"Let me alone, will you?"
She escaped from him, and ran off, whilst from a corner of the huts Sereja appeared. He shook his wild unkempt head of hair, and said threateningly—
"You two have been carrying on ... all right!"
"Go to the devil!" cried Malva.
Jakoff had planted himself opposite Sereja, and was trying to stare him out of countenance. They were about ten paces from each other, and Sereja was staring straight into Jakoff's eyes. They remained thus for about a minute, like two rams ready to butt one another, then each walked off without a word in an opposite direction.
The sea was calm and ruddy with the hues of the setting sun. A woman was singing in a drunken voice with hysterical cadences some meaningless words—
"Ta-agarga, matargarga,
Matanichka my own,
Drunken and beaten
And wild."
And these filthy and meaningless words seemed to fill the air all round the huts, from which arose exhalations of salt and of rotting fish; they filled the air, and destroyed the delicious music of the waves which floated all around.