Страница 742 из 2288

Then they reached the river, put the horses under the birch

trees, and went to the bathing-place. The coachman, Terenty,

fastened the horses, who kept whisking away the flies, to a tree,

and, treading down the grass, lay down in the shade of a birch

and smoked his shag, while the never-ceasing shrieks of delight

of the children floated across to him from the bathing-place.

Though it was hard work to look after all the children and

restrain their wild pranks, though it was difficult too to keep

in one's head and not mix up all the stockings, little breeches,

and shoes for the different legs, and to undo and to do up again

all the tapes and buttons, Darya Alexandrovna, who had always

liked bathing herself, and believed it to be very good for the

children, enjoyed nothing so much as bathing with all the

children. To go over all those fat little legs, pulling on their

stockings, to take in her arms and dip those little naked bodies,

and to hear their screams of delight and alarm, to see the

breathless faces with wide-open, scared, and happy eyes of all

her splashing cherubs, was a great pleasure to her.