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Sanine

by M. Artsybashev · English · Gutenberg #9051 · 569,203 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Sanine

Author: M. Artsybashev

Author of introduction, etc.: Gilbert Cannan

Translator: Percy Pinkerton


        
Release date: October 1, 2005 [eBook #9051]
                Most recently updated: February 20, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9051

Credits: Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner and Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANINE ***




Sanine


by Michael Artzibashef

TRANSLATED BY
PERCY PINKERTON

WITH A PREFACE BY
GILBERT CANNAN


Contents

 PREFACE

 CHAPTER I. 
 CHAPTER II. 
 CHAPTER III. 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 CHAPTER V. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 CHAPTER X. 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 


_SOME PRESS NOTICES OF_

_SANINE_

“_It has a treble interest. It discusses sex-problems with unusual
candour … it gives a vivid picture of Russian life … and it reflects
the welter of thoughts and aspirations which are common to the whole
contemporary Western world_.”

NEW STATESMAN.

“_A book which deals with powerful human passions in no lethargic way.
It may horrify by its brutality, and its assault on ordinary morality
may well be considered startling: yet it counts for something that M.
Artzibashef does not display the common fear of life_.”

STANDARD.

“_It is of the greatest interest psychologically, as an outstanding
product of a despairing epoch in Russian history_.”

DAILY CHRONICLE.

“_The artistry of the novel, brutal, direct, detached, courageous,
desperately poignant, is not to be disputed_.”

EVENING STANDARD.

“_The strength of the book is undeniable_”

SUNDAY TIMES.

“_This is a strong and fascinating story depicting the unfettered life
of a young Russian … the background of society and Russian scenery is
excellent_.”

MANCHESTER COURIER.




PREFACE


_“Sanine” is a thoroughly uncomfortable book, but it has a fierce
energy which has carried it in a very short space of time into almost
every country in Europe and at last into this country, where books,
like everything else, are expected to be comfortable. It has roused
fury both in Russia and in Germany, but, being rather a furious effort
itself, it has thriven on that, and reached an enormous success. That
is not necessarily testimony of a book’s value or even of its power. On
the other hand, no book becomes international merely by its capacity
for shocking moral prejudices, or by its ability to titillate the
curiosity of the senses. Every nation has its own writers who can shock
and titillate. But not every nation has the torment of its existence
coming to such a crisis that books like “Sanine” can spring to life in
it. This book was written in the despair which seized the Intelligenzia
of Russia after the last abortive revolution, when the Constitution
which was no constitution was wrung out of the grand dukes. Even
suppose the revolution had succeeded, the intellectuals must have asked
themselves, even suppose they had mastered the grand dukes and captured
the army, would they have done more than altered the machinery of
government, reduced the quantity of political injustice, amended the
principles of taxation, and possibly changed the colours of the postage
stamps? Could they have made society less oppressive to the life of the
individual? Like all intellectuals, M. Artzibashef is fascinated by the
brutality of human life, and filled with hatred of his own disgust at
it. As with all artists, it is necessary for him to shake free of his
own disgust, or there will be an end of his art. Intellectual and an
artist, less artist for being intellectual, responding to the
despairing mood of those around him, it became clear to him that
political agitation had failed and must fail because it has a vision of
government and no vision of human life. Society is factitious. The
intellectual asks why. The artist never asks these absurd questions.
Art is free. If he can attain art that is enough for him. Life, whether
or no it be the slow process of evolution it is generally supposed to
be, can and does look after itself. Society is certainly a nuisance and
a heavy drag upon human energy, but so long as that energy can express
itself in art, society cannot be altogether obstructive. That, says the
intellectual, is well enough for the artist, but what of the
individuals to whom art can only be at best a keen stimulus, at worst a
drugging pleasure? Is the dead weight of society altogether to crush
their delight in life? What is society? What is it but the accumulated
emanations of the fear and timidity and shyness that beset human beings
whenever they are gathered together? And to this accumulation are those
who are not artists to bring nothing but fear and shyness and timidity
to make the shadow over life grow denser and darker? Is there to be no
reaction? How can there be individuals worthy of being alive except
through reaction? And how can there be good government unless there are
good individuals to be governed—individuals in fine, worthy of being
governed?_

_In the matters of being fed, clothed, and housed few men and women
feel the hindrance of society. Indeed it is for those purposes that
they are gathered together. Being so, it is then that their fear and
shyness and timidity make them disguise their real natures and suppress
their other desires and aspirations. It is in the matter of love that
men and women feel society’s oppression, submit to it and set up their
subjection as the rule which must be obeyed. Very rarely is it obeyed
except by a few virtuous women who go through life coldly and
destructively, driving the men with whom they come in contact into the
arms of their more generous sisters. Women have fewer defences against
the tyranny of society, which makes all but a very few either
prostitutes or prigs, exploiting their womanhood in emotional and
physical excitement, their motherhood to defend themselves and their
self-respect from the consequences of that indulgence. Men are of
harder stuff. Some of them can escape into the intellectual life; many
preserve only their practical cunning and, for the rest, are insensible
and stupid and fill their lives with small pleasures and trifling
discontents, and feed their conceit with success or failure as they
happen._

_In Vladimir Sanine Artzibashef has imagined, postulated, a man who has
escaped the tyranny of society, is content to take his living where he
finds it, and determined to accept whatever life has to offer of joy or
sorrow. Returning to his home, he observes and amuses himself with all
that is going on in the little provincial garrison town, where men and
women—except his mother, who is frozen to the point of living
altogether by formula—are tormented by the exasperation of unsatisfied
desires. He sees Novikoff absurdly and hopelessly in love with his
sister, Lida; he sees Lida caught up in an intrigue with an expert
soldier love-maker, and bound, both by her own weakness and by her
dependence upon society for any opinion of her own actions, to continue
in that hateful excitement; he sees men and women all round him letting
their love and their desire trickle through their fingers; he sees
Semenoff die, and death also in that atmosphere is blurred and
meaningless. Men and women plunge into horrible relationships and
constantly excuse themselves. They seek to propitiate society by
labouring to give permanence to fleeting pleasures, the accidents of
passion and propinquity. Love is rare; physical necessity is common to
all men and women; it is absurd to expect the growth of the one and the
satisfaction of the other often to coincide. Nature is apparently
indifferent and does not demand love of human beings but only mutual
attraction, and of that are most children born. They grow up to dwell
in the heated confusion which passes for life. Of that mutual
attraction and in that heated confusion two children are born in this
book, Lida’s and Sarudine’s, Sanine’s and Karsavina’s. Lida yields to
Society’s view of such affairs and is near broken by it; Sanine
sustains Karsavina and brings her to the idea, cherished by Thomas
Hardy among others, as a way out of confusion, of a woman’s right to
have a child without suffering from impertinent curiosity as to who the
father may be if he be such that she thinks herself better rid of him.
This does not necessarily mean that women would at once become as loose
and casual as men. On the contrary, it would probably make many of them
realize their responsibility and fewer of them would capture men as
Arabella captured Jude the Obscure. In any case there is no excuse for
the cruelty which regards a child born out of wedlock as nothing but
evidence of wickedness. A child born in wedlock may be as lustfully and
lovelessly begotten. Marriage does not necessarily provide relief from
physical necessity and often aggravates it; and when a child, as often
happens, is nothing to its father and mother but a sordid tie, a
constant reminder of a connexion which both would be happier to forget,
then, for its sake, they are better separate._

_It has been objected to M. Artzibashef’s work that it deals so little
with love and so much with physical necessity. That arises, I fancy,
because his journalistic intention has overridden his artistic purpose.
He has been exasperated into frankness more than moved to truth. He has
desired to lay certain facts of modern existence before the world and
has done so in a form which could gain a hearing, as a pure work of art
probably could not. He has attempted a re-valuation where it is most
needed, where the unhappy Weininger failed. Weininger demanded,
insanely, that humanity should renounce sex and the brutality it
fosters; Artzibashef suggests that the brutishness should be accepted
frankly, cleared of confusion with love, and slowly mastered so that
out of passion love can grow. His book has the noble quality of being
full of the love of life, however loveless. It cannot possibly give the
kind of pleasure sought by those to whom even the Bible is a dirty
book. It is too brutal for that. Books which pander to that mean desire
are of all books the most injurious. But this is not one of them._

_GILBERT CANNAN_




SANINE




CHAPTER I.


That important period in his life when character is influenced and
formed by its first contact with the world and with men, was not spent
by Vladimir Sanine at home, with his parents. There had been none to
guard or guide him; and his soul developed in perfect freedom and
independence, just as a tree in the field.

He had been away from home for many years, and, when he returned, his
mother and his sister Lida scarcely recognized him. His features,
voice, and manner had changed but little, yet something strange and
new, and riper in his whole personality gave a light to his countenance
and endowed it with an altered expression. It was in the evening that
he came home, entering the room as quietly as if he had only left it
five minutes before. As he stood there, tall, fair, and broad-
shouldered, his calm face with its slightly mocking expression at the
corners of the mouth showed not a sign of fatigue or of emotion, and
the boisterous greeting of his mother and sister subsided of itself.

While he was eating, and drinking tea, his sister, sitting opposite,
gazed steadfastly at him. She was in love with him, as most romantic
girls usually are with their absent brother. Lida had always imagined
Vladimir to be an extraordinary person, as strange as any to be found
in books. She pictured his life as one of tragic conflict, sad and
lonely as that of some great, uncomprehended soul.

“Why do you look at me like that?” asked Sanine, smiling.

This quiet smile and searching glance formed his usual expression, but,
strange to say, they did not please Lida. To her, they seemed self-
complacent, revealing nought of spiritual suffering and strife. She
looked away and was silent. Then, mechanically, she kept turning over
the pages of a book.

When the meal was at an end, Sanine’s mother patted his head
affectionately, and said:

“Now, tell us all about your life, and what you did there.”

“What I did?” said Sanine, laughing. “Well, I ate, and drank, and
slept; and sometimes I worked; and sometimes I did nothing!”

It seemed at first as if he were unwilling to speak of himself, but
when his mother questioned him about this or that, he appeared pleased
to narrate his experiences. Yet, for some reason or other, one felt
that he was wholly indifferent as to the impression produced by his
tales. His manner, kindly and courteous though it was in no way
suggested that intimacy which only exists among members of a family.
Such kindliness and courtesy seemed to come naturally from him as the
light from a lamp which shines with equal radiance on all objects.

They went out to the garden terrace and sat down on the steps. Lida sat
on a lower one, listening in silence to her brother. At her heart she
felt an icy chill. Her subtle feminine instinct told her that her
brother was not what she had imagined him to be. In his presence she
felt shy and embarrassed, as if he were a stranger. It was now evening;
faint shadows encircled them. Sanine lit a cigarette and the delicate
odour of tobacco mingled with the fragrance of the garden. He told them
how life had tossed him hither and thither; how he had often been
hungry and a vagrant; how he had taken part in political struggles, and
how, when weary, he had renounced these.

Lida sat motionless, listening attentively, and looking as quaint and
pretty as any charming girl would look in summer twilight.

The more he told her, the more she became convinced that this life
which she had painted for herself in such glowing colours was really
most simple and commonplace. There was something strange in it as well.
What was it? That she could not define. At any rate, from her brother’s
account, it seemed to her very simple, tedious and boring. Apparently
he had lived just anywhere, and had done just anything; at work one
day, and idle the next; it was also plain that he liked drinking, and
knew a good deal about women. But life such as this had nothing dark or
sinister about it; in no way did it resemble the life she imagined her
brother had led. He had no ideas to live for; he hated no one; and for
no one had he suffered. At some of his disclosures she was positively
annoyed, especially when he told her that once, being very hard up, he
was obliged to mend his torn trousers himself.

“Why, do you know how to sew?” she asked involuntarily, in a tone of
surprise and contempt. She thought it paltry; unmanly, in fact.

“I did not know at first, but I soon had to learn,” replied Sanine, who
smilingly guessed what his sister thought.

The girl carelessly shrugged her shoulders, and remained silent, gazing
at the garden. It seemed to her as if, dreaming of sunshine, she awoke
beneath a grey, cold sky.

Her mother, too, felt depressed. It pained her to think that her son
did not occupy the position to which, socially, he was entitled. She
began by telling him that things could not go on like this, and that he
must be more sensible in future. At first she spoke warily, but when
she saw that he paid scarcely any attention to her remarks, she grew
angry, and obstinately insisted, as stupid old women do, thinking her
son was trying to tease her. Sanine was neither surprised nor annoyed:
he hardly seemed to understand what she said, but looked amiably
indifferent, and was silent.

Yet at the question, “How do you propose to live?” he answered,
smiling, “Oh! somehow or other.”

His calm, firm voice, and open glance made one feel that those words,
which meant nothing to his mother, had for him a deep and precise
significance.

Maria Ivanovna sighed, and after a pause said anxiously:

“Well, after all, it’s your affair. You’re no longer a child. You ought
to walk round the garden. It’s looking so pretty now.”

“Yes, of course! Come along, Lida; come and show me the garden,” said
Sanine to his sister, “I have quite forgotten what it looks like.”

Roused from her reverie, Lida sighed and got up. Side by side they
walked down the path leading to the green depths of the dusky garden.

The Sanines’ house was in the main street of the town, and, the town
being small, their garden extended as far as the river, beyond which
were fields. The house was an old mansion, with rickety pillars on
either side and a broad terrace. The large gloomy garden had run to
waste; it looked like some dull green cloud that had descended to
earth. At night it seemed haunted. It was as if some sad spirit were
wandering through the tangled thicket, or restlessly pacing the dusty
floors of the old edifice. On the first floor there was an entire suite
of empty rooms dismal with faded carpets and dingy curtains. Through
the garden there was but one narrow path or alley, strewn with dead
branches and crushed frogs. What modest, tranquil life there was
appeared to be centred in one corner. There, close to the house, yellow
sand and gravel gleamed, and there, beside neat flower-beds bright with
blossom stood the green table on which in summer-time tea or lunch was
set. This little corner, touched by the breath of simple peaceful life,
was in sharp contrast to the huge, deserted mansion, doomed to
inevitable decay.

When the house behind them had disappeared from view and the silent,
motionless trees, like thoughtful witnesses, surrounded them, Sanine
suddenly put his arm round Lida’s waist and said in a strange tone,
half fierce, half tender:

“You’ve become quite a beauty! The first man you love will be a happy
fellow.”

The touch of his arm with its muscles like iron sent a fiery thrill
through Lida’s soft, supple frame. Bashful and trembling, she drew away
from him as if at the approach of some unseen beast of prey.

They had now reached the river’s edge. There was a moist, damp odour
from the reeds that swayed pensively in the stream. On the other side,
fields lay dim in twilight beneath the vast sky where shone the first
pale stars.

Stepping aside, Sanine seized a withered branch, broke it in two, and
flung the pieces into the stream where swiftly circles appeared on its
surface and swiftly vanished. As if to hail Sanine as their comrade,
the reeds bent their heads.




CHAPTER II.


It was about six o’clock. The sun still shone brightly, but in the
garden there were already faint green shadows. The air was full of
light and warmth and peace. Maria Ivanovna was making jam, and under
the green linden-tree there was a strong smell of boiling sugar and
raspberries. Sanine had been busy at the flower-beds all the morning,
trying to revive some of the flowers that suffered most from the dust
and heat.

“You had better pull up the weeds first,” suggested his mother, as from
time to time she watched him through the blue, quivering stream. “Tell
Grounjka, and she’ll do it for you.”

Sanine looked up, hot and smiling. “Why?” said he, as he tossed back
his hair that clung to his brow. “Let them grow as much as they like. I
am fond of everything green.”

“You’re a funny fellow!” said his mother, as she shrugged her
shoulders, good-humouredly. For some reason or other, his answer had
pleased her.

“It is you yourselves that are funny,” said Sanine, in a tone of
conviction. He then went into the house to wash his hands, and, coming
back, sat down at his ease in a wicker arm-chair near the table. He
felt happy, and in a good temper. The verdure, the sunlight and the
blue sky filled him with a keener sense of the joy of life. Large towns
with their bustle and din were to him detestable. Around him were
sunlight and freedom; the future gave him no anxiety; for he was
disposed to accept from life whatever it could offer him. Sanine shut
his eyes tight, and stretched himself; the tension of his sound, strong
muscles gave him pleasurable thrills.

A gentle breeze was blowing. The whole garden seemed to sigh. Here and
there, sparrows chattered noisily about their intensely important but
incomprehensible little lives, and Mill, the fox-terrier, with ears
erect and red tongue lolling out, lay in the long grass, listening. The
leaves whispered softly; their round shadows quivered on the smooth
gravel path.

Maria Ivanovna was vexed at her son’s calmness. She was fond of him,
just as she was fond of all her children, and for that very reason she
longed to rouse him, to wound his self-respect, if only to force him to
heed her words and accept her view of life. Like an ant in the sand,
she had employed every moment of a long existence in building up the
frail structure of her domestic well-being. It was a long, bare,
monotonous edifice, like a barrack or a hospital, built with countless
little bricks that to her, as an incompetent architect, constituted the
graces of life, though in fact they were petty worries that kept her in
a perpetual state of irritation or of anxiety.

“Do you suppose things will go on like this, later on?” she said, with
lips compressed, and feigning intense interest in the boiling jam.

“What do you mean by ‘later on’?” asked Sanine, and then sneezed.

Maria Ivanovna thought that he had sneezed on purpose to annoy her,
and, absurd though such a notion was, looked cross.

“How nice it is to be here, with you!” said Sanine, dreamily.

“Yes, it’s not so bad,” she answered, drily. She was secretly pleased
at her son’s praise of the house and garden that to her were as
lifelong kinsfolk.

Sanine looked at her, and then said, thoughtfully:

“If you didn’t bother me with all sorts of silly things, it would be
nicer still.”

The bland tone in which these words were spoken seemed at variance with
their meaning, so that Maria Ivanovna did not know whether to be vexed
or amused.

“To look at you, and then to think that, as a child, you were always
rather odd,” said she, sadly, “and now—”

“And now?” exclaimed Sanine, gleefully, as if he expected to hear
something specially pleasant and interesting.

“Now you are more crazy than ever!” said Maria Ivanovna sharply,
shaking her spoon.

“Well, all the better!” said Sanine, laughing. After a pause, he added,
“Ah! here’s Novikoff!”

Out of the house came a tall, fair, good-looking man. His red silk
shirt, fitting tight to his well-proportioned frame, looked brilliant
in the sun; his pale blue eyes had a lazy, good-natured expression.

“There you go! Always quarrelling!” said he, in a languid, friendly
tone. “And in Heaven’s name, what about?”

“Well, the fact is, mother thinks that a Grecian nose would suit me
better, while I am quite satisfied with the one that I have got.”

Sanine looked down his nose and, laughing, grasped the other’s big,
soft hand.

“So, I should say!” exclaimed Maria Ivanovna, pettishly.

Novikoff laughed merrily; and from the green thicket, came a gentle
echo in reply, as if some one yonder heartily shared his mirth.

“Ah! I know what it is! Worrying about your future.”

“What, you, too?” exclaimed Sanine, in comic alarm.

“It just serves you right.”

“Ah!” cried Sanine. “If it’s a case of two to one, I had better clear
out.”

