Larissa looked at her, and winked—and Valeria suddenly grew more cheerful. Larissa rose, and moved her shoulders—presently, in a single instant, all four sisters were whirling round madly, as in a mystic dance, and, following Darya's lead, were shouting new chastushki, one more gay and absurd than the other. The sisters were young, handsome, and their voices sounded loud and wild—the witches on the Bald hill might have envied this mad whirl.
All night Liudmilla dreamt such sultry African dreams!
Now she dreamt that she was lying in a smotheringly hot room, and her bedcover slipping from her left her hot body naked—and then a scaly, ringed serpent crept into the room, and climbing up a tree coiled itself round the branches of its naked, handsome limbs....
Then she dreamt of a hot summer evening by a lake under threatening, cumbrously-moving clouds—she was lying on its bank, naked, with a smooth golden crown across her forehead. There was a smell of tepid stagnant water and of grass withered by the heat—and upon the dark, ominous, calm water floated a white, powerful swan of regal stateliness. He beat the water noisily with his wings, and, hissing loudly, approached her and embraced her—and it felt delicious, and languorous and sad....
And both the serpent and the swan, in bending over her, showed Sasha's face, almost bluely pale, with dark, enigmatically sad eyes—their blue-black eyelids, jealously covering their witching glance, descended heavily and apprehensively.
Then Liudmilla dreamt of a magnificent chamber with low, heavy arches—it was crowded with strong, naked, beautiful boys—the handsomest of all was Sasha. She was sitting high, and the naked boys in turn beat one another. And when Sasha was laid on the floor, his face towards Liudmilla, and beaten, he loudly laughed and wept—she was also laughing, as one laughs only in dreams, when the heart begins to beat intensely, and when one laughs long, unrestrainedly, the laughter of oblivion and of death....
In the morning after all these dreams Liudmilla felt that she was passionately in love with Sasha. An impatient desire to see him seized hold of her—but the thought that she would see him dressed made her sad. How stupid that small boys don't go about naked! Or at least barefoot, like the streets gamins in summer upon whom Liudmilla loved to gaze because they walked about barefoot, and sometimes showed their bared legs quite high.
"As if it were so shameful to have a body," thought Liudmilla, "that even small boys hide it!"
[1] Simon Yakovlevitch Nadson (1862-86), a poet of considerable merit, who was popular in spite of his monotony and melancholy.
[2] This word in Russian is "poloskatsya" and is a pun on "laskatsya," which is to caress.