“Vassa,” cried Zvantzev to his lady, “dress yourself!”
“Yes, it’s time to go,” said the red-haired lady to Ookhtishchev. “It is cold, and it will soon be dark.”
“Stepan! Clear everything away!” commanded Vassa.
All began to bustle about, all began to speak of something. Foma stared at them in suspense and shuddered. Staggering, the crowd walked along the rafts. Pale and fatigued, they said to one another stupid, disconnected things. Sasha jostled them unceremoniously, as she was getting her things together.
“Stepan! Call for the horses!”
“And I’ll drink some more cognac. Who wants some more cognac with me?” drawled the gentleman with the side whiskers in a beatific voice, holding a bottle in his hands.
Vassa was muffling Zvantzev’s neck with a scarf. He stood in front of her, frowning, dissatisfied, his lips curled capriciously, the calves of his legs shivering. Foma became disgusted as he looked at them, and he went off to the other raft. He was astonished that all these people behaved as though they had not heard the song at all. In his breast the song was alive and there it called to life a restless desire to do something, to say something. But he had no one there to speak to.
The sun had set and the distance was enveloped in blue mist. Foma glanced thither and turned away. He did not feel like going to town with these people, neither did he care to stay here with them. And they were still pacing the raft with uneven steps, shaking from side to side and muttering disconnected words. The women were not quite as drunk as the men, and only the red-haired one could not lift herself from the bench for a long time, and finally, when she rose, she declared:
“Well, I’m drunk.”
Foma sat down on a log of wood, and lifting the axe, with which the peasant had chopped wood for the fire, he began to play with it, tossing it up in the air and catching it.