“No, it is I that will soon have to clear out,” said Maria Ivanovna
with sudden irritation at which she herself was vexed. Hastily removing
her saucepan of jam, she hurried into the house, without looking back.
The terrier jumped up, and with ears erect watched her go. Then it
rubbed its nose with its front paw, gave another questioning glance at
the house and ran off into the garden.

“Have you got any cigarettes?” asked Sanine, delighted at his mother’s
departure.

Novikoff with a lazy movement of his large body produced a cigarette-
case.

“You ought not to tease her so,” said he, in a voice of gentle reproof.
“She’s an old lady.”

“How have I teased her?”

“Well, you see—”

“What do you mean by ‘well, you see?’ It is she who is always after me.
I have never asked anything of anybody, and therefore people ought to
leave me alone.”

Both remained silent.

“Well, how goes it, doctor?” asked Sanine, as he watched the tobacco-
smoke rising in fantastic curves above his head.

Novikoff, who was thinking of something else, did not answer at once.

“Badly.”

“In what way?”

“Oh! in every way. Everything is so dull and this little town bores me
to death. There’s nothing to do.”

“Nothing to do? Why it was you that complained of not having time to
breathe!”

“That is not what I mean. One can’t be always seeing patients, seeing
patients. There is another life besides that.”

“And who prevents you from living that other life?”

“That is rather a complicated question.”

“In what way is it complicated? You are a young, good-looking, healthy
man; what more do you want?”

“In my opinion that is not enough,” replied Novikoff, with mild irony.

“Really!” laughed Sanine. “Well, I think it is a very great deal.”

“But not enough for me,” said Novikoff, laughing in his turn. It was
plain that Sanine’s remark about his health and good looks had pleased
him, and yet it had made him feel shy as a girl.

“There’s one thing that you want,” said Sanine, pensively.

“And what is that?”

“A just conception of life. The monotony of your existence oppresses
you; and yet, if some one advised you to give it all up, and go
straight away into the wide world, you would be afraid to do so.”

“And as what should I go? As a beggar? H .. m!”

“Yes, as a beggar, even! When I look at you, I think: there is a man
who in order to give the Russian Empire a constitution would let
himself be shut up in Schlusselburg[1] for the rest of his life, losing
all his rights, and his liberty as well. After all, what is a
constitution to him? But when it is a question of altering his own
tedious mode of life, and of going elsewhere to find new interests, he
at once asks, ‘how should I get a living? Strong and healthy as I am,
should I not come to grief if I had not got my fixed salary, and
consequently cream in my tea, my silk shirts, stand-up collars, and all
the rest of it?’ It’s funny, upon my word it is!”

 [1] A fortress for political prisoners.


“I cannot see anything funny in it at all. In the first case, it is the
question of a cause, an idea, whereas in the other—”

“Well?”

“Oh! I don’t know how to express myself!” And Novikoff snapped his
fingers.

“There now!” said Sanine, interrupting. “That’s how you always evade
the point. I shall never believe that the longing for a constitution is
stronger in you than the longing to make the most of your own life.”

“That is just a question. Possibly it is.”

Sanine waved his hand, irritably.

“Oh! don’t, please! If somebody were to cut off your finger, you would
feel it more than if it were some other Russian’s finger. That is a
fact, eh?”

“Or a cynicism,” said Novikoff, meaning to be sarcastic when he was
merely foolish.

“Possibly. But, all the same, it is the truth. And now though in Russia
and in many other States there is no constitution, nor the slightest
sign of one, it is your own unsatisfactory life that worries you, not
the absence of a constitution. And if you say it isn’t, then you’re
telling a lie. What is more,” added Sanine, with a merry twinkle in his
eyes, “you are worried not about your life but because Lida has not yet
fallen in love with you. Now, isn’t that so?”

“What utter nonsense you’re talking!” cried Novikoff, turning as red as
his silk shirt. So confused was he, that tears rose to his calm, kindly
eyes.

“How is it nonsense, when besides Lida you can see nothing else in the
whole world? The wish to possess her is written in large letters on
your brow.”

Novikoff winced perceptibly and began to walk rapidly up and down the
path. If anyone but Lida’s brother had spoken to him in this way it
would have pained him deeply, but to hear such words from Sanine’s
mouth amazed him; in fact at first he scarcely understood them.

“Look here,” he muttered, “either you are posing, or else—”

“Or else—what?” asked Sanine, smiling.

Novikoff looked aside, shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. The
other inference led him to regard Sanine as an immoral, bad man. But he
could not tell him this, for, ever since their college days, he had
always felt sincere affection for him, and it seemed to Novikoff
impossible that he should have chosen a wicked man as his friend. The
effect on his mind was at once bewildering and unpleasant. The allusion
to Lida pained him, but, as the goddess whom he adored, he could not
feel angry with Sanine for speaking of her. It pleased him, and yet he
felt hurt, as if a burning hand had seized his heart and had gently
pressed it.

Sanine was silent, and smiled good-humouredly.

After a pause he said:

“Well, finish your statement; I am in no hurry!”

Novikoff kept walking up and down the path, as before. He was evidently
hurt. At this moment the terrier came running back excitedly and rubbed
against Sanine’s knees, as if wishful to let every one know how pleased
he was.

“Good dog!” said Sanine, patting him.

Novikoff strove to avoid continuing the discussion, being afraid that
Sanine might return to the subject which for personally was the most
interesting in the whole world. Anything that did not concern Lida
seemed le to him—dull.

“And—where is Lidia Petrovna?” he asked mechanically, albeit loth to
utter the question that was uppermost in his mind.

“Lida? Where should she be? Walking with officers on the boulevard,
where all our young ladies are to be found at this time of day.”

A look of jealousy darkened his face, as Novikoff asked:

“How can a girl so clever and cultivated as she waste her time with
such empty-headed fools?”

“Oh! my friend,” exclaimed Sanine, smiling, “Lida is handsome, and
young, and healthy, just as you are; more so, in fact, because she has
that which you lack—keen desire for everything. She wants to know
everything, to experience everything—why, here she comes! You’ve only
got to look at her to understand that. Isn’t she pretty?”

Lida was shorter and much handsomer than her brother. Sweetness
combined with supple strength gave to her whole personality charm and
distinction. There was a haughty look in her dark eyes, and her voice,
of which she was proud, sounded rich and musical. She walked slowly
down the steps, moving with the lithe grace of a thoroughbred, while
adroitly holding up her long grey dress. Behind her, clinking their
spurs, came two good-looking young officers in tightly-fitting riding-
breeches and shining top-boots.

“Who is pretty? Is it I?” asked Lida, as she filled the whole garden
with the charm of her voice, her beauty and her youth. She gave
Novikoff her hand, with a side-glance at her brother, about whose
attitude she did not feel quite clear, never knowing whether he was
joking or in earnest. Grasping her hand tightly, Novikoff grew very
red, but his emotions were unnoticed by Lida, used as she was to his
reverent, bashful glance that never troubled her.

“Good evening, Vladimir Petrovitch,” said the elder, handsomer and
fairer of the two officers, rigid, erect as a spirited stallion, while
his spurs clinked noisily.

Sanine knew him to be Sarudine, a captain of cavalry, one of Lida’s
most persistent admirers. The other was Lieutenant Tanaroff, who
regarded Sarudine as the ideal soldier, and strove to copy everything
he did. He was taciturn, somewhat clumsy, and not so good-looking as
Sarudine. Tanaroff rattled his spurs in his turn, but said nothing.

“Yes, you!” replied Sanine to his sister, gravely.

“Why, of course I am pretty. You should have said indescribably
pretty!” And, laughing gaily, Lida sank into a chair, glancing again at
Sanine. Raising her arms and thus emphasizing the curves of her shapely
bosom, she proceeded to remove her hat, but, in so doing, let a long
hat-pin fall on the gravel, and her veil and hair became disarranged.

“Andrei Pavlovitch, do please help me!” she plaintively cried to the
taciturn lieutenant.

“Yes, she’s a beauty!” murmured Sanine, thinking aloud, and never
taking his eyes off her. Once more Lida glanced shyly at her brother.

“We’re all of us beautiful here,” said she.

“What’s that? Beautiful? Ha! Ha!” laughed Sarudine, showing his white,
shining teeth. “We are at best but the modest frame that serves to
heighten the dazzling splendour of your beauty.”

“I say, what eloquence, to be sure!” exclaimed Sanine, in surprise.
There was a slight shade of irony in his tone.

“Lidia Petrovna would make anybody eloquent,” said Tanaroff the silent,
as he tried to help Lida to take off her hat, and in so doing ruffled
her hair. She pretended to be vexed, laughing all the while.

“What?” drawled Sanine. “Are you eloquent too?”

“Oh! let them be!” whispered Novikoff, hypocritically, though secretly
pleased.

Lida frowned at Sanine, to whom her dark eyes plainly said:

“Don’t imagine that I cannot see what these people are. I intend to
please myself. I am not a fool any more than you are, and I know what I
am about.”

Sanine smiled at her.

At last the hat was removed, which Tanaroff solemnly placed on the
table.

“Look! Look what you’ve done to me, Andrei Pavlovitch!” cried Lida half
peevishly, half coquettishly. “You’ve got my hair into such a tangle!
Now I shall have to go indoors.”

“I’m so awfully sorry!” stammered Tanaroff, in confusion.

Lida rose, gathered up her skirts, and ran indoors laughing, followed
by the glances of all the men. When she had gone they seemed to breathe
more freely, without that nervous sense of restraint which men usually
experience in the presence of a pretty young woman. Sarudine lighted a
cigarette which he smoked with evident gusto. One felt, when he spoke,
that he habitually took the lead in a conversation, and that what he
thought was something quite different from what he said.

“I have just been persuading Lidia Petrovna to study singing seriously.
With such a voice, her career is assured.”

“A fine career, upon my word!” sullenly rejoined Novikoff, looking
aside.

“What is wrong with it?” asked Sarudine, in genuine amazement, removing
the cigarette from his lips.

“Why, what’s an actress? Nothing else but a harlot!” replied Novikoff,
with sudden heat. Jealousy tortured him; the thought that the young
woman whose body he loved could appear before other men in an alluring
dress that would exhibit her charms in order to provoke their passions.

“Surely it is going too far to say that,” replied Sarudine, raising his
eyebrows.

Novikoff’s glance was full of hatred. He regarded Sarudine as one of
those men who meant to rob him of his beloved; moreover, his good looks
annoyed him.

“No, not in the least too far,” he retorted. “To appear half nude on
the stage and in some voluptuous scene exhibit one’s personal charms to
those who in an hour or so take their leave as they would of some
courtesan after paying the usual fee! A charming career indeed!”

“My friend,” said Sanine, “every woman in the first instance likes to
be admired for her personal charms.”

Novikoff shrugged his shoulders irritably.

“What a silly, coarse statement!” said he.

“At any rate, coarse or not, it’s the truth,” replied Sanine. “Lida
would be most effective on the stage, and I should like to see her
there.”

Although in the others this speech roused a certain instinctive
curiosity, they all felt ill at ease. Sarudine, who thought himself
more intelligent and tactful than the rest, deemed it his duty to
dispel this vague feeling of embarrassment.

“Well, what do you think the young lady ought to do? Get married?
Pursue a course of study, or let her talent be lost? That would be a
crime against nature that had endowed her with its fairest gift.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Sanine, with undisguised sarcasm, “till now the idea of
such a crime had never entered my head.”

Novikoff laughed maliciously, but replied politely enough to Sarudine.

“Why a crime? A good mother or a female doctor is worth a thousand
times more than an actress.”

“Not at all!” said Tanaroff, indignantly.

“Don’t you find this sort of talk rather boring?” asked Sanine.

Sarudine’s rejoinder was lost in a fit of coughing. They all of them
really thought such a discussion tedious and unnecessary; and yet they
all felt somewhat offended. An unpleasant silence reigned.

Lida and Maria Ivanovna appeared on the verandah. Lida had heard her
brother’s last words, but did not know to what they referred.

“You seem to have soon become bored!” cried she, laughing. “Let us go
down to the river. It is charming there, now.”

As she passed in front of the men, her shapely figure swayed slightly,
and there was a look of dark mystery in her eyes that seemed to say
something, to promise something.

“Go for a walk till supper-time,” said Maria Ivanovna.

“Delighted,” exclaimed Sarudine. His spurs clinked, as he offered Lida
his arm.

“I hope that I may be allowed to come too,” said Novikoff, meaning to
be satirical, though his face wore a tearful expression.

“Who is there to prevent you?” replied Lida, smiling, at him over her
shoulder.

“Yes, you go, too,” exclaimed Sanine. “I would come with you if she
were not so thoroughly convinced that I am her brother.”

Lida winced somewhat, and glanced swiftly at Sanine, as she laughed, a
short, nervous laugh.

Maria Ivanovna was obviously displeased.

“Why do you talk in that stupid way?” she bluntly exclaimed. “I suppose
you think it is original?”

“I really never thought about it at all,” was Sanine’s rejoinder.

Maria Ivanovna looked at him in amazement. She had never been able to
understand her son; she never could tell when he was joking or in
earnest, nor what he thought or felt, when other comprehensible persons
felt and thought much as she did herself. According to her idea, a man
was always bound to speak and feel and act exactly as other men of his
social and intellectual status were wont to speak and feel and act. She
was also of opinion that people were not simply men with their natural
characteristics and peculiarities, but that they must be all cast in
one common mould. Her own environment encouraged and confirmed this
belief. Education, she thought, tended to divide men into two groups,
the intelligent and the unintelligent. The latter might retain their
individuality, which drew upon them the contempt of others. The former
were divided into groups, and their convictions did not correspond with
their personal qualities but with their respective positions. Thus,
every student was a revolutionary, every official was bourgeois, every
artist a free thinker, and every officer an exaggerated stickler for
rank. If, however, it chanced that a student was a Conservative, or an
officer an Anarchist, this must be regarded as most extraordinary, and
even unpleasant. As for Sanine, according to his origin and education
he ought to have been something quite different from what he was; and
Maria Ivanovna felt as Lida, Novikoff and all who came into contact
with him felt, that he had disappointed expectation. With a mother’s
instinct she quickly saw the impression that her son made on those
about him; and it pained her.

Sanine was aware of this. He would fain have reassured her, but was at
a loss how to begin. At first he thought of professing sentiments that
were false, so that she might be pacified; however, he only laughed,
and, rising, went indoors. There, for a while, he lay on his bed,
thinking. It seemed as if men wished to turn the whole world into a
sort of military cloister, with one set of rules for all, framed with a
view to destroy all individuality, or else to make this submit to one
vague, archaic power of some kind. He was even led to reflect upon
Christianity and its fate, but this bored him to such an extent that he
fell asleep, and did not wake until evening had turned to night.

Maria Ivanovna watched him go, and she, too, sighing deeply, became
immersed in thought. Sarudine, so she said to herself, was obviously
paying court to Lida, and she hoped that his intentions were serious.

“Lida’s already twenty, and Sarudine seems to be quite a nice sort of
young man. They say he’ll get his squadron this year. Of course, he’s
heavily in debt—But oh! why did I have that horrid dream? I know it’s
absurd, yet somehow I can’t get it out of my head!”

This dream was one that she had dreamed on the same day that Sarudine
had first entered the house. She thought that she saw Lida, dressed all
in white, walking in a green meadow bright with flowers.

Maria Ivanovna sank into an easy chair, leaning her head on her hand,
as old women do, and she gazed at the darkening sky. Thoughts gloomy
and tormenting gave no respite, and there was an indefinable something
caused her to feel anxious and afraid.




CHAPTER III.


It was already quite dark when the others returned from their walk.
Their clear, merry voices rang out through the soft dusk that veiled
the garden. Lida ran, flushed and laughing, to her mother. She brought
with her cool scents from the river that blended delightfully with the
fragrance of her own sweet youth and beauty which the companionship of
sympathetic admirers heightened and enhanced.

“Supper, mamma, let’s have supper!” she cried playfully dragging her
mother along. “Meanwhile Victor Sergejevitsch is going to sing
something to us.”

Maria Ivanovna, as she went out to get supper ready, thought to herself
that Fate could surely have nothing but happiness in store for so
beautiful and charming a girl as her darling Lida.

Sarudine and Tanaroff went to the piano in the drawing-room, while Lida
reclined lazily in the rocking-chair on the veranda. Novikoff, mute,
walked up and down on the creaking boards of the veranda floor,
furtively glancing at Lida’s face, at her firm, full bosom, at her
little feet shod in yellow shoes, and her dainty ankles. But she took
no heed of him nor of his glances, so enthralled was she by the might
and magic of a first passion. She shut her eyes, and smiled at her
thoughts.

In Novikoff’s soul there was the old strife; he loved Lida, yet he
could not be sure of her feelings towards himself. At times she loved
him, so he thought; and again, there were times when she did not. If he
thought ‘yes,’ how easy and pleasant it seemed for this young, pure,
supple body to surrender itself to him. If he thought ‘no,’ such an
idea was foul and detestable; he was angry at his own lust, deeming
himself vile, and unworthy of Lida.

At last be determined to be guided by chance.

“If I step on the last board with my right foot, then I’ve got to
propose; and if with the left, then—”

He dared not even think of what would happen in that case.

He trod on the last board with his left foot. It threw him into a cold
sweat; but he instantly reassured himself.

“Pshaw! What nonsense! I’m like some old woman! Now then; one, two,
three—at three I’ll go straight up to her, and speak. Yes, but what am
I going to say? No matter! Here goes! One, two, three! No, three times
over! One, two, three! One, two—”

His brain seemed on fire, his mouth grew parched, his heart beat so
violently that his knees shook.

“Don’t stamp like that!” exclaimed Lida, opening her eyes. “One can’t
hear anything.”

Only then was Novikoff aware that Sarudine was singing.

The young officer had chosen that old romance,

I loved you once! Can you forget?
Love in my heart is burning yet.


He did not sing badly, but after the style of untrained singers who
seek to give expression by exaggerated tone-colour. Novikoff found
nothing to please him in such a performance.

“What is that? One of his own compositions?” asked he, with unusual
bitterness.

“No! Don’t disturb us, please, but sit down!” said Lida, sharply. “And
if you don’t like music, go and look at the moon!”

Just then the moon, large, round and red, was rising above the black
tree-tops. Its soft evasive light touched the stone steps, and Lida’s
dress, and her pensive, smiling face. In the garden the shadows had
grown deeper; they were now sombre and profound as those of the forest.

Novikoff sighed, and then blurted out.

“I prefer you to the moon,” thinking to himself, “that’s an idiotic
remark!”

Lida burst out laughing.

“What a lumpish compliment!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t know how to pay compliments,” was Novikoff’s sullen rejoinder.

“Very well, then, sit still and listen,” said Lida, shrugging her
shoulders, pettishly.

But you no longer care, I know,
Why should I grieve you with my woe?


The tones of the piano rang out with silvery clearness through the
green, humid garden. The moonlight became more and more intense and the
shadows harder. Crossing the grass, Sanine sat down under a linden-tree
and was about to light a cigarette. Then he suddenly stopped and
remained motionless, as if spell-bound by the evening calm that the
sounds of the piano and of this youthfully sentimental voice in no way
disturbed, but rather served to make more complete.

