Page:Twenty-Six and One.djvu/235

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MALVA

empty sacks and cordage on the floor. Iakov, protecting himself as best he could against his father's blows, pale and bathed in perspiration, his teeth clenched, his eyes brilliant as a wolfs, slowly retreated, and as his father charged upon him, gesticulating with ferocity and blind with rage, like a wild boar, he turned and ran out of the cabin, down towards the sea.

Vassili started in pursuit, his head bent, his arms extended, but his foot caught in some rope, and he fell all his length on the sand. He tried to rise, but the fall had taken all the fight out of him and he sank back on the beach, shaking his fist at Iakov, who remained grinning at a safe distance. He shouted:

"Be cursed! I curse you forever!"

Bitterness came into Vassili's soul

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