Ústenka suddenly dropped her head on her friend’s breast, seized hold of her, and shook with smothered laughter. “You silly fool!” she exclaimed, quite out of breath. “You don’t want to be happy,” and she began tickling Maryánka.
“Oh, leave off!” said Maryánka, screaming and laughing. “You’ve crushed Lazútka.”
“Hark at those young devils! Quite frisky! Not tired yet!” came the old woman’s sleepy voice from the wagon.
“Don’t want happiness,” repeated Ústenka in a whisper, insistently. “But you are lucky, that you are! How they love you! You are so crusty, and yet they love you. Ah, if I were in your place I’d soon turn the lodger’s head! I noticed him when you were at our house. He was ready to eat you with his eyes. What things Grandad has given me! And yours they say is the richest of the Russians. His orderly says they have serfs of their own.”
Maryánka raised herself, and after thinking a moment, smiled.
“Do you know what he once told me: the lodger I mean?” she said, biting a bit of grass. “He said, ‘I’d like to be Lukáshka the Cossack, or your brother Lazútka—.’ What do you think he meant?”
“Oh, just chattering what came into his head,” answered Ústenka. “What does mine not say! Just as if he was possessed!”
Maryánka dropped her hand on her folded beshmet, threw her arm over Ústenka’s shoulder, and shut her eyes.
“He wanted to come and work in the vineyard today: father invited him,” she said, and after a short silence she fell asleep.