“Lidia Petrovna!” cried Novikoff hurriedly, as if this particular
moment must never be lost. “Well?” asked Lida mechanically, as she
looked at the garden and the moon above it and the dark boughs that
stood out sharply against its silver disc.

“I have long waited—that is—I have been anxious to say something to
you,” Novikoff stammered out.

Sanine turned his head round to listen.

“What about?” asked Lida, absently.

Sarudine had finished his song and after a pause began to sing again.
He thought that he had a voice of extraordinary beauty, and he much
liked to hear it.

Novikoff felt himself growing red, and then pale. It was as if he were
going to faint.

“I—look here—Lidia Petrovna—will you be my wife?”

As he stammered out these words he felt all the while that he ought to
have said something very different and that his own emotions should
have been different also. Before he had got the words out he was
certain that the answer would be “no”; and at the same time he had an
impression that something utterly silly and ridiculous was about to
occur.

Lida asked mechanically, “Whose wife?” Then suddenly, she blushed
deeply, and rose, as if intending to speak. But she said nothing and
turned aside in confusion. The moonlight fell full on her features.

“I—love you!” stammered Novikoff.

For him, the moon no longer shone; the evening air seemed stifling, the
earth, he thought, would open beneath his feet.

“I don’t know how to make speeches—but—no matter, I love you very
much!”

(“Why, very much?” he thought to himself, “as if I were alluding to
ice-cream.”)

Lida played nervously with a little leaf that had fluttered down into
her hands. What she had just heard embarrassed her, being both
unexpected and futile; besides, it created a novel feeling of
disagreeable restraint between herself and Novikoff whom from her
childhood she had always looked upon as a relative, and whom she liked.

“I really don’t know what to say! I had never thought about it.”

Novikoff felt a dull pain at his heart, as if it would stop beating.
Very pale, he rose and seized his cap.

“Good-bye,” he said, not hearing the sound of his own voice. His
quivering lips were twisted into a meaningless smile.

“Are you going? Good-bye!” said Lida, laughing nervously and proffering
her hand.

Novikoff grasped it hastily, and without putting on his cap strode out
across the grass, into the garden. In the shade he stood still and
gripped his head with both hands.

“My God! I am doomed to such luck as this! Shoot myself? No, that’s all
nonsense! Shoot myself, eh?” Wild, incoherent thoughts flashed through
his brain. He felt that he was the most wretched and humiliated and
ridiculous of mortals.

Sanine at first wished to call out to him, but checking the impulse, he
merely smiled. To him it was grotesque that Novikoff should tear his
hair and almost weep because a woman whose body he desired would not
surrender herself to him. At the same time he was rather glad that his
pretty sister did not care for Novikoff.

For some moments Lida remained motionless in the same place, and
Sanine’s curious gaze was riveted on her white silhouette in the
moonlight. Sarudine now came from the lighted drawing-room on to the
veranda. Sanine distinctly heard the faint jingling of his spurs. In
the drawing-room Tanaroff was playing an old-fashioned, mournful waltz
whose languorous cadences floated on the air. Approaching Lida,
Sarudine gently and deftly placed his arm round her waist. Sanine could
perceive that both figures became merged into one that swayed in the
misty light.

“Why so pensive?” murmured Sarudine, with shining eyes, as his lips
touched Lida’s dainty little ear. Lida was at once joyful and afraid.
Now, as on all occasions when Sarudine embraced her, she felt a strange
thrill. She knew that in intelligence and culture he was her inferior,
and that she could never be dominated by him; yet at the same time she
was aware of something delightful and alarming in letting herself be
touched by this strong, comely young man. She seemed to be gazing down
into a mysterious, unfathomable abyss, and thinking, “I could hurl
myself in, if I chose.”

“We shall be seen,” she murmured half audibly.

Though not encouraging his embrace, she yet did not shrink from it;
such passive surrender excited him the more.

“One word, just one!” whispered Sarudine, as he crushed her closer to
him, his veins throbbing with desire; “will you come?”

Lida trembled. It was not the first time that he had asked her this
question, and each time she had felt strange tremors that deprived her
of her will.

“Why?” she asked, in a low voice as she gazed dreamily at the moon.

“Why? That I may have you near me, and see you, and talk to you. Oh!
like this, it’s torture! Yes, Lida, you’re torturing me! Now, will you
come?”

So saying, he strained her to him, passionately. His touch as that of
glowing iron, sent a thrill through her limbs; it seemed as if she were
enveloped in a mist, languorous, dreamy, oppressive. Her lithe, supple
frame grew rigid and then swayed towards him, trembling with pleasure
and yet with fear. Around her all things had undergone a curious,
sudden change. The moon was a moon no longer; it seemed close, close to
the trellis-work of the veranda, as if it hung just above the luminous
lawn. The garden was not the one that she knew, but another garden,
sombre, mysterious, that, suddenly approaching, closed round her. Her
brain reeled. She drew back, and with strange languor, freed herself
from Sarudine’s embrace.

“Yes,” she murmured with difficulty. Her lips were white and parched.

With faltering steps she re-entered the house, conscious of something
terrible yet alluring that inevitably drew her to the brink of an
abyss.

“Nonsense!” she reflected. “It’s not that at all. I am only joking. It
just interests me, and it amuses me, too.”

Thus did she seek to persuade herself, as she stood facing the darkened
mirror in her room, wherein she only saw herself _en silhouette_
against the glass door of the brightly lighted dining-room. Slowly she
raised both arms above her head, and lazily stretched herself, watching
meanwhile the sensuous movements of her supple body.

Left to himself, Sarudine stood erect and shook his shapely limbs. His
eyes were half closed, and, as he smiled, his teeth shone beneath his
fair moustache. He was accustomed to have luck, and on this occasion he
foresaw even greater enjoyment in the near future. He imagined Lida in
all her voluptuous beauty at the very moment of surrender. The passion
of such a picture caused him physical pain.

At first, when he paid court to her, and after that, when she had
allowed him to embrace her and kiss her, Lida had always made him feel
somewhat afraid. While he caressed her, there was something strange,
unintelligible in her dark eyes, as though she secretly despised him.
She seemed to him so clever, so absolutely unlike other women to whom
he had always felt himself obviously superior, and so proud, that for a
kiss he looked to receive a box on the ear. The thought of possessing
her was almost disquieting. At times he believed that she was just
playing with him and his position appeared simply foolish and absurd.
But to-day, after this promise, uttered hesitatingly, in faltering
tones such as he had heard other women use, he felt suddenly certain of
his power and that victory was near. He knew that things would be just
as he had desired them to be. And to this sense of voluptuous
expectancy was added a touch of spite: this proud, pure, cultured girl
should surrender to him, as all the others had surrendered; he would
use her at his pleasure, as he had used the rest. Scenes libidinous and
debasing rose up before him. Lida nude, with hair dishevelled and
inscrutable eyes, became the central figure in a turbulent orgy of
cruelty and lust. Suddenly he distinctly saw her lying on the ground;
he heard the swish of the whip; he observed a blood-red stripe on the
soft, nude, submissive body. His temples throbbed, he staggered
backwards, sparks danced before his eyes. The thought of it all became
physically intolerable. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette; again his
strong limbs twitched convulsively, and he went indoors. Sanine who had
heard nothing yet who had seen and comprehended all, followed him,
roused almost to a feeling of jealousy.

“Brutes like that are always lucky,” he thought to himself, “What the
devil does it all mean? Lida and he?”

At supper, Maria Ivanovna seemed in a bad temper. Tanaroff as usual
said nothing. He thought what a fine thing it would be if he were
Sarudine, and had such a sweetheart as Lida to love him. He would have
loved her in quite a different way, though. Sarudine did not know how
to appreciate his good fortune. Lida was pale and silent, looking at no
one. Sarudine was gay, and on the alert, like a wild beast that scents
its prey. Sanine yawned as usual, ate, drank a good deal of brandy and
apparently seemed longing to go to sleep. But when supper was over, he
declared his intention of walking home with Sarudine. It was near
midnight, and the moon shone high overhead. Almost in silence the two
walked towards the officer’s quarters. All the way Sanine kept looking
furtively at Sarudine, wondering if he should, or should not, strike
him in the face.

“Hm! Yes!” he suddenly began, as they got close to the house, “there
are all sorts of blackguards in this world!”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Sarudine, raising his eyebrows.

“That is so; speaking generally. Blackguards are the most fascinating
people.”

“You don’t say so?” exclaimed Sarudine, smiling.

“Of course they are. There’s nothing so boring in all the world as your
so-called honest man. What is an honest man? With the programme of
honesty and virtue everybody has long been familiar; and so it contains
nothing that is new. Such antiquated rubbish robs a man of all
individuality, and his life is lived within the narrow, tedious limits
of virtue. Thou shalt not steal, nor lie, nor cheat, nor commit
adultery. The funny thing is, that all that is born is one! Everybody
steals, and lies, and cheats and commits adultery as much as he can.”

“Not everybody,” protested Sarudine loftily.

“Yes, yes; everybody! You have only got to examine a man’s life in
order to get at his sins. Treachery, for instance. Thus, after
rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, when we go quietly to
bed, or sit down to table, we commit acts of treachery.”

“What’s that you say?” cried Sarudine, half angrily.

“Of course we do. We pay taxes; we serve our time in the army, yes; but
that means that we harm millions by warfare and injustice, both of
which we abhor. We go calmly to our beds, when we should hasten to
rescue those who in that very moment are perishing for us and for our
ideas. We eat more than we actually want, and leave others to starve,
when, as virtuous folk, our whole lives should be devoted to their
welfare. So it goes on. It’s plain enough. Now a blackguard, a real,
genuine blackguard is quite another matter. To begin with he is a
perfectly sincere, natural fellow.”

“Natural?”

“Of course he is. He does only what a man naturally does. He sees
something that does not belong to him, something that he likes—and, he
takes it. He sees a pretty woman who won’t give herself to him, so he
manages to get her, either by force or by craft. And that is perfectly
natural, the desire and the instinct for self-gratification being one
of the few traits that distinguish a man from a beast. The more animal
an animal is, the less it understands of enjoyment, the less able it is
to procure this. It only cares to satisfy its needs. We are all agreed
that man was not created in order to suffer, and that suffering is not
the ideal of human endeavour.”

“Quite so,” said Sarudine.

“Very well, then, enjoyment is the aim of human life. Paradise is the
synonym for absolute enjoyment, and we all of us, more or less, dream
of an earthly paradise. This legend of paradise is by no means an
absurdity, but a symbol, a dream.”

“Yes,” continued Sanine, after a pause, “Nature never meant men to be
abstinent, and the sincerest men are those who do not conceal their
desires, that is to say, those who socially count as blackguards,
fellows such as—you, for instance.”

Sarudine started back in amazement.

“Yes, you,” continued Sanine, affecting not to notice this, “You’re the
best fellow in the world, or, at any rate, you think you are. Come now,
tell me, have you ever met a better?”

“Yes, lots of them,” replied Sarudine, with some hesitation. He had not
the least idea what Sanine meant, nor if he ought to appear amused or
annoyed.

“Well, name them, please,” said Sanine.

Sarudine shrugged his shoulders, doubtfully.

“There, you see!” exclaimed Sanine gaily. “You yourself are the best of
good fellows, and so am I; yet we both of us would not object to
stealing, or telling lies or committing adultery—least of all to
committing adultery.”

“How original!” muttered Sarudine, as he again shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you think so?” asked the other, with a slight shade of annoyance in
his tone. “Well, I don’t! Yes, blackguards, as I said, are the most
sincere and interesting people imaginable, for they have no conception
of the bounds of human baseness. I always feel particularly pleased to
shake hands with a blackguard.”

He immediately grasped Sarudine’s hand and shook it vigorously as he
looked him full in the face. Then he frowned, and muttered curtly,
“Good-bye, good-night,” and left him.

For a few moments Sarudine stood perfectly still and watched him
depart. He did not know how to take such speeches as these of Sanine;
he became at once bewildered and uneasy. Then he thought of Lida, and
smiled. Sanine was her brother, and what he had said was really right
after all. He began to feel a sort of brotherly attachment for him.

“An amusing fellow, by Gad!” he thought, complacently, as if Sanine in
a way belonged to him, also. Then he opened the gate, and went across
the moonlit courtyard to his quarters.

On reaching home, Sanine undressed and got into bed, where he tried to
read “Thus spake Zarathustra” which he had found among Lida’s books.
But the first few pages were enough to irritate him. Such inflated
imagery left him unmoved. He spat, flung the volume aside, and soon
fell fast asleep.




CHAPTER IV.


Colonel Nicolai Yegorovitch Svarogitsch who lived in the little town
awaited the arrival of his son, a student at the Moscow Polytechnic.

The latter was under the surveillance of the police and had been
expelled from Moscow as a suspected person. It was thought that he was
in league with revolutionists. Yourii Svarogitsch had already written
to his parents informing them of his arrest, his six months’
imprisonment, and his expulsion from the capital, so that they were
prepared for his return. Though Nicolai Yegorovitch looked upon the
whole thing as a piece of boyish folly, he was really much grieved, for
he was very fond of his son, whom he received with open arms, avoiding
any allusion to this painful subject. For two whole days Yourii had
travelled third-class, and owing to the bad air, the stench, and the
cries of children, he got no sleep at all. He was utterly exhausted,
and had no sooner greeted his father and his sister Ludmilla (who was
always called Lialia) than he lay down on her bed, and fell asleep.

He did not wake until evening, when the sun was near the horizon, and
its slanting rays, falling through the panes, threw rosy squares upon
the wall. In the next room there was a clatter of spoons and glasses;
he could hear Lialia’s merry laugh, and also a man’s voice both
pleasant and refined which he did not know. At first it seemed to him
as if he were still in the railway-carriage and heard the noise of the
train, the rattle of the window-panes and the voices of travellers in
the next compartment. But he quickly remembered where he was, and sat
bolt upright on the bed. “Yes, here I am,” he yawned, as, frowning, he
thrust his fingers through his thick, stubborn black hair.

It then occurred to him that he need never have come home. He had been
allowed to choose where he would stay. Why, then, did he return to his
parents? That he could not explain. He believed, or wished to believe,
that he had fixed upon the most likely place that had occurred to him.
But this was not the case at all. Yourii had never had to work for a
living; his father kept him supplied with funds, and the prospect of
being alone and without means among strangers seemed terrible to him.
He was ashamed of such a feeling, and loth to admit it to himself. Now,
however, he thought that he had made a mistake. His parents could never
understand the whole story, nor form any opinion regarding it; that was
quite plain. Then again, the material question would arise, the many
useless years that he had cost his father—it all made a mutually
cordial, straightforward understanding impossible. Moreover, in this
little town, which he had not seen for two years, he would find it
dreadfully dull. He looked upon all the inhabitants of petty provincial
towns as narrow-minded folk, incapable of being interested in, or even
of understanding those philosophical and political questions which for
him were the only really important things of life.

Yourii got up, and, opening the window, leaned out. Along the wall of
the house there was a little flower-garden bright with flowers, red,
yellow, blue, lilac and white. It was like a kaleidoscope. Behind it
lay the large dusky garden that, as all gardens in this town, stretched
down to the river, which glimmered like dull glass between the stems of
the trees. It was a calm, clear evening. Yourii felt a vague sense of
depression. He had lived too long in large towns built of stone, and
though he liked to fancy that he was fond of nature, she really gave
him nothing, neither solace, nor peace, nor joy, and only roused in him
a vague, dreamy, morbid longing.

“Aha! You’re up at last! it was about time,” said Lialia, as she
entered the room.

Oppressed as he was by the sense of his uncertain position and by the
melancholy of the dying day, Yourii felt almost vexed by his sister’s
gaiety and by her merry voice.

“What are you so pleased about?” he asked abruptly.

“Well, I never!” cried Lialia, wide-eyed, while she laughed again, just
as if her brother’s question had reminded her of something particularly
amusing.

“Imagine your asking me why I am so pleased? You see, I am never bored.
I have no time for that sort of thing.”

Then, in a graver tone, and evidently proud of her last remark, she
added.

“We live in such interesting times that it would really be a sin to
feel bored. I have got the workmen to teach, and then the library takes
up a lot of my time. While you were away, we started a popular library,
and it is going very well indeed.”

At any other time this would have interested Yourii, but now something
made him indifferent. Lialia looked very serious, waiting, as a child
might wait, for her brother’s praise. At last he managed to murmur.

“Oh! really!”

“With all that to do, can you expect me to be bored?” said Lialia
contentedly.

“Well, anyhow, everything bores me,” replied Yourii involuntarily. She
pretended to be hurt.

“That’s very nice of you, I am sure. You’ve hardly been two hours in
the house, and asleep most of the time, yet you are bored already!”

“It is not my fault, but my misfortune,” replied Yourii, in a slightly
arrogant tone. He thought it showed superior intelligence to be bored
rather than amused.

“Your misfortune, indeed!” cried Lialia, mockingly. “Ha! Ha!” She
pretended to slap him. “Ha! Ha!”

Yourii did not perceive that he had already recovered his good humour.
Lialia’s merry voice and her joy of living had speedily banished his
depression which he had imagined to be very real and deep. Lialia did
not believe in his melancholy, and therefore his remarks caused her no
concern.

Yourii looked at her, and said with a smile.

“I am never merry.”

At this Lialia laughed, as though he had said something vastly droll.

“Very well, Knight of the Rueful Countenance, if you aren’t you aren’t.
Never mind, come with me, and I will introduce you to a charming young
man. Come!”

So saying she took her brother’s hand, and laughingly led him along.

“Stop! Who is this charming young man?”

“My fiancé,” cried Lialia, as, joyful and confused, she twisted sharply
round so that her gown was puffed out. Yourii knew already, from his
father’s and sister’s letters, that a young doctor recently established
in the town had been paying court to Lialia, but he was not aware that
their engagement was a _fait accompli_.

“You don’t say so?” said he, in amazement. It seemed to him so strange
that pretty, fresh-looking little Lialia, almost a child, should
already have a lover, and should soon become a bride—a wife. It touched
him to a vague sense of pity for his sister. Yourii put his arm round
Lialia’s waist and went with her into the dining-room where in the
lamp-light shone the large, highly polished samovar. At the table, by
the side of Nicolai Yegorovitch sat a well-built young man, not Russian
in type, with bronzed features and keen bright eyes.

He rose in simple, friendly fashion to meet Yourii.

“Introduce me.”

“Anatole Pavlovitch Riasantzeff!” cried Lialia, with a gesture of comic
solemnity.

“Who craves your friendship and indulgence,” added Riasantzeff, joking
in his turn.

With a sincere wish to become friends, the two shook hands. For a
moment it seemed as if they would embrace, but they refrained, merely
exchanging frank, amicable glances.

“So this is her brother, is it?” thought Riasantzeff, in surprise, for
he had imagined that a brother of Lialia, short, fair, and merry, would
be short, fair and merry too. Yourii, on the contrary was tall, thin
and dark, though as good-looking as Lialia, and with the same regular
features.

And, as Yourii looked at Riasantzeff, he thought to himself: “So this
is the man who in my little sister Lialia, as fresh and fair as a
spring morning, loves the woman; loves her just as I myself have loved
women.” Somehow, it hurt him to look at Lialia and Riasantzeff, as if
he feared that they would read his thoughts.

