226 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



slide obediently descended on Nina's paternal hut 

 on a day when the lovers had it all to themselves. 

 They didn't mind the catastrophe in the least, and 

 hailed the unexpected gift of many unchaperoned 

 hours with delight. They built up the wood fire, 

 discussed their future, and talked lover talk until, as 

 the hours flew by, they realized they were desperately 

 hungry, and unknowingly, in one fell swoop, they 

 ate up the entire food supply of the establishment. 



By next day the ill-starred lovers were in a terrible 

 fix. Hunger and thirst tormented them. Here 

 Cecily threw the yamschik off again by asking : 

 " But why thirst ? Surely they could have melted 

 some of the superabundance of snow." 



No help came. Gaud prevented that. And then 

 " a strange thing happened." Sasycho, who was 

 prowling round and round like a starving prairie wolf, 

 instead of thinking, as a good lover would, how on 

 earth he could get food for his famishing beloved, 

 decided on making a meal of her himself ! He 

 rushed at Nina and buried his strong white teeth in 

 her shoulder. 



At this tremendous moment the door opened and 

 Nina's father and brothers hurried to the rescue. The 

 lovers, of course, were lovers no longer. As Cecily trans- 

 lated it to me, they " took an unaccountable aversion 

 to each other," but from Nina's point of view the 

 dislike, one would imagine, was wholly understandable. 

 A lover who buries his teeth in one's shoulder when 

 desperately hungry could not be an acquisition any- 

 where, not even in a place like — but I had better not 



