"Ach, ach!" Marya Konstantinovna cackled in her dismay. "Ach,
Kostya!" she shouted, "Come back! Kostya, come back!"

Kostya, a boy of fourteen, to show off his prowess before his mother
and sister, dived and swam farther, but began to be exhausted and
hurried back, and from his strained and serious face it could be
seen that he could not trust his own strength.

"The trouble one has with these boys, my dear!" said Marya
Konstantinovna, growing calmer. "Before you can turn round, he will
break his neck. Ah, my dear, how sweet it is, and yet at the same
time how difficult, to be a mother! One's afraid of everything."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the
open sea. She swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back.
She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on
the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry
heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered
that she must live, live. . . . A sailing-boat darted by her rapidly
and vigorously, cleaving the waves and the air; the man sitting at
the helm looked at her, and she liked being looked at. . . .

After bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together.

"I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don't get thin," said
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the
bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances.
"I've always been plump, and now I believe I'm plumper than ever."