The two men felt that they had much that was important to say to each
other. Yourii would have liked to ask:

“Do you love Lialia? Really and truly? It would be sad, and indeed
shameful, if you were to betray her; she’s so pure, so innocent!”

And Riasantzeff would have liked to answer:

“Yes, I love your sister deeply; who could do anything else but love
her? Look how pure and sweet, and charming she is; how fond she is of
me; and what a pretty dimple she’s got!”

But instead of all this, Yourii said nothing, and Riasantzeff asked:

“Have you been expelled for long?”

“For five years,” was Yourii’s answer.

At these words Nicolai Yegorovitch, who was pacing up and down the
room, stopped for a moment and then, recollecting himself, he continued
his walk with the regular, precise steps of an old soldier. As yet he
was ignorant of the details of his son’s exile, and this unexpected
news came as a shock.

“What the devil does it all mean?” he muttered to himself.

Lialia understood this movement of her father’s. She was afraid of
scenes, and tried to change the conversation.

“How foolish of me,” she thought, “not to have remembered to tell
Anatole!”

But Riasantzeff did not know the real facts, and, replying to Lialia’s
invitation to have some tea, he again began to question Yourii.

“And what do you think of doing now?”

Nicolai Yegorovitch frowned, and said nothing. Yourii at once knew what
his father’s silence meant; and before he had reflected upon the
consequences of such an answer he replied, defiantly and with
irritation,

“Nothing for the moment.”

“How do you mean—nothing?” asked Nicolai Yegorovitch, stopping short.
He had not raised his voice, but its tone clearly conveyed a hidden
reproach.

“How can you say such a thing? As if I were obliged always to have you
round my neck! How can you forget that I am old, and that it is high
time that you earned your own living? I say nothing. Live as you like!
But can’t you yourself understand?” The tone implied all this. And the
more it made Yourii feel that his father was right in thinking as he
did, the more he took offence.

“Yes, nothing! What do you expect me to do?” he asked provocatively.

Nicolai Yegorovitch was about to make a cutting retort, but said
nothing, merely shrugging his shoulders and with measured tread
resuming his march from one corner of the room to the other. He was too
well-bred to wrangle with his son on the very day of his arrival.
Yourii watched him with flashing eyes, being hardly able to control
himself and ready on the slightest chance to open the quarrel. Lialia
was almost in tears. She glanced imploringly from her brother to her
father. Riasantzeff at last understood the situation, and he felt so
sorry for Lialia, that, clumsily enough, he turned the talk into
another channel.

Slowly, tediously, the evening passed. Yourii would not admit that he
was blameworthy, for he did not agree with his father that politics
were no part of his business. He considered that his father was
incapable of understanding the simplest things, being old and void of
intelligence. Unconsciously he blamed him for his old age and his
antiquated ideas: they enraged him. The topics touched upon by
Riasantzeff did not interest him. He scarcely listened, but steadily
watched his father with black, glittering eyes. Just at supper-time
came Novikoff, Ivanoff and Semenoff.

Semenoff was a consumptive student who for some months past had lived
in the town, where he gave lessons. He was thin, ugly, and looked very
delicate. Upon his face, which was prematurely aged, lay the fleeting
shadow of approaching death. Ivanoff was a schoolmaster, a long-haired,
broad-shouldered, ungainly man. They had been walking on the boulevard,
and hearing of Yourii’s arrival had come to salute him. With their
coming things grew more cheerful. There was laughter and joking, and at
supper much was drunk. Ivanoff distinguished himself in this respect.
During the few days that followed his unfortunate proposal to Lida,
Novikoff had become somewhat calmer. That Lida had refused him might
have been accidental, he thought; it was his fault, indeed, as he ought
to have prepared her for such an avowal. Nevertheless it was painful to
him to visit the Sanines. Therefore he endeavoured to meet Lida
elsewhere, either in the street, or at the house of a mutual friend.
She, for her part, pitied him, and, in a way, blamed herself which
caused her to treat him with exaggerated cordiality, so that Novikoff
once more began to hope.

“What do you say to this?” he asked, just as they were all going,
“Let’s arrange a picnic at the convent, shall we?”

The convent, situated on a hill at no great distance from the town, was
a favourite place for excursions. It was near the river, and the road
leading to it was good.

Devoted as she was to every kind of amusement such as bathing, rowing
and walks in the woods, Lialia welcomed the idea with enthusiasm.

“Yes, of course! Of course! But when is it to be?”

“Well, why not to-morrow?” said Novikoff.

“Who else shall we ask?” asked Riasantzeff, equally pleased at the
prospect of a day’s outing. In the woods he would be able to hold
Lialia in his arms, to kiss her, and feel that the sweet body he
coveted was near.

“Let us see. We are six. Suppose we ask Schafroff?”

“Who is he?” inquired Yourii.

“Oh! he’s a young student.”

“Very well; and Ludmilla Nicolaievna will invite Karsavina and Olga
Ivanovna.”

“Who are they?” asked Yourii once more.

Lialia laughed. “You will see!” she said, kissing the tips of her
fingers and looking very mysterious.

“Aha!” said Yourii, smiling. “Well, we shall see what we shall see!”

After some hesitation, Novikoff with an air of indifference, remarked:

“We might ask the Sanines too.”

“Oh! we _must_ have Lida,” cried Lialia, not because she particularly
liked the girl, but because she knew of Novikoff’s passion, and wished
to please him. She was so happy herself in her own love, that she
wanted all those about her to be happy also.

“Then we shall have to invite the officers, too,” observed Ivanoff,
maliciously.

“What does that matter? Let us do so. The more the merrier!”

They all stood at the front door, in the moonlight.

“What a lovely night!” exclaimed Lialia, as unconsciously she drew
closer to her lover. She did not wish him to go yet. Riasantzeff with
his elbow pressed her warm, round arm.

“Yes, it’s a wonderful night!” he replied, giving to these simple words
a meaning that they two alone could seize.

“Oh! you, and your night!” muttered Ivanoff in his deep bass. “I’m
sleepy, so good-night, sirs!”

And he slouched off, along the street, swinging his arms like the sails
of a windmill.

Novikoff and Semenoff went next, and Riasantzeff was a long while
saying good-bye to Lialia, pretending to talk about the picnic.

“Now, we must all go to bye-bye,” said Lialia, laughingly, when he had
taken his leave. Then she sighed, being loth to leave the moonlight,
the soft night air, and all for which her youth and beauty longed.
Yourii remembered that his father had not yet retired to rest, and
feared that, if they met, a painful and useless discussion would be
inevitable.

“No!” he replied, his eyes fixed on the faint blue mist about the
river, “No! I don’t want to go to sleep. I shall go out for a while.”

“As you like,” said Lialia, in her sweet, gentle voice. Stretching
herself, she half closed her eyes like a cat, smiled at the moonlight,
and went in. For a few minutes Yourii stood there, watching the dark
shadows of the houses and the trees; then he went in the same direction
that Semenoff had taken.

The latter had not gone far, walking slowly and stooping as he coughed.
His black shadow followed him along the moonlit road. Yourii soon
overtook him and at once noticed how changed he was. During supper
Semenoff had joked and laughed more perhaps than anyone else, but now
he walked along, gloomy and self-absorbed, and in his hollow cough
there was something hopeless and threatening like the disease from
which he suffered.

“Ah! it’s you!” he said, somewhat peevishly, as Yourii thought.

“I wasn’t sleepy. I’ll walk back with you, if you like.”

“Yes, do!” replied Semenoff, carelessly.

“Aren’t you cold?” asked Yourii, merely because this distressing cough
made him nervous.

“I am always cold,” replied Semenoff irritably.

Yourii felt pained, as if he had purposely touched a sore point.

“Is it a long while since you left the University?” he asked.

Semenoff did not immediately reply.

“A long while,” he said, at last.

Yourii then spoke of the feeling that actually existed among the
students and of what they considered most important and essential. He
began simply and impassively, but by degrees let himself go, expressing
himself with fervour and point.

Semenoff said nothing, and listened.

Then Yourii deplored the lack of revolutionary spirit among the masses.
It was plain that he felt this deeply.

“Did you read Bebel’s last speech?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” replied Semenoff.

“Well, what do you say?”

Semenoff irritably flourished his stick, which had a crooked handle.
His shadow similarly waved a long black arm which made Yourii think of
the black wings of some infuriated bird of prey.

“What do I say?” he blurted out. “I say that I am going to die.”

And again he waved his stick and again the sinister shadow imitated his
gesture. This time Semenoff also noticed it.

“Do you see?” said he bitterly. “There, behind me, stands Death,
watching my every movement. What’s Bebel to me? Just a babbler, who
babbles about this. And then some other fool will babble about that. It
is all the same to me! If I don’t die to-day, I shall die to-morrow.”

Yourii made no answer. He felt confused and hurt.

“You, for instance,” continued Semenoff, “you think that it’s very
important, all this that goes on at the University, and what Bebel
says. But what I think is that, if you knew for certain, as I do, that
you were going to die you would not care in the least what Bebel or
Nietzsche or Tolstoi or anybody else said.”

Semenoff was silent.

The moon still shone brightly, and ever the black shadow followed in
their wake.

“My constitution’s done for!” said Semenoff suddenly in quite a
different voice, thin and querulous. “If you knew how I dread dying….
Especially on such a bright, soft night as this,” he continued
plaintively, turning to Yourii his ugly haggard face and glittering
eyes. “Everything lives, and I must die. To you that sounds a hackneyed
phrase, I feel certain. ‘And I must die.’ But it is not from a novel,
not taken from a work written with ‘artistic truth of presentment.’ I
really _am_ going to die, and to me the words do not seem hackneyed.
One day you will not think that they are, either. I am dying, dying,
and all is over!”

Semenoff coughed again.

“I often think that before long I shall be in utter darkness, buried in
the cold earth, my nose fallen in, and my hands rotting, and here in
the world all will be just as it is now, while I walk along alive. And
you’ll be living, and breathing this air, and enjoying this moonlight,
and you’ll go past my grave where I lie, hideous and corrupted. What do
you suppose I care for Bebel, or Tolstoi or a million other gibbering
apes?” These last words he uttered with sudden fury. Yourii was too
depressed to reply.

“Well, good-night!” said Semenoff faintly. “I must go in.” Yourii shook
hands with him, feeling deep pity for him, hollow-chested, round-
shouldered, and with the crooked stick hanging from a button of his
overcoat. He would have liked to say something consoling that might
encourage hope, but he felt that this was impossible.

“Good-bye!” he said, sighing.

Semenoff raised his cap and opened the gate. The sound of his footsteps
and of his cough grew fainter, and then all was still. Yourii turned
homewards. All that only one short half-hour ago had seemed to him
bright and fair and calm—the moonlight, the starry heaven, the poplar
trees touched with silvery splendour, the mysterious shadows—all were
now dead, and cold and terrible as some vast, tremendous tomb.

On reaching home, he went softly to his room and opened the window
looking on to the garden. For the first time in his life he reflected
that all that had engrossed him, and for which he had shown such zeal
and unselfishness was really not the right, the important thing. If, so
he thought, some day, like Semenoff, he were about to die, he would
feel no burning regret that men had not been made happier by his
efforts, nor grief that his life-long ideals remained unrealized. The
only grief would be that he must die, must lose sight, and sense, and
hearing, before having had time to taste all the joys that life could
yield.

He was ashamed of such a thought, and, putting it aside, sought for an
explanation.

“Life is conflict.”

“Yes, but conflict for whom, if not for one’s self, for one’s own place
in the sun?”

Thus spake a voice within. Yourii affected not to hear it and strove to
think of something else. But his mind reverted to this thought without
ceasing; it tormented him even to bitter tears.




CHAPTER V.


When Lida Sanine received Lialia’s invitation, she showed it to her
brother. She thought that he would refuse; in fact, she hoped as much.
She felt that on the moonlit river she would again be drawn to
Sarudine, and would again experience that sensation at once delicious
and disquieting. At the same time she was ashamed that her brother
should know that it was Sarudine, of all people, whom he cordially
despised.

But Sanine at once accepted with pleasure.

The day was an ideal one; bright sunlight and a cloudless sky.

“No doubt there will be some nice girls there, whose acquaintance you
may care to make,” said Lida, mechanically.

“Ah! that’s good!” said Sanine. “The weather is lovely, too; so let’s
go!”

At the time appointed, Sarudine and Tanaroff drove up in the large
_lineika_ belonging to their squadron with two big regimental horses.

“Lidia Petrovna, we are waiting for you,” cried Sarudine, looking
extremely smart in white, and heavily scented.

Lida in a light gauzy dress with a collar and waist-band of rose-
coloured velvet ran down the steps and held out both her hands to
Sarudine. For a moment he grasped them tightly, as he glanced
admiringly at her person.

“Let us go, let us go,” she exclaimed, in excitement, and confusion,
for she knew the meaning of that glance.

Very soon the _lineika_ was swiftly rolling along the little-used road
across the steppes. The tall stems of the grass bent beneath the
wheels; the fresh breeze as it lightly touched the hair, made the
grasses wave on either side. Outside the town they overtook another
carriage containing Lialia, Yourii, Riasantzeff, Novikoff, Ivanoff and
Semenoff. They were cramped and uncomfortable, yet all were merry and
in high spirits. Only Yourii, after last night’s talk, was puzzled by
Semenoff’s behaviour. He could not understand how the latter could
laugh and joke like the others. After all that he had told him, such
mirth seemed strange. “Was it all put on?” he thought, as he furtively
glanced at Semenoff. He shrank from such an explanation. From both
carriages there was a lively interchange of wit and raillery. Novikoff
jumped down and ran races through the grass with Lida. Apparently there
was a tacit understanding between them to appear to be the best of
friends, for they kept merrily teasing each other all the time.

They now approached the hill on whose summit stood the convent with its
glittering cupolas and white stone walls. The hill was covered by
woods, and the curled tips of the oak-trees looked like wool. There
were oak-trees also on the islands at the foot of it, where the broad,
calm river flowed.

Leaving the road, the horses trotted over the moist, rich turf in which
the carriage-wheels made deep ruts. There was a pleasant odour of earth
and of green leaves.

At the appointed place, a meadow, seated on the grass were a young
student and two girls wearing the dress of Little Russia. Being the
first to arrive, they were busily preparing tea and light refreshments.
When the carriage stopped, the horses snorted and whisked away flies
with their tails. Everybody jumped down, enlivened and refreshed by the
drive and the sweet country air. Lialia bestowed resounding kisses upon
the two girls who were making tea, and introduced them to her brother
and to Sanine, whom they regarded with shy curiosity. Lida suddenly
remembered that the two men did not know each other. “Allow me,” she
said to Yourii, “to introduce to you my brother Vladimir.” Sanine
smiled and grasped Yourii’s hand, but the latter scarcely noticed him.
Sanine found everybody interesting and liked making new acquaintances.
Yourii considered that very few people in this world were interesting,
and always felt disinclined to meet strangers. Ivanoff knew Sanine
slightly and liked what he had about him. He was the first to go up to
him and begin talking, while Semenoff ceremoniously shook hands with
him.

“Now we can all enjoy ourselves after these tiresome formalities,”
cried Lialia.

At first a certain stiffness prevailed, for many of the party were
complete strangers to each other. But as they began to eat, when the
men had had several liqueurs, and the ladies wine, such constraint gave
way to mirth. They drank freely, and there was much laughter and
joking. Some ran races and others clambered up the hill-side. All
around was so calm and bright and the green woods so fair, that nothing
sad or sinister could cast its shadows on their souls.

“If everybody were to jump about and run like this,” said Riasantzeff,
flushed and breathless, “nine-tenths of the world’s diseases would not
exist.”

“Nor the vices either,” added Lialia.

“Well, as regards vice there will always be plenty of that,” observed
Ivanoff, and although no one thought such a remark either witty or
wise, it provoked hearty laughter.

As they were having tea, it was the sunset hour. The river gleamed like
gold, and through the trees fell slanting rays of warm red light.

“Now for the boat!” cried Lida, as, holding up her skirts, she ran down
to the river-bank. “Who’ll get there first?”

Some ran after her, while others followed at a more leisurely pace, and
amid much laughter they all got into a large painted boat.

“Let her go!” cried Lida, in a merry voice of command. The boat slid
away from the shore leaving behind it two broad stripes on the water
that disappeared in ripples at the river’s edge.

“Yourii Nicolaijevitch, why are you so silent?” asked Lida.

Yourii smiled. “I’ve got nothing to say.”

“Impossible!” she answered, with a pretty pout, throwing back her head
as if she knew that all men thought her irresistible.

“Yourii doesn’t like talking nonsense,” said Semenoff. “He requires….”

“A serious subject, is that it?” exclaimed Lida, interrupting.

“Look! there is a serious subject!” said Sarudine, pointing to the
shore.

Where the bank was steep, between the gnarled roots of a rugged oak one
could see a narrow aperture, dark and mysterious, which was partially
hidden by weeds and grasses.

“What is that?” asked Schafroff, who was unfamiliar with this part of
the country.

“A cavern,” replied Ivanoff.

“What sort of cavern?”

“The devil only knows! They say that once it was a coiners’ den. As
usual they were all caught. Rather hard lines, wasn’t it?” said
Ivanoff.

“Perhaps you’d like to start a business of that sort yourself and
manufacture sham twenty-copeck pieces?” asked Novikoff.

“Copecks? Not I! Roubles, my friend, roubles!”

“H—m!” muttered Sarudine, shrugging his shoulders. He did not like
Ivanoff, whose jokes to him were unintelligible.

“Yes, they were all caught, and the cave was filled up; it gradually
collapsed, and no one ever goes into it now. As a child I often used to
creep in there. It is a most interesting place.”

“Interesting? I should rather think so!” exclaimed Lida.

“Victor Sergejevitsch, suppose you go in? You’re one of the brave
ones.”

“Why?” asked Sarudine, somewhat perplexed.

“I’ll go!” exclaimed Yourii, blushing to think that the others would
accuse him of showing off.

“It’s a wonderful place!” said Ivanoff by way of encouragement.

“Aren’t you going too?” asked Novikoff.

“No, I’d rather stop here!”

At this they all laughed.

The boat drew near the bank and a wave of cold air from the cavern
passed over their heads.

“For heaven’s sake, Yourii, don’t do such a silly thing!” said Lialia,
trying to dissuade her brother. “It really is silly of you!”

“Silly? Of course it is.” Yourii, smiling, assented. “Semenoff, just
give me that candle, will you?”

“Where shall I find it?”

“There is one behind you, in the hamper.”

Semenoff coolly produced the candle.

“Are you really going?” asked a tall girl, magnificently proportioned.
Lialia called her Sina, her surname being Karsavina.

“Of course I am. Why not?” replied Yourii, striving to show utter
indifference. He recollected having done this when engaged in some of
his political adventures. The thought for some reason or other was not
an agreeable one.

The entrance to the cavern was damp and dark. “Brrr!” exclaimed Sanine,
as he looked in. To him it seemed absurd that Yourii should explore a
disagreeable, dangerous place simply because others watched him doing
it. Yourii, as self-conscious as ever, lighted the candle, thinking
inwardly, “I am making myself rather ridiculous, am I not?” But so far
from seeming ridiculous, he won admiration, especially from the ladies,
who were in an agreeable state of curiosity bordering on alarm. He
waited till the candle burnt more brightly and then, laughing to avoid
being laughed at, disappeared in the darkness. The light seemed to have
vanished, also. They all suddenly felt concern for his safety and
intense curiosity as to what would happen.

