He submitted to her and lay down on his back, putting
his hands underneath his head. She raised herself a little, leant
upon her elbow, and placing her head upon the bent hand, silently,
in the faint half-light, was looking his body over--so white,
strong, muscular; with a high and broad pectoral cavity; with
well-made ribs; with a narrow pelvis; and with mighty, bulging
thighs. The dark tan of the face and the upper half of the neck
was divided by a sharp line from the whiteness of the shoulders
and breast.
Gladishev blinked for a second. It seemed to him that he was
feeling upon himself, upon his face, upon his entire body, this
intensely fixed gaze, which seemed to touch his face and tickle
it, like the cobwebby contact of a comb, which you first rub
against a cloth--the sensation of a thin, imponderous, living
matter.
He opened his eyes and saw altogether near him the large, dark,
uncanny eyes of the woman, who seemed to him now an entire
stranger.
"What are you looking at, Jennie?" he asked quietly. "What are you
thinking of?"
"My dear little boy! .
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