“Stop, Véretyeff,”—said Márya Pávlovna.—“Release me! It is time for me to go home.”
“But I’m going to make you laugh,”—interposed Véretyeff; “by Heaven, I will make you laugh. Eh, by the way, yonder runs a hare....”
“Where?”—asked Márya Pávlovna.
“Yonder, beyond the ravine, across the field of oats. Some one must have startled it; they don’t run in the morning. I’ll stop it on the instant, if you like.”
And Véretyeff whistled loudly. The hare immediately squatted, twitched its ears, drew up its fore paws, straightened itself up, munched, sniffed the air, and again began to munch with its lips. Véretyeff promptly squatted down on his heels, like the hare, and began to twitch his nose, sniff, and munch like it. The hare passed its paws twice across its muzzle and shook itself,—they must have been wet with dew,—stiffened its ears, and bounded onward. Véretyeff rubbed his hands over his cheeks and shook himself also.... Márya Pávlovna could not hold out, and burst into a laugh.
“Bravo!”—cried Véretyeff, springing up. “Bravo! That’s exactly the point—you are not a coquette. Do you know, if any fashionable young lady had such teeth as you have she would laugh incessantly. But that’s precisely why I love you, Másha, because you are not a fashionable young lady, don’t laugh without cause, and don’t wear gloves on your hands, which it is a joy to kiss, because they are sunburned, and one feels their strength.... I love you, because you don’t argue, because you are proud, taciturn, don’t read books, don’t love poetry....”
“I’ll recite some verses to you, shall I?”—Márya Pávlovna interrupted him, with a certain peculiar expression on her face.
“Verses?”—inquired Véretyeff, in amazement.
“Yes, verses; the very ones which that Petersburg gentleman recited last night.”
“‘The Upas-Tree’ again?... So you really were declaiming in the garden, by night? That’s just like you.... But does it really please you so much?”