“Look out for wolves!” cried Riasantzeff.

“It’s all right. I’ve got a revolver!” came the answer. It sounded
faint and weird.

Yourii advanced slowly and with caution. The sides of the cavern were
low, uneven, and damp as the walls of a large cellar. The ground was so
irregular that twice Yourii just missed falling into a hole. He thought
it would be best to turn back, or to sit down and wait a while so that
he could say that he had gone a good way in.

Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps behind him slipping on the wet
clay, and of some one breathing hard. He held the light aloft.

“Sinaida Karsavina!” he exclaimed in amazement.

“Her very self!” replied Sina gaily, as she caught up her dress and
jumped lightly over a hole. Yourii was glad that she, this merry,
handsome girl, had come, and he greeted her with laughing eyes.

“Let us go on,” said Sina shyly.

Yourii obediently advanced. No thoughts of danger troubled him now, and
he was specially careful to light the way for his companion. He
perceived several exits, but all were blocked. In one corner lay a few
rotten planks, that looked like the remains of some old coffin.

“Not very interesting, eh?” said Yourii, unconsciously lowering his
voice. The mass of earth oppressed him.

“Oh! yes it is!” whispered Sina, and as she looked round her wide eyes
gleamed in the candle-light. She was nervous, and instinctively kept
close to Yourii for protection. This Yourii noticed. He felt a strange
sympathy for his fair, frail companion.

“It is like being buried alive,” she continued. “We might scream, but
nobody would hear us.”

“Of course not,” laughed Yourii.

Then a sudden thought caused his brain to reel. This beautiful girl, so
fresh, so desirable, was at his mercy. No one could see or hear them….
To Yourii such a thought seemed unutterably base. He quickly banished
it, and said:

“Suppose we try?”

His voice trembled. Could Sina have read his thoughts?

“Try what?” she asked. “Suppose I fire?” said Yourii, producing his
revolver.

“Will the earth fall in on us?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, though he felt certain that nothing would
happen. “Are you afraid?”

“Oh no! Fire away!” said Sina, as she retreated a step or so. Holding
out the revolver, he fired. There was a flash, and a dense cloud of
smoke enveloped them, as the echo of the report slowly died away.

“There! That’s all,” said Yourii.

“Let us go back.”

They retraced their steps, but as Sina walked on in front of Yourii the
sight of her round, firm hips again brought sensuous thoughts to his
mind that he found it hard to ignore.

“I say, Sina Karsavina!” His voice faltered. “I am going to ask you an
interesting psychological question. How was it that you did not feel
afraid to come here with me? You said yourself that if we screamed no
one would hear us…. You don’t know me in the least!”

Sina blushed in the darkness and was silent. At last she murmured.
“Because I thought that you were to be trusted.”

“And suppose that you had been mistaken?”

“Then, I should … have drowned myself,” said Sina almost inaudibly.

The words filled Yourii with pity. His passion subsided, and he felt
suddenly solaced.

“What a good little girl!” he thought, sincerely touched by such frank,
simple modesty.

Proud of her reply, and gratified by his silent approval, Sina smiled
at him, as they returned to the entrance of the cavern. Meanwhile she
kept wondering why his question had not seemed offensive or shameful to
her, but, on the contrary, quite agreeable.




CHAPTER VI.


After waiting a while at the entrance, and making sundry jokes at the
expense of Sina and Yourii, the others wandered along the river-bank.
The men lit cigarettes and threw the matches into the water, watching
these make large circles on the surface of the stream. Lida, with arms
a-kimbo, tripped along, singing softly as she went, and her pretty
little feet in dainty yellow shoes now and again executed an impromptu
dance. Lialia picked flowers, which she flung at Riasantzeff, caressing
him with her eyes.

“What do you say to a drink?” Ivanoff asked Sanine.

“Splendid idea!” replied the other.

Getting into the boat, they uncorked several bottles of beer and
proceeded to drink.

“Shocking intemperance!” cried Lialia, pelting them with tufts of
grass.

“First-rate stuff!” said Ivanoff, smacking his lips.

Sanine laughed.

“I have often wondered why people are so dead against alcohol,” he said
jestingly. “In my opinion only a drunken man lives his life as it ought
to be lived.”

“That is, like a brute!” replied Novikoff from the bank.

“Very likely,” said Sanine, “but at any rate a drunken man only does
just that which he wants to do. If he has a mind to sing, he sings; if
he wants to dance, he dances; and is not ashamed to be merry and
jolly.”

“And he fights too, sometimes,” remarked Riasantzeff.

“Yes, so he does. That is, when men don’t understand how to drink.”

“And do you like fighting when you are drunk?” asked Novikoff.

“No,” replied Sanine, “I’d rather fight when I am sober, but when I’m
drunk I’m the most good-natured person imaginable, for I have forgotten
so much that is mean and vile.”

“Everybody is not like that,” said Riasantzeff.

“I’m sorry for them, that’s all,” replied Sanine. “Besides, what others
are like does not interest me in the least.”

“One can hardly say that,” observed Novikoff.

“Why not, if it is the truth?”

“A fine truth, indeed!” exclaimed Lialia, shaking her head.

“The finest I know, anyhow,” replied Ivanoff for Sanine.

Lida, who had been singing loudly, suddenly stopped, looking vexed.

“They don’t seem in any hurry,” she said.

“Why should they hurry?” replied Ivanoff, “It is a great mistake to do
anything in a hurry.”

“And Sina, I suppose she is the heroine _sans peur et sans reproche_?”
said Lida ironically.

Tanaroff’s thoughts were too much for him at this juncture. He burst
out laughing, and then looked thoroughly sheepish. Lida, her hands on
her hips and swaying gracefully to and fro, turned to look at him.

“I dare say they are enjoying themselves,” she observed with a shrug of
the shoulders.

“Hark!” said Riasantzeff, as the sound of firing reached them.

“That was a shot,” exclaimed Schafroff.

“What’s the meaning of it?” cried Lialia, as she nervously clung to her
lover’s arm.

“Don’t be frightened! If it is a wolf, at this time of year they are
tame, and would never attack two people.” Thus Riasantzeff sought to
reassure her, while secretly annoyed at Yourii’s childish freak.

“Tomfoolery!” growled Schafroff, who was equally vexed.

“They are coming, they are coming! Don’t worry!” said Lida
contemptuously.

A sound of footsteps could now be heard, and soon Sina and Yourii
emerged from the darkness.

Yourii blew out the light and smiled uneasily, as he was not sure of
his reception. He was covered with yellow clay, and Sina’s shoulder
bore traces of this, for she had rubbed against the side of the cavern.

“Well?” asked Semenoff languidly.

“It was quite interesting in there,” said Yourii half apologetically.
“Only the passage does not lead very far. It has been filled up. We saw
some rotten planks lying about.”

“Did you hear us fire?” asked Sina, and her eyes sparkled.

“My friends,” shouted Ivanoff, interrupting, “we have drunk all the
beer, and our souls are abundantly refreshed. Let us be going.”

By the time that the boat reached a broader part of the stream the moon
had already risen. It was a strangely calm, clear evening. Above and
below, in the heaven as in the river, the golden stars gleamed. It was
as if the boat was suspended between two fathomless spaces. The dark
woods at the edge of the stream had a look of mystery. A nightingale
sang, and all listened in silence, not believing it to be a bird, but
rather some joyous dreamer in the gloom. Removing her large straw hat,
Sina Karsavina now began to sing a Russian popular air, sweet and sad
like all Russian songs. Her voice, a high soprano, though not powerful,
was sympathetic in quality.

Ivanoff muttered, “That’s sweet!” and Sanine exclaimed “Charming!” When
she had finished they all clapped their hands and the sound was echoed
strangely in the dark woods on either side.

“Sing something else, Sinotschka!” cried Lialia; “or, better still,
recite one of your own poems.”

“So you’re a poetess, too?” asked Ivanoff. “How many gifts does the
good God bestow upon his creatures!”

“Is that a bad thing?” asked Sina in confusion.

“No, it’s a very good thing,” replied Sanine.

“If a girl’s got youth and good looks, what does she want with poetry,
I should like to know?” observed Ivanoff.

“Never mind! Recite something, Sinotschka, do!” cried Lialia, amorous
and tender.

Sina smiled, and looked away self-consciously before she began to
recite in her clear, musical voice the following lines:

Oh! love, my own true love,
To thee I’ll never tell it,
Never to thee I’ll tell my burning love!
But I will close these amorous eyes,
And they shall guard my secret well.
Only by days of yearning is it known.
The calm blue nights, the golden stars,
The dreaming woods that whisper in the night,
These, yes, they know it, but are dumb;
They will not show the mystery of my great love.


Once more there was great enthusiasm, and they all loudly applauded
Sina, not because her little poem was a good one, but because it was
expressive of their mood, and because they were all longing for love
and love’s delicious sorrow.

“O Night, O Day! O lustrous eyes of Sina, I pray you tell me that it is
I, the happy man!” cried Ivanoff ecstatically in a deep bass voice
which startled them all.

“Well, I can assure you that it is not you,” replied Semenoff.

“Ah! woe is me!” wailed Ivanoff; and everybody laughed.

“Are my verses bad?” Sina asked Yourii.

He did not think that they had much originality, for they reminded him
of hundreds of similar effusions. But Sina was so pretty and looked at
him with those dark eyes of hers in such a pleading way that he gravely
replied:

“I thought them quite charming and melodious.”

Sina smiled, surprised that such praise could please her so much.

“Ah! you don’t know my Sinotschka yet!” said Lialia, “she is all that
is beautiful and melodious.”

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Ivanoff.

“Yes, indeed I do!” persisted Lialia. “Her voice is beautiful and
melodious, and so are her poems; she herself is a beauty; her name,
even, is beautiful and melodious.”

“Oh! my goodness! What more can you say than that!” cried Ivanoff. “But
I am quite of your opinion.”

At all these compliments Sina blushed with pleasure and confusion.

“It is time to go home,” said Lida abruptly. She did not like to hear
Sina praised, for she considered herself far prettier, cleverer, and
more interesting.

“Are you going to sing something?” asked Sanine.

“No,” she replied, “I am not in voice.”

“It really is time to be going,” observed Riasantzeff, for he
remembered that early next morning he must be in the dissecting-room of
the hospital. All the others wished that they could have stayed for a
while. On their homeward way they were silent, feeling tired and
contented. As before, though unseen, the tall stems of the grasses bent
beneath the carriage-wheels, and the dust soon settled on the white
road again. The bare grey fields looked vast and limitless in the faint
light of the moon.




CHAPTER VII.


Three days afterwards, late in the evening, Lida came home sad, tired,
and heavy-hearted. On reaching her room, she stood still, with hands
clasped, and stared at the floor. She suddenly realized, to her horror,
that in her relations with Sarudine she had gone too far. For the first
time since that strange moment of irreparable weakness she perceived
what a humiliating hold this empty-headed officer had over her,
inferior as he was to herself in every way. She must now come if he
called; she could no longer trifle with him as she liked, submitting to
his kisses or laughingly resisting them. Now, like a slave, she must
endure and obey.

How this had come about she could not comprehend. As always, she had
ruled him, had borne with his amorous attentions; all had been as
agreeable, amusing, and exciting, as heretofore. Then came a moment
when her whole frame seemed on fire and her brain clouded as by a mist,
annihilating all except the one mad desire to plunge into the abyss. It
was as if the earth gave way beneath her feet; she lost control of her
limbs, conscious only of two magnetic eyes that gazed boldly into hers.
Her whole being was thrilled and shaken with passion; she became the
sacrifice of overwhelming lust; and yet she longed once more that such
passionate experiences might be repeated. At the very thought of it all
Lida trembled; she raised her shoulders and hid her face in her hands.
With faltering steps she crossed the room and opened the window. For a
long while she gazed at the moon that hung just above the garden, and
in distant foliage a nightingale sang. Grief oppressed her. She felt
strangely agitated by a sense of remorse and of wounded pride to think
that she had ruined her life for a silly, shallow man, and that her
false step had been foolish, base, and, indeed, accidental. The future
seemed threatening; but she sought to dissipate her fears by obstinate
bravado.

“Well, I did it, and there’s an end of it!” she said to herself,
frowning, and striving to find some sort of grim satisfaction from this
hackneyed phrase. “What nonsense it all is! I wanted to do it and I did
it; and I felt so happy—oh, so happy! It would have been silly not to
enjoy myself when the moment came. I must not think of it; it can’t be
helped, now.”

She languidly withdrew from the window and began to undress, letting
her clothes slip from her on to the floor. “After all, one only lives
once,” she thought, shivering at the touch of the cool night air on her
bare shoulders and arms. “What should I have gained by waiting till I
was lawfully married? And of what good would that have been to me? It’s
all the same thing! What is there to worry about?”

All at once it seemed to her that in this hazard she had got all that
was best and most interesting; and that now, free as a bird an eventful
life of happiness and pleasure lay before her.

“I’ll love if I will; if I don’t, then I won’t!” sang Lida softly to
herself, thinking meanwhile that her voice was a much better one than
Sina Karsavina’s. “Oh! it’s all nonsense! If I like, I’ll give myself
to the devil!” Thus she made sudden answer to her thoughts, holding her
bare arms above her head so that her bosom shook.

“Aren’t you asleep yet, Lida?” said Sanine’s voice outside the window.

Lida started back in alarm, and then, with a smile, flung a shawl round
her shoulders as she approached the window.

“What a fright you gave me!” she said.

Sanine came nearer and leant with both elbows on the window-sill. His
eyes shone, and he smiled.

“There was no need for that!” he muttered playfully.

Lida looked round.

“Without a shawl you looked much nicer,” he said in a low voice,
impressively.

Lida looked at him in amazement, and instinctively drew the shawl
tighter round her.

Sanine laughed. In confusion, she also leant upon the window-sill, and
now she felt his breath on her cheek.

“What a beauty you are!” he said.

Lida glanced swiftly at him, fearful of what she thought she could read
in his face. With her whole body she felt that her brother’s eyes were
fixed upon her, and she turned away in horror. It was so terrible, so
loathsome, that her heart seemed frozen. Every man looked at her just
like that, and she liked it, but for her brother to do so was
incredible, impossible. Recovering herself, she said, smiling:

“Yes, I know.”

Sanine calmly watched her. The shawl and her chemise had slipped when
she leant on the window-sill, and partly disclosed her tender bosom,
white in the moonlight.

“Men always build up a Wall of China between themselves and happiness,”
he said in a low, trembling voice. Lida was terrified.

“How do you mean?” she asked faintly, her eyes still fixed on the
garden for fear of encountering his. To her it seemed that something
was going to happen of which one hardly dared to think. Yet she had no
doubt as to what it was. It was awful, hideous, and yet interesting.
Her brain was on fire; she could scarcely see, as with horror and yet
with curiosity she felt hot breath against her cheek that stirred her
hair and sent shivers through her frame.

“Why, like this!” replied Sanine, and his voice faltered.

As if by an electric shock, Lida started backwards and, without knowing
what she did, leant over the table and blew out the light.

“It is bed-time,” she said, and shut the window.

The light having been extinguished, it seemed less dark out of doors,
and Sanine’s figure was clearly discernible, his features appearing
blueish in the moonlight. He stood in the long, dew-drenched grass and
smiled.

Lida left the window and sat down mechanically on her bed. She trembled
in every limb, unable to collect her thoughts, and the sound of
Sanine’s footsteps on the grass outside set her heart beating
violently.

“Am I going mad?” she asked herself in disgust. “How awful! A chance
phrase like that to put such thoughts into my head! Is this erotomania?
Am I really so bad, so depraved? I must have sunk very low to think of
such a thing!”

Burying her face in the pillows, she wept bitterly.

“Why am I weeping?” she thought, not knowing the reason for such tears,
but feeling miserable, humiliated, and unhappy. She wept because she
had yielded herself to Sarudine, because she was no longer a proud,
pure maiden, and because of that insulting, horrible look in her
brother’s eyes. Formerly he would never have looked at her like that.
It was, so she thought, because she had fallen.

But the bitterest, most harassing thought of all was that she had now
become a woman, and that as long as she was young, strong, and good-
looking her best powers must be at the service of men and devoted to
their gratification, while the greater the enjoyment she procured for
them and for herself the more would they despise her.

“Why should they? Who gave them this right? Am I not free just as much
as they are?” she asked herself, as she gazed into the dreary darkness
of her room. “Shall I never get to know another, better life?”

Her whole youthful physique imperiously told her that she had a right
to take from life all that was interesting, pleasurable and necessary
to her; and that she had a right to do whatever she chose with her
strong, beautiful body that belonged to her alone. But this idea was
lost in a tangle of confused and conflicting thoughts.




CHAPTER VIII.


For some time past Yourii Svarogitsch had been working at painting, of
which he was fond, and to which he devoted all his spare time. It had
once been his dream to become an artist, but want of money, in the
first place, and also his political activity prevented this, so that
now he painted occasionally, as a pastime, without any special end in
view.

For this reason, indeed, and because he had no training, art gave him
no pleasant satisfaction; it was a source of chagrin and of
disenchantment. Whenever his work did not prove successful, he became
irritable and depressed; if, on the other hand, it came out well, he
fell into a sort of gloomy reverie, conscious of the futility of his
efforts that brought him neither happiness nor success. Yourii had
taken a great fancy to Sina Karsavina. He liked tall, well-formed young
women with fine voices and romantic eyes. He thought her beauty and
purity of soul were what attracted him, though really it was because
she was handsome and desirable. However, he tried to persuade himself
that, for him, her charm was a spiritual, not a physical one, this
being, as he thought, a nobler, finer definition, though it was
precisely this maidenly purity and innocence of hers which fired his
blood and aroused desire. Ever since the evening when he first met her,
he had felt a vague yet vehement longing to sully her innocence, a
longing indeed that the presence of any handsome woman provoked.

And now that his thoughts were set on a comely girl, blithe, wholesome,
and full of the joy of life, Yourii had an idea that he would paint
Life. As most new ideas were wont to do, this one stirred him to
enthusiasm, and on this occasion he believed that he would bring his
task to a successful end.

Having prepared a huge canvas, he set to work with feverish haste, as
if he dreaded delay. When he first touched the canvas with colour,
producing a harmonious and pleasing effect, he felt a thrill of
delight, and the picture that was to be stood clearly before him with
all its details. As, however, the work progressed, so technical
difficulties became more numerous, and with these Yourii felt unable to
cope. All that in his imagination seemed luminous and beautiful and
strong, became thin and feeble on the canvas. Details no longer
fascinated him, but were annoying and depressing. In fact, he ignored
them and began to paint in a broad, slap-dash style. Thus, instead of a
clear, powerful portrayal of life, the picture became ever more plain
of a tawdry, slovenly female. There was nothing original or charming
about such a dull stereotyped piece of work, so he thought; a veritable
imitation of a Moukh drawing, banal in idea as in execution; and, as
usual, Yourii became sad and gloomy.

