanted to die. But life as she found it was quite to Fekla's taste: she liked the poverty, and the dirt, and the never-ceasing bad language. She ate what she was given without picking and choosing, and could sleep comfortably anywhere; she emptied the slops in front of the steps: threw them, in fact, from the threshold, though in her own naked feet she had to walk through the puddle. And from the first day she hated Olga and Nikolai for no reason save that they loathed this life.