cking his whip and jeering at the horses.
The steps on which I was sitting were hot; on the thin rails
and here and there on the window-frames sap was oozing out of
the wood from the heat; red ladybirds were huddling together in
the streaks of shadow under the steps and under the shutters.
The sun was baking me on my head, on my chest, and on my
back, but I did not notice it, and was conscious only of the thud
of bare feet on the uneven floor in the passage and in the rooms
behind me. After clearing away the tea-things, Masha ran down
the steps, fluttering the air as she passed, and like a bird flew in-
to a little grimy outhouse—I suppose the kitchen—from which
came the smell of roast mutton and the sound of angry talk in
Armenian. She vanished into the dark doorway, and in her place
there appeared on the threshold an old bent, red-faced Armeni-
an woman wearing green trousers. The old woman was angry
and was scolding someone. Soon afterwards Masha appeared in
the doorway, flushed with the heat of the kitchen and carrying a
big black loaf on her shoulder; swaying gracefully under the
weight of the bread, she ran across the yard to the threshing-
floor, darted over the hurdle, and, wrapt in a cloud of golden
chaff, vanished behind the carts. The Little Russian who was
driving the horses lowered his whip, sank into silence, and
gazed for a minute in the direction of the carts. Then when the
Armenian girl darted again by the horses and leaped over the
hurdle, he followed her with his eyes, and shouted to the horses
in a tone as though he were greatly disappointed:
"Plague take you, unclean devils!"
And all the while I was unceasingly hearing her bare feet,
and seeing how she walked across the yard with a grave, preocc -
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