Had it not for some reason or other seemed shameful to weep, he would
have wept, hiding his face in the pillow, and sobbing aloud. He longed
to complain to some one about something, but not about his own
incompetence. Instead of this he gazed ruefully at the picture thinking
that life generally was tedious and sad and feeble, containing nothing
of interest to him, personally. It horrified him to look forward to
living, as he would have to do, for many years in this little town.

“Why, it is simply death!” thought Yourii, as his brow grew cold as
ice. Then he felt a desire to paint “Death.” Seizing a knife, he
angrily began to scrape off his picture of “Life.” It vexed him that
that which he had wrought with such enthusiasm should disappear with
such difficulty. The colour did not come off easily; the knife slipped
and twice cut the canvas. Then he found that chalk would make no mark
on the oil paint. This greatly troubled him. With a brush he commenced
to sketch in his subject in ochre, and then painted slowly, carelessly,
in a spiritless, dejected way. His present work, however, did not lose,
but gained by such slipshod methods and by the dull, heavy colour
scheme. The original idea of “Death” soon disappeared of itself; and so
Yourii proceeded to depict “Old Age” as a lean hag tottering along a
rough road in the dusk. The sun had sunk, and against the livid sky
sombre crosses were seen _en silhouette_. Beneath the weight of a heavy
black coffin the woman’s bony shoulders were bent, and her expression
was mournful and despairing, as with one foot she touched the brink of
an open grave. It was a picture appalling in its misery and gloom. At
lunch-time they sent for Yourii, but he did not go, and continued
working. Later on, Novikoff came to tell him something, but he neither
listened nor replied. Novikoff sighed, and sat down on the sofa. He
liked to be quiet and think matters over. He only came to see Yourii
because, at home, by himself, he was sad and worried. Lida’s refusal
still distressed him, and he could not be sure if he felt grieved or
humiliated. As a straightforward, indolent fellow, he had so far heard
nothing of the local gossip concerning Lida and Sarudine. He was not
jealous, but only sorrowful that the dream which brought happiness so
near to him had fled.

Novikoff thought that his life was a failure, but it never occurred to
him to end it, since to live on was futile. On the contrary, now that
his life had become a torture to him, he considered that it was his
duty to devote it to others, putting his own happiness aside. Without
being able to account for it, he had a vague desire to throw up
everything and go to St. Petersburg where he could renew his connection
with “the party” and rush headlong to death. This was a fine, lofty
thought, so he believed, and the knowledge that it was his lessened his
grief, and even gladdened him. He became grand in his own eyes, crowned
as with a shining aureole, and his sadly reproachful attitude towards
Lida almost moved him to tears.

Then he suddenly felt bored. Yourii went on painting, and gave him no
attention whatever. Novikoff got up lazily and approached the picture.
It was still unfinished, and for that reason produced the effect of a
somewhat powerful sketch. Yourii had got as far as he could go.
Novikoff thought it was wonderful, as with open mouth he gazed in
childish admiration at the artist.

“Well?” said Yourii, stepping backwards.

Personally, he thought it the most interesting picture that he had ever
seen, though certainly it had defects both obvious and considerable.
Why he was of this opinion he could not tell, but if Novikoff had
thought the picture a bad one, he would have felt thoroughly hurt and
annoyed. However, Novikoff murmured ecstatically,

“Ve … ry fine indeed!”

Yourii felt as if he were a genius despising his own work. He sighed
and flung down his brush which stained the edge of the couch, and he
moved away without looking at the picture.

“Ah! my friend!” he exclaimed. He was on the point of confessing to
himself and to Novikoff the doubt which destroyed his pleasure in
succeeding, as he felt that he could never do anything with what was
now a promising sketch. However, after a moment of reflection he merely
said:

“All that is of no use at all!”

Novikoff thought that this was pose on his friend’s part, and mindful
of his own bitter disappointment he inwardly observed:

“That’s true.”

Then after a while he asked:

“How do you mean that it is of no use?”

To this question Yourii could give no exact answer, and he remained
silent. Novikoff examined the picture once more, and then lay down on
the sofa.

“I read your article in the _Krai_,” he said. “It was pretty hot.”

“The deuce take it!” replied Yourii, angrily, yet unable to account for
his anger, as he remembered Semenoff’s words. “What good will it do? It
won’t stop executions and robberies and violence; they will go on just
as before. Articles won’t help matters. For what purpose, pray? To be
read by two or three idiots! Much good that is! After all, what
business is it of mine? And why dash one’s brains out against a wall?”

Passing before his eyes, Yourii seemed to see the early years of his
political activity; the secret meetings, propaganda, risks and
reverses, his own enthusiasm and the profound apathy of those whom he
was so eager to save. He walked up and down the room, gesticulating.

“Then, it is not worth while doing anything,” drawled Novikoff, and,
thinking of Sanine, he added,

“Egoists, that’s all you are!”

“No, it’s not!” replied Yourii vehemently, influenced by his memories
of the past and by the dusk that gave a grey look to all things in the
room.

“If one speaks of Humanity, of what good are all our efforts in the
cause of constitutions or of revolutions if one cannot even
approximately estimate what humanity really requires? Perhaps in this
liberty of which we dream lie the germs of future degeneracy, and man,
having realized his ideal, will go back, walking once more on all
fours? Thus, all would have to be recommenced. And if I care for
nothing but myself, what then? What do I gain by it? The most I could
do would be to get fame by my talents and achievements, intoxicated by
the respect of my inferiors, that is to say by the respect of those
whom I do not esteem and whose veneration ought to be valueless to me.
And then? To go on living, living, until the grave—nothing after that!
And the crown of laurels would fit my skull so closely, that I should
soon find it irksome!”

“Always about himself!” muttered Novikoff, mockingly.

Yourii did not hear him, being morbidly pleased with his own eloquence.
There was a beautiful gloom about his utterances, so he thought; they
seemed to ennoble him, to heighten his sense of self-respect.

“At the worst, I should become a genius misjudged, a ridiculous
dreamer, a theme for humorous tales, a foolish individual, of no use to
anybody!”

“Aha!” cried Novikoff, as he rose from the couch, “Of no use to
anybody. You admit that yourself, then?”

“How absurd you are!” exclaimed Yourii, “do you really think that I
don’t know for what to live and in what to believe? Possibly I should
gladly submit to crucifixion if I believed that my death could save the
world. But I don’t believe this; and whatever I did would never alter
the course of history; moreover, my help would be so slight, so
insignificant, that the world would not have suffered a jot if I had
never existed. Yet, for the sake of such infinitesimal help, I am
obliged to live, and suffer, and sorrowfully wait for death.”

Yourii did not perceive that he was now talking of something quite
different, replying, not to Novikoff, but to his own strange,
depressing thoughts. Suddenly he remembered Semenoff, and stopped
short. A cold shiver ran down his spine.

“The fact is, I dread the inevitable,” he said in a low tone, as he
looked stolidly at the darkening window. “It is natural, I know, and
that I can do nothing to avoid it, but yet it is awful—hideous!”

Novikoff, though inwardly horrified at the truth of such a statement,
replied:

“Death is a necessary physiological phenomenon.”

“What a fool!” thought Yourii, as he irritably exclaimed,

“Good gracious me! What does it matter if our death is necessary to
anyone else or not?”

“How about your crucifixion?”

“That is a different thing,” replied Yourii, with some hesitation.

“You are contradicting yourself,” observed Novikoff in a slightly
patronising tone.

This greatly annoyed Yourii. Thrusting his fingers through his unkempt
black hair, he vehemently retorted:

“I never contradict myself. It stands to reason that if, of my own free
will, I choose to die—”

“It’s all the same,” continued Novikoff obdurately, in the same tone.
“All of you want fireworks, applause, and the rest of it. It’s nothing
else but egoism!”

“What if it is? That won’t alter matters.”

The discussion became confused. Yourii felt that he had not meant to
say that, but the thread escaped him which a moment before had seemed
so clear and tense. He paced up and down the room, endeavouring to
overcome his vexation, as he said to himself.

“Sometimes one is not in the humour. At other times one can speak as
clearly as if the words were set before one’s eyes. Sometimes I seem to
be tongue-tied, and I express myself clumsily. Yes, that often
happens.”

They were both silent. Yourii at last stopped by the window and took up
his cap.

“Let us go for a stroll,” he said.

“All right,” Novikoff readily assented, secretly hoping, while joyful
yet distressed, that he might meet Lida Sanine.




CHAPTER IX.


They walked up and down the boulevard once or twice, meeting no one
they knew, and they listened to the band which was playing as usual in
the garden. It was a very poor performance; the music being harsh and
discordant, but at a distance it sounded languorous and sad. They only
met men and women joking and laughing, whose noisy merriment seemed at
variance with the mournful music and the dreary evening. It irritated
Yourii. At the end of the boulevard Sanine joined them, greeting them
effusively. Yourii did not like him, so conversation was scarcely
brisk. Sanine kept on laughing at everybody he saw. Later on they met
Ivanoff, and Sanine went off with him.

“Where are you going?” asked Novikoff.

“To treat my friend,” replied Ivanoff, producing a bottle of vodka
which he showed to them in triumph.

Sanine laughed.

To Yourii this vodka and laughter seemed singularly coarse and vulgar.
He turned away in disgust. Sanine observed this, but said nothing.

“God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men,” exclaimed Ivanoff
mockingly.

Yourii reddened. “A stale joke like that into the bargain!” he thought,
as, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, he walked away.

“Novikoff, guileless Pharisee, come along with us!” cried Ivanoff.

“What for?”

“To have a drink.”

Novikoff glanced round him ruefully, but Lida was not to be seen.

“Lida is at home, doing penance for her sins!” laughed Sanine.

“What nonsense!” exclaimed Novikoff testily. “I’ve got to see a
patient…”

“Who is quite able to die without your help,” said Ivanoff. “For that
matter, we can polish off the vodka without your help, either.”

“Suppose I get drunk?” thought Novikoff. “All right! I’ll come,” he
said.

As they went away, Yourii could hear at a distance Ivanoff’s gruff bass
voice and Sanine’s careless, merry laugh. He walked once more along the
boulevard. Girlish voices called to him through the dusk. Sina
Karsavina and the school-mistress Dubova were sitting on a bench. It
was now getting dark, and their figures were hardly discernible. They
wore dark dresses, were without hats, and carried books in their hands.
Yourii hastened to join them.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“At the library,” replied Sina.

Without speaking, her companion moved to make room for Yourii who would
have preferred to sit next to Sina, but, being shy, he took a seat
beside the ugly schoolteacher, Dubova.

“Why do you look so utterly miserable?” asked Dubova, pursing up her
thin, dry lips, as was her wont.

“What makes you think that I am miserable? On the contrary I am in
excellent spirits. Somewhat bored, perhaps.”

“Ah! that’s because you’ve nothing to do,” said Dubova.

“Have you so much to do, then?”

“At any rate, I have not the time to weep.”

“I am not weeping, am I?”

“Well,” said Dubova, teasing him, “you’re in the sulks.”

“My life,” replied Yourii, “has caused me to forget what laughing is.”

This was said in such a bitter tone that there was a sudden silence.

“A friend of mine told me that my life is most instructive,” said
Yourii after a pause, though no one had ever made such a statement to
him.

“In what way?” asked Sina cautiously.

“As an example of how not to live.”

“Oh! do tell us all about it. Perhaps we might profit by the lesson,”
said Dubova.

Yourii considered that his life was an absolute failure, and that he
himself was the most luckless and wretched of men. In such a belief
there lay a certain mournful solace, and it was pleasant to him to
complain about his own life and mankind in general. To men he never
spoke of such things, feeling instinctively that they would not believe
him, but to women, especially if they were young and pretty, he was
ever ready to talk at length about himself. He was good-looking, and
talked well, so women always felt for him affectionate pity. On this
occasion also, if jocular at the outset, Yourii relapsed into his usual
tone; discoursing at great length about his own life. From his own
description he appeared to be a man of extraordinary powers, cramped
and crushed by the force of circumstances, misunderstood by his party,
and one who by unlucky chance and human folly was doomed to be just a
mere student in exile instead of a leader of the people! Like all
extremely self-satisfied persons Yourii entirely failed to perceive
that all this in no way proved his extraordinary powers, and that men
of genius were surrounded by just such associates, and hampered by just
such misfortunes. It seemed to him that he alone was the victim of an
inexorable destiny. As he talked well and with great vivacity and
point, what he said sounded true enough, so that girls believed him,
pitied him, and sympathized with him in his misfortunes. The band was
still playing its sad, discordant tunes, the evening was gloomy and
depressing, and they all three felt in a melancholy mood. When Yourii
ceased talking, Dubova, meditating on her own dull, monotonous
existence and vanishing youth without joy or love, asked him in a low
voice,

“Tell me, Yourii, has the thought of suicide never crossed your mind?”

“Why do you ask me that?”

“Oh! well, I don’t know …”

They said no more.

“You are on the committee, aren’t you?” asked Sina eagerly.

“Yes,” replied Yourii curtly, as if unwilling to admit the fact, but in
reality pleased to do so, because he thought that to this charming girl
he would appear weirdly interesting. He then walked back with them to
their house, and on the way they laughed and talked much. All
depression had vanished.

“How nice he is!” said Sina, when Yourii had gone.

Dubova shook her finger threateningly:

“Mind that you don’t fall in love with him.”

“What an idea!” laughed Sina, though secretly afraid.

Yourii reached home in a brighter, more hopeful mood. He went to look
at the picture that he had begun. It produced no impression upon him,
and he lay down contentedly to sleep. That night in dreams he had
visions of fair women, radiant and alluring.




CHAPTER X.


On the following evening Yourii went to the same spot where he had met
Sina Karsavina and her companion. Throughout the day he had thought
with pleasure of his talk with them on the previous evening, and he
hoped to meet them again, discuss the same subjects, and perceive the
same look of sympathy and tenderness in Sina’s gentle eyes.

It was a calm evening. The air was warm, and a slight dust floated
above the streets. Except for one or two passers-by, the boulevard was
absolutely deserted. Yourii walked slowly along, his eyes fixed on the
ground.

“How boring!” he thought. “What am I to do?”

Suddenly Schafroff, the student, walking briskly, and, swinging his
arm, approached him with a friendly smile on his face.

“Why are you dawdling along like this, eh?” he asked, stopping short,
and giving Yourii a big, strong hand.

“Oh! I am bored to death, and there’s nothing to do. Where are you
going?” asked Yourii, in a languid, patronizing tone. He always spoke
thus to Schafroff, because, as a former member of the revolutionary
committee he looked upon the lad as just an amateur revolutionist.
Schafroff smiled as one thoroughly pleased with himself.

“We have got a lecture to-day,” he said, pointing to a packet of thin
pamphlets in coloured wrappers. Yourii mechanically took one, and,
opening it, read the long, dry preface to a popular Socialistic
address, once well known to him, but which he had quite forgotten.

“Where is the lecture to be given?” he asked with the same slightly
contemptuous smile as he handed back the pamphlet.

“At the school,” replied Schafroff, mentioning the one at which Sina
Karsavina and Dubova were teachers. Yourii remembered that Lialia had
once told him about these lectures, but he had paid no attention.

“May I come with you?” he asked.

“Why, of course!” replied Schafroff, eager to assent to this proposal.
He looked upon Yourii as a real agitator, and, over-estimating his
political abilities, felt a reverence for him that bordered on
affection.

“I am greatly interested in such matters.” Yourii felt it necessary to
say this, being all the while glad that he had now got an engagement
for the evening, and that he would see Sina again.

“Why, yes, of course,” said Schafroff.

“Then, let us go.”

They walked quickly along the boulevard and crossed the bridge, from
each side of which came humid airs, and they soon reached the school
where people had already assembled.

In the large, dark room with its rows of benches and desks the white
cloth used for the magic lantern was dimly visible, and there were
sounds of suppressed laughter. At the window, through which could be
seen the dark green boughs of trees in twilight, stood Lialia and
Dubova. They gleefully greeted Yourii.

“I am so glad that you have come!” said Lialia.

Dubova shook him vigorously by the hand.

“Why don’t you begin?” asked Yourii, as he furtively glanced round,
hoping to see Sina.

“So Sinaida Pavlovna doesn’t attend these lectures?” he observed with
evident disappointment.

At that moment a lucifer-match flashed close to the lecturer’s desk on
the platform, illuminating Sina’s features. The light shone upon her
pretty fresh face; she was smiling gaily.

“Don’t I attend these lectures?” she exclaimed, as, bending down to
Yourii, she held out her hand. He gladly grasped it without speaking,
and leaning lightly on him she sprang from the platform. He felt her
sweet, wholesome breath close to his face.

“It is time to begin,” said Schafroff, who came in from the adjoining
room.

The school attendant with heavy tread walked round the room, lighting
one by one the large lamps which soon shed a bright light. Schafroff
opened the door leading to the passage, and said in a loud voice: “This
way, please!”

Shyly at first, and then in noisy haste, the people entered the
lecture-room. Yourii scrutinized them closely; his keen interest as a
propagandist was roused. There were old folk, young men, and children.
No one sat in the front row; but, later on, it was filled by several
ladies whom Yourii did not know; by the fat school-inspector; and by
masters and mistresses of the elementary school for boys and girls. The
rest of the room was full of men in caftans and long coats, soldiers,
peasants, women, and a great many children in coloured shirts and
frocks.

Yourii sat beside Sina at a desk and listened while Schafroff read,
calmly, but badly, a paper on universal suffrage. He had a hard,
monotonous voice and everything he read sounded like a column of
statistics. Yet everybody listened attentively with the exception of
the intellectual people in the front row, who soon grew restless and
began whispering to each other. This annoyed Yourii, and he felt sorry
that Schafroff should read so badly. The latter was obviously tired, so
Yourii said to Sina:

“Suppose I finish reading it for him? What do you say?”

Sina shot a kindly glance at him from beneath her drooping eye-lashes.

“Oh! yes, do read! I wish you would.”

“Do you think it will matter?” he whispered, smiling at her as if she
were his accomplice.

“Matter? Not in the least. Everybody will be delighted.”

During a pause, she suggested this to Schafroff, who being tired and
aware how badly he had read, accepted with pleasure.

“Of course! By all means!” he exclaimed, as usual, giving up his place
to Yourii.

Yourii was fond of reading, and read excellently. Without looking at
anyone, he walked to the desk on the platform and began in a loud, well
modulated voice. Twice he looked down at Sina, and each time he
encountered her bright, expressive glance. He smiled at her in pleasure
and confusion, and then, turning to his book, began to read louder and
with greater emphasis. To him it seemed as if he were doing a most
excellent and interesting thing. When he had finished, there was some
applause in the front seats. Yourii bowed gravely, and as he left the
platform he smiled at Sina as much as to say, “I did that for your
sake.” There was some murmuring, and a noise of chairs being pushed
back as the listeners rose to go. Yourii was introduced to two ladies
who complimented him on his performance. Then the lamps were put out
and the room became dark.

“Thank you very much,” said Schafroff as he warmly shook Yourii’s hand.
“I wish that we always had some one to read to us like that.”

Lecturing was his business, and so he felt obliged to Yourii as if the
latter had done him a personal service, although he thanked him in the
name of the people. Schafroff laid stress on the word “people.” “So
little is done here for the people,” he said, as if he were telling
Yourii a great secret, “and if anything _is_ done, it is in a half-
hearted, careless way. It is most extraordinary. To amuse a parcel of
bored gentlefolk dozens of first-rate actors, singers and lecturers are
engaged, but for the people a lecturer like myself is quite good
enough.” Schafroff smiled at his own bland irony. “Everybody’s quite
satisfied. What more do they want?”

