bush heard Elisaveta's words. He grew cold in his confusion, and began
to crawl on all-fours between the bushes, away from the river. He got
in among the rye, then perched himself on the rail-fence and pretended
to rest, as though he were not even aware of the closeness of the
river. But no one had noticed him, as if he were non-existent.

The schoolboy sat there a little while, then went home with a vague
feeling of disenchantment, injury, and irritation. There was something
especially humiliating to him in the thought that to the two girl
bathers he was merely a possibility speculated upon but actually
non-existent.

Everything in this world has an end. There was an end also to the
sisters' bathing. They made their way silently together out of the
pleasant, cool, deep water towards the dry ground, heaven's
terrestrial footstool, and out into the air, where they met the hot
kisses of the slowly, cumbrously rising Dragon. They stood a while on
the bank, yielding themselves to the Dragon's kisses, then entered the
protected bath-house where they had left their clothes.

Elisaveta's clothes were very simple. They consisted of a greenish
yellow, not over-long tunic-dress without sleeves, and a plain straw
hat. Elisaveta nearly always wore yellow dresses. She loved yellow,
she loved buttercups and gold, and though she sometimes said that she
wore yellow in order to soften her ruddy complexion, she really loved
it simply, sincerely, and for its own sake. Yellow delighted
Elisaveta. There was something remote and unpremeditated in this, as
if it were a thing remembered from another, previous life.

Elisaveta's heavy black braid of hair was coiled tightly and