Through an open door leading out to sea, someone was seen swimming one hundred steps away from the bathhouse.

“Mama, that’s our Kostya!” Katya said.

“Oh my, oh my!” Maria Konstantinovna began to cluck in fright. “Oh my! Kostya,” she began to yell, “go back! Kostya, go back!”

Kostya, a boy of fourteen, so as to show off his bravery in front of his mother and sister, dove and swam farther, but grew weary and hurried back, and by his serious, strained face it was evident that he was doubting his own strength.

“Mischief comes with boys, darling!” Maria Konstantinovna said, beginning to calm down. “Look away for one second, and he’ll break his neck. Oh, darling, how pleasant and at the same time how difficult it is to be a mother! You’re fearful of everything!”

Nadezhda Fyodorovna adjusted her straw hat and cast herself out to sea. She swam about four fathoms then floated on her back. She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamships, people on shore, the town, and all of this along with the sultriness and the transparent gentle waves vexed her and whispered to her that she must live, live … A sailboat rushed past her quickly, energetically slicing through waves and air. The man sitting at the wheel glanced at her, and she found being glanced at pleasant …

Having bathed, the women dressed and set off together.

“I’m liable to come down with a fever in a day’s time, and what’s more, I’m not getting any thinner,” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, licking her lips, salty from bathing and responding with a smile to acquaintances’ nods of greeting. “I’ve always been full-figured, and now it seems that I’ve grown even fuller.”

“That, darling, is your disposition. If someone is not predisposed toward being full-figured, like myself for instance, then no sort of food will change that. By the way, darling, you’ve soaked your hat.”

“It’s nothing, it will dry.”

Nadezhda Fyodorovna saw the people in white again, walking along the embankment and conversing in French—and for some reason she felt happiness flutter in her chest again as she dimly recalled some large hall in which she’d once danced, or of which she’d perhaps even once dreamed. And something in the very depths of her soul restlessly and remotely whispered to her that she was a minor, vulgar, trashy, insignificant woman …

Stopping near her own gate, Maria Konstantinovna invited her to come in and sit awhile.

“Come in, my dear!” she said in an imploring voice while simultaneously looking at Nadezhda Fyodorovna with apprehension and hope: Maybe she’ll refuse and won’t come in!

“Happily!” agreed Nadezhda Fyodorovna. “You know how much I love visiting you!”

And she entered the home. Maria Konstantinovna sat her down, gave her coffee, fed her shortbread, then showed her photographs of the children she’d raised in the past—the young Miss Garatinskys, who had already married—and she showed her Katya’s and Kostya’s exam grades as well. The grades were very good, but so that they appeared to be even better, sighing, she lamented about how difficult it is to study at the gymnasium nowadays … She attended to her guest and, at the same time, felt regret and suffered from the thought that Nadezhda Fyodorovna’s very presence might have a dumbing influence on the morality of Kostya and Katya, and took heart that her Nikodim Aleksandrich was not at home. Since, in her opinion, all men love that kind of woman, Nadezhda Fyodorovna may have a dumbing influence on Nikodim Aleksandrich.

The entire time she was speaking with her guest, Maria Konstantinovna remembered that there was to be a picnic that evening and that Von Koren had earnestly requested that the macaques—that is, Laevsky and Nadezhda Fyodorovna—not be told of it, but she inadvertently blurted it out, turned completely red and said in embarrassment:

“I hope that you’ll be there too!”

VI

They’d agreed to travel seven versts from the town heading south, stopping near the dukhan, at the convergence of two rivers—the Black and the Yellow—and stew ukha there. They’d set out at the top of the sixth hour. Samoylenko and Laevsky rode ahead of everyone, in a charabanc; behind them, in a carriage harnessed to a troika, were Maria Konstantinovna, Nadezhda Fyodorovna, Katya and Kostya, a basket of provisions and dishes with them. In the next carriage rode police captain Kirilin and young Achmianov, son of that very same shop owner whom Nadezhda Fyodorovna owed three hundred rubles to, and across from them, on a little bench, squirming with his knees at his chest, sat Nikodim Aleksandrich, small, neat, with his hair swept up at the temples. Behind everyone else rode Von Koren and the deacon; at the deacon’s feet stood the basket of fish.

“To the rrright!” Samoylenko yelled, whenever an oxcart or an Abkhazian atop a donkey crossed their path.

“In two years’ time, when I’ve raised the funds and the people, I’ll set off on an expedition,” Von Koren was telling the deacon. “I’ll walk the shore from Vladivostok to the Bering Straits and then from the Straits to the estuary of the Yenisei. We’ll draw a map, learn the flora and fauna and will study the geology comprehensively, the anthropological and ethnographical population. It’s up to you to decide whether you’re traveling with me or not.”

“It isn’t possible,” the deacon said.

“Why?”

“I’m a man whom others depend on, a family man.”

“The deaconess will let you go. We’ll make provisions for her. It would be even better if you’d convince her that it would be in everyone’s best interest for her to cut her hair and join a convent; this would give you the opportunity to cut your own hair and travel with the expedition as a monk. I can arrange this for you.”

The deacon was silent.

“Do you know your theology well?” asked the zoologist.

“Not too good.”

“Hmmm … I can’t give you any advice about that, because I too am poorly acquainted with theology. You’ll give me a little list of books that you require, and I’ll send them to you from Petersburg this winter. You’ll also have to read the journals of theologian travelers; you’ll find good ethnologies and a connoisseurship of the Eastern languages among them. Once you’ve acquainted yourself with their ways, you’ll find it easier to apply yourself to the task at hand. Well, since you don’t have books yet, so as not to waste time, come visit me, and we’ll occupy ourselves with the compass, we’ll explore meteorology. This is all vital.”

“And that’ll be that …” muttered the deacon, and began laughing.