“That is quite true,” said Dubova. “Whole columns in the newspapers are
devoted to actors and their wonderful performances; it is positively
revolting; whereas here …”

“Yet what a good work we’re doing!” said Schafroff, with conviction, as
he gathered his pamphlets together.

“Sancta Simplicitas!” ejaculated Yourii inwardly.

Sina’s presence, however, and his own success inclined him to be
tolerant. Indeed Schafroff’s utter ingenuousness almost touched him.

“Where shall we go now?” asked Dubova, as they came out into the
street.

Outside it was not nearly so dark as in the lecture-room, and in the
sky a few stars shone.

“Schafroff and I are going to the Ratoffs,” said Dubova. “Will you take
Sina home?”

“With pleasure,” said Yourii.

Sina lodged with Dubova in a small house that stood in a large, barren-
looking garden. All the way thither she and Yourii talked of the
lecture and its impression upon them, so that Yourii felt more and more
convinced that he had done a good and great thing. As they reached the
house, Sina said:

“Won’t you come in for a moment?” Yourii gladly accepted. She opened
the gate, and they crossed a little grass-grown courtyard beyond which
lay the garden.

“Go into the garden, will you?” said Sina, laughing. “I would ask you
to come indoors, but I am afraid things are rather untidy, as I have
been out ever since the morning.”

She went in, and Yourii sauntered towards the green, fragrant garden.
He did not go far, but stopped to look round with intense curiosity at
the dark windows of the house, as if something were happening there,
something strangely beautiful and mysterious. Sina appeared in the
doorway. Yourii hardly recognized her. She had changed her black dress,
and now wore the costume of Little Russia, a thin bodice cut low, with
short sleeves and a blue skirt.

“Here I am!” she said, smiling.

“So I see!” replied Yourii with a certain mysterious emphasis that she
alone could appreciate.

She smiled once more, and looked sideways, as they walked along the
garden-path between long grasses and branches of lilac. The trees were
small ones, most of them being cherry-trees, whose young leaves had an
odour of resinous gum. Behind the garden there was a meadow where wild
flowers bloomed amid the long grass.

“Let us sit down here,” said Sina.

They sat down by the, fence that was falling to pieces, and looked
across the meadow at the dying sunset. Yourii caught hold of a slender
lilac-branch, from which fell a shower of dew.

“Shall I sing something to you?” asked Sina.

“Oh! yes, do!” replied Yourii.

As on the evening of the picnic, Sina breathed deeply, and her comely
bust was clearly denned beneath the thin bodice, as she began to sing,
“Oh, beauteous Star of Love.” Pure and passionate, her notes floated
out on the evening air. Yourii remained motionless, gazing at her, with
bated breath. She felt that his eyes were upon her, and, closing her
own, she sang on with greater sweetness and fervour. There was silence
everywhere as if all things were listening; Yourii thought of the
mysterious hush of woodlands in spring when a nightingale sings.

As Sina ceased on a clear, high note, the silence seemed yet more
intense. The sunset light had faded; the sky grew dark and more vast.
The leaves and the grass quivered imperceptibly; across the meadow and
through the garden there passed a soft, perfumed breeze; faint as a
sigh. Sina’s eyes, shining in the gloom, turned to Yourii.

“Why so silent?” she asked.

“It is almost too delightful here!” he murmured, and again he grasped a
dewy branch of lilac.

“Yes, it is very beautiful,” replied Sina dreamily.

“In fact it is beautiful to be alive,” she added.

A thought, vague and disquieting, crossed Yourii’s mind, but it
vanished without taking any clear shape. Some one loudly whistled twice
on the other side of the meadow, and then came silence, as before.

“Do you like Schafroff?” asked Sina suddenly, being inwardly amused at
so apparently inept a question.

Yourii felt a momentary pang of jealousy, but with a slight effort he
replied gravely. “He’s a good fellow.”

“How devoted he is to his work!”

Yourii was silent.

A faint grey mist rose from the meadow and the grass grew paler in the
dew.

“It is getting damp,” said Sina, shivering slightly.

Yourii unconsciously looked at her round, soft shoulders, feeling
instantly confused, and she, aware of his glance became confused also,
although it was pleasant to her.

“Let us go.”

Regretfully they returned along the narrow garden-path, each brushing
lightly against the other at times as they walked. All around seemed
dark and deserted, and Yourii fancied that now the garden’s own life
was about to begin, a life mysterious and to all unknown. Yonder, amid
the trees and across the dew-laden grass strange shadows soon would
steal, as the dusk deepened, and voices whispered in green, silent
places. This he said to Sina, and her dark eyes wistfully peered into
the gloom. If, so Yourii thought, she were suddenly to fling all her
clothing aside, and rush all white and nude and joyous over the dewy
grass towards the dim thicket, this would not be in the least strange,
but beautiful and natural; nor would it disturb the life of the green,
dark garden, but would make this more complete. This, too, he had a
wish to tell her, but he dared not do so, and spoke instead of the
people and of lectures. But their conversation flagged, and then
ceased, as if they were only wasting words. Thus they reached the
gateway in silence, smiling to themselves, brushing the dew from the
branches with their shoulders. Everything seemed as calm and happy and
pensive as they were themselves. As before, the courtyard was dark and
solitary, but the outer gate was open, and a sound of hasty footsteps
in the house could be heard, and of the opening and shutting of
drawers.

“Olga has come back,” said Sina.

“Oh! Sina, is that you?” asked Dubova from within, and the tone of her
voice suggested some sinister occurrence. Pale and agitated, she
appeared in the doorway.

“Where were you? I have been looking for you. Semenoff is dying!” she
said breathlessly.

“What!” exclaimed Sina, horror-struck.

“Yes, he is dying. He broke a blood-vessel. Anatole Pavlovitch says
that he’s done for. They have taken him to the hospital. It was
dreadfully sudden. There we were, at the Ratoffs’, having tea, and he
was so merry, arguing with Novikoff about something or other. Then he
suddenly began to cough, stood up, and staggered, and the blood spurted
out, on to the table-cloth, and into a little saucer of jam … all
black, and clotted….”

“Does he know it himself?” asked Yourii with grim interest. He
instantly remembered the moonlit night, the sombre shadow, and the
weak, broken voice, saying, “You will be alive, and you’ll pass my
grave, and stop, whilst I …”

“Yes, he seems to know,” replied Dubova, with a nervous movement of the
hands. “He looked at us all, and asked ‘What is it?’ And then he shook
from head to foot and said, ‘Already!’ … Oh! isn’t it awful?”

“It’s too shocking!”

All were silent.

It was now quite dark, yet, though the sky was clear, to them it seemed
suddenly to have grown gloomy and sad.

“Death is a horrible thing!” said Yourii, turning pale.

Dubova sighed, and gazed into vacancy. Sina’s chin trembled, and she
smiled helplessly. She could not feel so shocked as the others; young
as she was, and full of life, she could not fix her thoughts on death.
To her it was incredible, inconceivable that on a beautiful summer
evening, radiantly pleasant such as this, some one should have to
suffer and to die. It was natural, of course, but, for some reason or
other, to her it seemed wrong. She was ashamed to have such a feeling,
and strove to suppress it, endeavouring to appear sympathetic, an
effort which made her distress seem greater than that of her
companions.

“Oh! poor fellow! … is he really…?”

Sina wanted to ask: “Is he really going to die very soon?” but the
words stuck in her throat, and she plied Dubova with fatuous and
incoherent questions.

“Anatole Pavlovitch says that he will die to-night or to-morrow
morning,” replied Dubova, in a dull voice.

“Shall we go to him?” whispered Sina. “Or do you think that we had
better not? I don’t know.”

This was the question uppermost in the minds of them all. Should they
go and see Semenoff die? Was it a right or wrong thing to do? They all
wanted to go, and yet were fearful of what they should see. Yourii
shrugged his shoulders.

“Let us go,” he said. “Very likely they won’t admit us, and perhaps,
too—”

“Perhaps he might wish to see some one,” added Dubova, as if relieved.

“Come on! We’ll go!” said Sina with decision.

“Schafroff and Novikoff are there,” added Dubova, as if to justify
herself.

Sina ran indoors to fetch her hat and coat, and then they went sadly
through the town to the large, grey, three-storied building, the
hospital where Semenoff lay dying.

The long, vaulted passages were dark, and smelt strongly of iodoform
and carbolic. As they passed the section for the insane, they heard a
strident, angry voice, but no one was visible. They felt scared, and
anxiously hastened towards a dark little window. An old, grey-haired
peasant, with a long white beard and wearing a large apron came
clattering along the passage in his heavy top-boots to meet them.

“Who is it that you wish to see?” he asked, stopping short.

“A student has been brought here—Semenoff—to-day!” stammered Dubova.

“No. 6, please, upstairs,” said the attendant, and passed on. They
could hear him spit noisily on the flooring and then wipe it with his
foot. Upstairs it was brighter and cleaner; and the ceiling was not
vaulted. A door with “Doctors’ Room” inscribed on it stood ajar. A lamp
was burning in this room where a jingling of bottles and glasses could
be heard. Yourii looked inside, and called out. The jingling ceased,
and Riasantzeff appeared, looking fresh and hearty, as usual.

“Ah!” he exclaimed in a cheery voice, being evidently accustomed to
events such as that which saddened his visitors. “I am on duty to-day.
How do you do, ladies?” Yet, frowning suddenly, he added with grave
significance, “He seems to be still unconscious. Let us go to him.
Novikoff and the others are there.”

As they walked in single file along the clean, bare passage, past big
white doors with black numbers on them, Riasantzeff said:

“A priest has been sent for. It’s astonishing how quickly the end came.
I was amazed. But latterly he caught cold, you know, and that was what
did it. Here we are.”

Riasantzeff opened a white door and went in, the others following in
awkward fashion as they pushed against each other on the threshold.

The room was clean and spacious. Four of the six beds in it were empty,
each one having its coarse grey coverlet folded neatly, and strangely
suggestive of a coffin. On the fifth bed sat a little wizened old man
in a dressing-gown, who glanced timidly at the newcomers; and on the
sixth bed, beneath a similar coarse coverlet, lay Semenoff. At his
side, in a bent posture, sat Novikoff, while Ivanoff and Schafroff
stood by the window. To all of them it seemed odd and painful to shake
hands in the presence of the dying man, yet not to do so seemed equally
embarrassing, as though by such omission they hinted that death was
near. Some greeted each other, and some refrained, while all stood
still gazing with grim curiosity at Semenoff.

He breathed slowly and with difficulty. How different he looked from
the Semenoff they knew! Indeed, he hardly seemed to be alive. Though
his features and his limbs were the same, they now appeared strangely
rigid and dreadful to behold. That which naturally gave life and
movement to the bodies of other human beings no longer seemed to exist
in his. Something horrible was being swiftly, secretly accomplished
within his motionless frame, an important work that could not be
postponed. All that remained to him of life was, as it were,
concentrated upon this work, observing it with keen, inexplicable
interest.

The lamp hanging from the ceiling shone clearly upon the dying man’s
lifeless visage. All standing there gazed upon it, holding their breath
as if fearing to disturb something infinitely solemn; and in such
silence the laboured, sibilant breathing of the patient sounded
terribly distinct.

The door opened, and with short, senile steps a fat little priest
entered, accompanied by his psalm-singer, a dark, gaunt man. With these
came Sanine. The priest, coughing slightly, bowed to the doctors and to
all present, who acknowledged his greeting with excessive politeness,
and then remained perfectly silent as before. Without noticing anybody,
Sanine took up his position by the window, eyeing Semenoff and the
others with great curiosity as he sought to discern what the patient
and those about him actually felt and thought. Semenoff remained
motionless, breathing just as before.

“He is unconscious, is he?” asked the priest gently, without addressing
anyone in particular.

“Yes,” replied Novikoff, hastily.

Sanine murmured something unintelligible. The priest looked
questioningly at him, but, as Sanine remained silent, he turned away,
smoothed his hair back, donned his stole and in high-pitched, unctuous
tones began to chant the prayers for the dying.

The psalm-singer had a bass voice, hoarse and disagreeable, so that the
vocal contrast was a painfully discordant one as the sound of this
chanting rose to the lofty ceiling. No sooner had it commenced than the
eyes of all were fixed in terror upon the dying man. Novikoff, standing
nearest to him, thought that Semenoff’s eye-lids moved slightly, as if
the sightless eyeballs had been turned in the direction of the
chanting. To the others, however, Semenoff appeared as strangely
motionless as before.

At the first notes Sina began to cry, gently but persistently, letting
the tears course down her youthful, pretty face. All the others looked
at her, and Dubova in her turn began to weep. To the men’s eyes tears
also rose, which by clenching their teeth they strove to keep back.
Every time the chanting grew louder, the girls wept more freely. Sanine
frowned, and shrugged his shoulders irritably, thinking how intolerable
to Semenoff, if he heard it, such wailing must be when to healthy
normal men it was so utterly depressing.

“Not so loud!” he said to the priest irritably.

The latter amiably bent forward to hear this remark, and, when he
understood it, he frowned and only sang louder. His companion glared at
Sanine and the others all looked at him as well, in fear and
astonishment, as if he had said something offensive. Sanine showed his
annoyance by a gesture, but said nothing.

When the chanting ceased, and the priest had wrapped up the crucifix in
his stole, the suspense was more painful than ever. Semenoff lay there
as rigid, as motionless as before. Suddenly the same thought, dreadful
but irresistible, came into the minds of all. If only it could all end
quickly! If only Semenoff would die! In fear and shame they sought to
suppress this wish, exchanging timid glances.

“If only this were all over!” said Sanine in an undertone. “Ghastly,
isn’t it?”

“Yes!” replied Ivanoff.

They spoke almost in whispers, and it was plain that Semenoff could not
hear them, but yet all the others looked shocked.

Schafroff was about to say something, but at that moment a new sound,
indescribably plaintive, echoed through the room, sending a shiver
through all.

“Ee—ee—ee!” moaned Semenoff.

And, as if he had got that mode of expression which he wanted, he
continued to give out this long-drawn note, only interrupted by his
laboured, hoarse breathing.

At first the others could not conceive what had happened to him, but
soon Sina and Dubova and Novikoff began to weep. Slowly and solemnly
the priest resumed his chanting. His fat good-tempered face showed
evident sympathy and emotion. A few minutes passed. Suddenly Semenoff
ceased moaning.

“It is all over,” murmured the priest.

Then slowly, and with much effort, Semenoff moved his tightly-glued
lips, and his face became contracted as if by a smile, The onlookers
heard his hollow, weird voice that, issuing from the depth of his
chest, sounded as if it came through a coffin-lid.

“Silly old fool!” he said, looking hard at the priest. His whole body
trembled, his eyes rolled madly in their sockets, and he stretched
himself at full length.

They had all heard these words, but no one moved; and for a moment the
sorrowful expression vanished from the priest’s fat, moist face. He
looked about him anxiously, but encountered no one’s glance. Only
Sanine smiled.

Semenoff again moved his lips, yet no sound escaped from them, while
one side drooped of his thin, fair moustache. Once more he stretched
his limbs, and became longer and more terrible. There was no sound, nor
the slightest movement whatever. Nobody wept now. The approach of death
had been more grievous, more appalling than its actual advent; and it
seemed strange that so harrowing a scene should have ended so simply
and swiftly. For a few moments they stood beside the bed and looked at
the dead, peaked features, as if they expected something else to
happen. Wishful to rouse within themselves a sense of horror and pity,
they watched Novikoff intently as he closed the dead man’s eyes and
crossed his hands on his breast. Then they went out quietly and
cautiously. In the passages lamps were now lighted, and all seemed so
familiar and simple that every one breathed more freely. The priest
went first, tripping along with short steps. Desiring to say a few
words of consolation to the young people, he sighed, and then began
softly:

“Dear, dear! It is very sad. Such a young man, too. Alas! it is plain
that he died unrepentant. But God is merciful, you know—”

“Yes, yes, of course,” replied Schafroff, who walked next to him and
wished to be polite.

“Does his family know?” asked the priest.

“I really can’t tell you,” said Schafroff.

They all looked at each other in astonishment, as it seemed odd and not
altogether decent to be unable to say who Semenoff’s people were.

“His sister is at the high school, I believe,” observed Sine.

“Ah! I see! Well, good-bye!” said the priest, slightly raising his hat
with his plump fingers.

“Good-bye!” they replied in unison.

On reaching the street, they sighed, as if relieved.

“Where shall we go now?” asked Schafroff.

After brief hesitation, they all took leave of each other, and went
their different ways.




CHAPTER XI.


When Semenoff saw the blood, and felt the awful void around him and
within him; when they lifted him up, carried him away, laid him down,
and did all for him that throughout his life he had been in the habit
of doing, then he knew that he was going to die, and wondered why he
felt not the least fear of death.

Dubova had spoken of his terror because she herself was terrified,
assuming that, if the healthy dreaded death, the dying must dread it
far more. His pallor and his wild look, the result of loss of blood and
weakness, she took to be an expression of fear. But, in reality this
was not so. At all times, and especially since he knew that he had got
consumption, Semenoff had dreaded death. At the outset of his malady,
he was in a state of abject terror, much as that of a condemned man for
whom hope of a reprieve there was none. It almost seemed to him as if
from that moment the world no longer existed; all in it that formerly
he found fair, and pleasant, and gay had vanished. All around him was
dying, dying, and every moment, every second, might bring about
something fearful, unendurable, hideous as a black, yawning abyss. It
was as an abyss, huge, fathomless, and sombre as night, that Semenoff
imagined death. Wherever he went, whatever he did, this black gulf was
ever before him; in its impenetrable gloom all sounds, all colours, all
emotions were lost. Such a state of mind was appalling, yet it did not
last long; and, as the days went by, as Semenoff approached death, the
more remote and vague and incomprehensible did it seem to him.

Everything around him, sounds, colours, and emotions, now once more
regained their former value for him. The sun shone as brightly as ever;
folk went about their business as usual, and Semenoff himself had
important things, as also trivial ones, to do. Just as before, he rose
in the morning, washed with scrupulous care, and ate his midday meal,
finding food pleasant or unpleasant to his taste. As before, the sun
and the moon were a joy to him, and rain or damp an annoyance; as
before, he played billiards in the evening with Novikoff and others; as
before, he read books, some being interesting, and some both foolish
and dull. That all things remained unchanged was irritating, even
painful to him at first. Nature, his environment, and he himself, all
were the same; and he strove to alter this by compelling people to be
interested in him and in his death, to comprehend his appalling
position, to realize that all was at an end. When, however, he told his
acquaintances of this, he perceived that he ought not to have done so.
They appeared astonished at first, and then sceptical, professing to
doubt the accuracy of the doctor’s diagnosis. Finally, they endeavoured
to banish the unpleasant impression by abruptly changing the subject,
and Semenoff found himself talking with them about all sorts of things,
but never about death.

Then he sought to live in seclusion, to become absorbed in himself, and
in solitude to suffer, having full, steadfast consciousness of his
impending doom. Yet, as in his life and his daily surroundings, all
remained the same as formerly, it seemed absurd to imagine that it
could be otherwise, or that he, Semenoff, would no longer exist as at
the present. The thought of death, which at first had made so deep a
wound, grew less poignant; the soul oppressed found freedom. Moments of
complete forgetfulness became more and more frequent, and life once
again lay before him, rich in colour, in movement, in sound.

It was only at night-time, when alone, that he was haunted by the sense
of a black abyss. After he had put out the lamp, something devoid of
form or features rose up slowly above him in the gloom, and whispered,
“Sh … sh … sh!” without ceasing, while to this whispering another
voice, as from within him, made hideous answer. Then he felt that he
was gradually becoming part of this murmuring and this abysmal chaos.
His life in it seemed as a faint, flickering flame that might at any
moment fade for ever. Then he decided to keep a lamp burning in his
room throughout the night. In the light, the strange whisperings
ceased, the darkness vanished; nor had he the impression of being
poised above a yawning abyss, because light made him conscious of a
thousand trivial and ordinary details in his life; the chairs, the
light, the inkstand, his own feet, an unfinished letter, an _ikon_,
with its lamp that he had never lighted, boots that he had forgotten to
put outside the door, and many other everyday things that surrounded
him.

Yet, even then, he could hear whisperings that came from the corners of
the room which the light of the lamp did not reach, and again the black
gulf yawned to receive him. He was afraid to look into the darkness, or
even to think of it, for then, in a moment, dreadful gloom surrounded
him, veiling the lamp, hiding the world as with a cold, dense mist from
his view. It was this that tortured, that appalled him. He felt as if
he must cry like a child, or beat his head against the wall. But as the
days went past, and Semenoff drew nearer to death, he grew more used to
such impressions. They only became stronger and more awful if by a word
or a gesture, by the sight of a funeral or of a graveyard, he was
reminded that he, too, must die. Anxious to avoid such warnings, he
never went into any street that led to the cemetery, nor ever slept on
his back with hands folded across his breast.

He had two lives, as it were; his former life, ample and obvious, which
could not give a thought to death, but ignored it, being concerned
about its own affairs, while hoping to live on for ever, cost what it
might; and another life, mysterious, indefinite, obscure, that, as a
worm in an apple, secretly gnawed at the core of his former life,
poisoning it, making it insufferable.

It was owing to this double life that Semenoff, when at last he found
himself face to face with death and knew that his end was nigh, felt
scarcely any fear. “Already?” That is all he asked, in order to know
exactly what to expect.

When in the faces of those around him he read the answer to his
question, he merely wondered that the end should seem so simple, so
natural, like that of some heavy task, which had overtaxed his powers.
At the same time, by a new and strange inner consciousness he perceived
that it could not be otherwise, and that death was the normal result of
his enfeebled vitality. He only felt sorry that he would never see
anything again. As they took him in a _droschky_ to the hospital, he
gazed about him with wide-opened eyes, striving to note everything at a
glance, grieved that he could not firmly fix in his memory every little
detail of this world with its ample sky, its human beings, its verdure,
and its distant blue horizons. Equally dear, in fact, unspeakably
precious to him, were all the little things that he had never noticed,
as well as those which he had always found full of beauty and
importance; the heaven, dark and vast, with its golden stars, the
driver’s gaunt back, in its shabby smock; Novikoff’s troubled
countenance; the dusty road; houses with their lighted windows; the
dark trees that silently stayed behind; the jolting wheels; the soft
evening breeze—all that he could see, and hear, and feel.

Later on, in the hospital, his eyes wandered swiftly round the large
room, watching every movement, every figure intently until prevented by
physical pain which produced a sense of utter isolation. His
perceptions were now concentrated in his chest, the source of all his
suffering. Gradually, very gradually, he began to drift away from life.
When now he saw something, it seemed to him strange and meaningless.
The last fight between life and death had begun; it filled his whole
being; it created a new world, strange and lonely, a world of terror,
agony and despairing conflict. Now and again there were more lucid
moments; the pain ceased; his breathing was deeper and calmer, and
through the white veil sounds and shapes became more or less plain. But
all seemed faint and futile, as if they came from afar. He heard sounds
plainly, and then again they were inaudible; the figures moved
noiselessly as those in a cinematograph; familiar faces appeared
strange and he could not recollect them.

On the adjoining bed a man with a quaint, clean-shaven face was reading
aloud, but why he read, or to whom he read, Semenoff never troubled to
think. He distinctly heard that the parliamentary elections had been
postponed, and that an attempt had been made to assassinate a Grand
Duke, but the words were empty and meaningless; like bubbles, they
burst and vanished, leaving no trace. The man’s lips moved, his teeth
gleamed, his round eyes rolled, the paper rustled, and the lamp shone
from the ceiling round which large, black, fierce-looking flies
revolved. In Semenoff’s brain something seemed to flame upwards,
illuminating all that surrounded him. He was suddenly conscious that
all was now of no account to him, and that all the work and business in
the world could not add one single hour to his life; but that he must
die. Once more he sank down into the waves of black mist; again the
silent conflict began between two terrible and secret forces, the one
convulsively striving to destroy the other.

The second time that Semenoff regained consciousness was when he heard
weeping and chanting. This seemed to him utterly unnecessary, having no
sort of relation to all that was going on within him. For a moment,
however, it lighted up the flame in his brain, and Semenoff clearly
perceived the mock-mournful face of a man who was absolutely
uninteresting to him. That was the last sign of life. What followed was
for those living wholly beyond the pale of their thought or
comprehension.




CHAPTER XII.


“Come to my place, and we will hold a memorial service for the
departed,” said Ivanoff to Sanine. The latter nodded his acceptance. On
the way, they bought vodka and _hors d’œuvres,_ and overtook Yourii
Svarogitsch, who was walking slowly along the boulevard, looking much
depressed.

Semenoff’s death had made a confused and painful impression upon him
which he found it necessary, yet almost impossible, to analyse.

“After all, it is simple enough!” said Yourii to himself, endeavouring
to draw a straight, short line in his mind. “Man never existed before
he was born; that does not seem to be terrible nor incomprehensible.
Man’s existence ends when he dies. That is equally simple and easy to
comprehend. Death, the complete stoppage of the machine that creates
vital force, is perfectly comprehensible; there is nothing terrible
about it. There was once a boy named Youra who went to college and
fought with his comrades, who amused himself by chopping off the heads
of thistles and lived his own special and interesting life in his own
special way. This Youra died, and in his place quite another man walks
and thinks, the student, Yourii Svarogitsch. If they were to meet,
Youra would not understand Yourii, and might even hate him as a
possible tutor ready to cause him no end of annoyance. Therefore,
between them there is a gulf, and therefore, if the boy Youra is dead,
I am dead myself, though till now I never noticed it. That is how it
is. Quite natural and simple, after all! If one reflects, what do we
lose by dying? Life, at any rate, contains more sadness than happiness.
True it has its pleasures and it is hard to lose them, but death rids
us of so many ills, that in the end we gain by it. That’s simple, and
not so terrible, is it?” said Yourii, aloud, with a sigh of relief; but
suddenly he started, as another thought seemed to sting him. “No, a
whole world, full of life and extraordinarily complicated, suddenly
transformed into nothing? No, that is not the transformation of the boy
Youra into Yourii Svarogitsch! That is absurd and revolting, and
therefore terrible and incomprehensible!”

With all his might Yourii strove to form a conception of this state
which no man finds it possible to support, yet which every man
supports, just as Semenoff had done.

“He did not die of fear, either,” thought Yourii, smiling at the
strangeness of such a reflection. “No, he was laughing at us all, with
our priest, and our chanting, and tears. How was it that Semenoff could
laugh, knowing that in a few moments all would be at an end? Was he a
hero? No; it was not a question of heroism. Then death is not as
terrible as I thought.”

While he was musing thus Ivanoff suddenly hailed him in a loud voice.

“Ah! it’s you! Where are you going?” asked Yourii, shuddering.

“To say a mass for our departed friend,” replied Ivanoff, with brutal
jocularity. “You had better come with us. What’s the good of being
always alone?”

Feeling sad and dispirited, Yourii did not find Sanine and Ivanoff as
distasteful to him as usual.

“Very well, I will,” he replied, but suddenly recollecting his
superiority, he thought to himself, “what have I really in common with
such fellows? Am I to drink their vodka, and talk commonplaces?”

He was on the point of turning back, but he felt such an utter horror
of solitude that he went along with them. Ivanoff and Sanine proffered
no remarks, and thus in silence they reached the former’s lodging. It
was already quite dark. At the door, the figure of a man could be dimly
seen. He had a thick stick with a crooked handle.

“Oh! it’s Uncle Peter Ilitsch!” exclaimed Ivanoff gleefully.

“Yes! that’s he!” replied the figure, in a deep, resonant voice. Yourii
remembered that Ivanoff’s uncle was an old, drunken church chorister.
He had a grey moustache like one of the soldiers at the time of
Nicholas the First, and his shabby black coat had a most unpleasant
smell.

“Boum! Boum!” His voice seemed to come out of a barrel, when Ivanoff
introduced him to Yourii, who awkwardly shook hands with him, hardly
knowing what to say to such a person. He recollected, however, that for
him all men should be equal, so he politely gave precedence to the old
singer as they went in.

Ivanoff’s lodging was more like an old lumber-room than a place for
human habitation, being very dusty and untidy. But when his host had
lighted the lamp, Yourii perceived that the walls were covered with
engravings of pictures by Vasnetzoff, and that what had seemed rubbish
were books piled up in heaps. He still felt somewhat ill at ease, and,
to hide this, he began to examine the engravings attentively.

“Do you like Vasnetzoff?” asked Ivanoff as, without waiting for an
answer, he left the room to fetch a plate. Sanine told Peter Ilitsch
that Semenoff was dead. “God rest his soul!” droned the latter. “Ah!
well, it’s all over for him now.”

Yourii glanced wistfully at him, and felt a sudden sympathy for the old
man.

Ivanoff now brought in bread, salted cucumbers, and glasses, which he
placed on the table that was covered with a newspaper. Then, with a
swift, scarcely perceptible movement, he uncorked the bottle, not a
drop of its contents being spilt.

“Very neat!” exclaimed Ilitsch approvingly.

“You can tell in a minute if a man knows what he’s about,” said
Ivanoff, with a self-complacent air, as he filled the glasses with the
greenish liquid.

“Now gentlemen,” said he, raising his voice as he took up his glass.
“To the repose of the departed, &c.!”

With that they began to eat, and more vodka was consumed. They talked
little, and drank the more. Soon the atmosphere of the little room grew
hot and oppressive. Peter Ilitsch lighted a cigarette, and the air was
filled with the bluish fumes of bad tobacco. The drink and the smoke
and the heat made Yourii feel dizzy. Again he thought of Semenoff.

“There’s something dreadful about death,” he said.

“Why?” asked Peter Ilitsch. “Death? Ho! ho!! It’s absolutely necessary.
Death? Suppose one went on living for ever? Ho! ho!! You mustn’t talk
like that! Eternal life, indeed! What would eternal life be, eh?”

Yourii at once tried to imagine what living for ever would be like. He
saw an endless grey stripe that stretched aimlessly away into space, as
though swept onward from one wave to another. All conception of colour,
sound and emotion was blurred and dimmed, being merged and fused in one
grey turbid stream that flowed on placidly, eternally. This was not
life, but everlasting death. The thought of it horrified him.

“Yes, of course,” he murmured.

“It appears to have made a great impression upon you,” said Ivanoff.

“Upon whom does it not make an impression?” asked Yourii. Ivanoff shook
his head vaguely, and began to tell Ilitsch about Semenoff’s last
moments. It was now insufferably close in the room. Yourii watched
Ivanoff, as his red lips sipped the vodka that shone in the lamplight.
Everything seemed to be going round and round.

“A—a—a—a—a!” whispered a voice in his ear, a strange small voice.

“No! death is an awful thing!” he said again, without noticing that he
was replying to the mysterious voice. “You’re over-nervous about it,”
observed Ivanoff contemptuously.

“Aren’t you?” said Yourii.

“I? N—no! Certainly, I don’t want to die, as there’s not much fun in
it, and living is far jollier. But, if one has to die, I should like it
to be quickly, without any fuss or nonsense.”

“You have not tried yet!” laughed Sanine.

“No; that’s quite true!” replied the other.

“Ah! well,” continued Yourii, “one has heard all that before. Say what
you will, death is death, horrible in itself, and sufficient to rob a
man of all pleasure in life who thinks of such a violent and inevitable
end to it. What is the meaning of life?”

“It has no meaning,” cried Ivanoff irritably.

“No, that is impossible,” replied Yourii, “everything is too wisely and
carefully arranged, and—”

“In my opinion,” said Sanine, “there’s nothing good anywhere.”

“How can you say that? What about Nature?”

“Nature! Ha, ha!” Sanine laughed feebly, and waved his hand in
derision. “It is customary, I know, to say that Nature is perfect. The
truth is, that Nature is just as defective as mankind. Without any
great effort of imagination any of us could present a world a hundred
times better than this one. Why should we not have perpetual warmth and
light, and a garden ever verdant and ever gay? As to the meaning of
life, of course it has a meaning of some sort, because the aim implies
the march of things; without an aim all would be chaos, But this aim
lies outside the pale of our existence, in the very basis of the
universe. That is certain. We cannot be the origin nor the end of the
universe. Our role is a passive, and auxiliary one. By the mere fact of
living we fulfil our mission. Our life is necessary; thus our death is
necessary also.”

“For what?”

“How should I know?” replied Sanine, “and, besides, what do I care? My
life means my sensations, pleasant or unpleasant; what is outside those
limits; well, to the deuce with it all! Whatever hypothesis we may like
to invent, it will always remain an hypothesis upon which it would be
folly to construct life. Let him who likes worry about it; as for me, I
mean to live!”

“Let us all have a drink on the strength of it!” suggested Ivanoff.

“But you believe in God, don’t you?” said Ilitsch, looking at Sanine
with bleared eyes. “Nowadays nobody believes in anything—not even in
that which is easy of belief.”

Sanine laughed. “Yes, I believe in God. As a child I did that, and
there’s no need to dispute or to affirm any reasons for doing so. It’s
the most profitable thing, really, for if there is a God, I offer Him
sincere faith, and, if there isn’t, well, all the better for me.”

“But on belief or on unbelief all life is based?” said Yourii.

Sanine shook his head, and smiled complacently.

“No, my life is not based on such things,” he said.

“On what, then?” asked Yourii, languidly. “A—a—a! I mustn’t drink any
more,” he thought to himself, as he drew his hand across his cold,
moist brow. If Sanine made any reply he did not hear it. His head was
in a whirl, and for a moment he felt quite overcome.

“I believe that God exists,” continued Sanine, “though I am not
certain, absolutely certain. But whether He does or not, I do not know
Him, nor can I tell what He requires of me. How could I possibly know
this, even though I professed the most ardent faith in Him? God is God,
and, not being human, cannot be judged by human standards. His created
world around us contains all; good and evil, life and death, beauty and
ugliness—everything, in fact, and thus all sense and all exact
definition are lost to us, for His sense is not human, nor His ideas of
good and evil human, either. Our conception of God must always be an
idolatrous one, and we shall always give to our fetish the physiognomy
and the garb suitable to the climatic conditions of the country in
which we live. Absurd, isn’t it.”

“Yes, you’re right,” grunted Ivanoff, “quite right!”

“Then, what is the good of living?” asked Yourii, as he pushed back his
glass in disgust, “or of dying, either?”

“One thing I know,” replied Sanine, “and that is, that I don’t want my
life to be a miserable one. Thus, before all things, one must satisfy
one’s natural desires. Desire is everything. When a man’s desires
cease, his life ceases, too, and if he kills his desires, then he kills
himself.”

“But his desires may be evil?”

“Possibly.”

“Well, what then.”

“Then … they must just be evil,” replied Sanine blandly, as he looked
Yourii full in the face with his clear, blue eyes.

Ivanoff raised his eyebrows incredulously and said nothing. Yourii was
silent also. For some reason or other he felt embarrassed by those
clear, blue eyes, though he tried to keep looking at them.

For a few moments there was complete silence, so that one could plainly
hear a night-moth desperately beating against the window-pane. Peter
Ilitsch shook his head mournfully, and his drink-besotted visage
drooped towards the stained, dirty newspaper. Sanine smiled again. This
perpetual smile irritated and yet fascinated Yourii.

“What clear eyes he has!” thought he.

Suddenly Sanine rose, opened the window, and let out the moth. A wave
of cool, pleasant air, as from soft wings, swept through the room.

“Yes,” said Ivanoff, in answer to his own thought, “there are no two
men alike, so, on the strength of that, let’s have another drink.”

“No,” said Yourii, shaking his head, “I won’t have any more.”

“Eh—why not?”

“I never drink much.”

The vodka and the heat had made his head ache. He longed to get out
into the fresh air.

“I must be going,” he said, getting up.

“Where? Come on, have another drink!”

“No really, I ought to—” stammered Yourii, looking for his cap.

“Well, good-bye!”

As Yourii shut the door he heard Sanine saying to Ilitsch, “Of course
you’re not like children; they can’t distinguish good from bad; they
are simple and natural; and that is why they—” Then the door was
closed, and all was still.

High in the heavens shone the moon, and the cool night-air touched
Yourii’s brow. All seemed beautiful and romantic, and as he walked
through the quiet moonlit streets the thought to him was dreadful that
in some dark, silent chamber Semenoff lay on a table, yellow and stiff.
Yet, somehow, Yourii could not recall those grievous thoughts that had
recently oppressed him, and had shrouded the whole world in gloom. His
mood was now of one tranquil sadness, and he felt impelled to gaze at
the moon. As he crossed a white deserted square he suddenly thought of
Sanine.

“What sort of man is that?” he asked himself.

Annoyed to think that there was a man whom he, Yourii, could not
instantly define, he felt a certain malicious pleasure in disparaging
him.

“A phrase-maker, that’s all he is! Formerly the fellow posed as a
pessimist, disgusted with life and bent upon airing impossible views of
his own; now, he’s trifling with animalism.”

From Sanine Yourii’s thoughts reverted to himself. He came to the
conclusion that he trifled with nothing but that his thoughts, his
sufferings, his whole personality, were original, and quite different
from those of other men.

This was most agreeable; yet something seemed to be missing. Once more
he thought of Semenoff. It was grievous to know that he should never
set eyes upon him again, and though he had never felt any affection for
Semenoff, he now had become near and dear to him. Tears rose to his
eyes. He pictured the dead student lying in the grave, a mass of
corruption, and he remembered these words of his:

“You’ll be living, and breathing this air, and enjoying this moonlight,
and you’ll go past my grave where I lie.”

“Here, under my feet, like human beings, too,” thought Yourii, looking
down at the dust. “I am trampling on brains, and hearts, and human
eyes! Oh!… And I shall die, too, and others will walk over me, thinking
just as I think now. Ah! before it is too late, one must live, one must
live! Yes; but live in the right way, so that not a moment of one’s
life be lost. Yet how is one to do that?”

The market-place lay white and bare in the moonlight. All was silent in
the town.

Never more shall singer’s lute
Tidings of him tell.


Yourii hummed this softly to himself. Then he said, aloud: “How
tedious, sad, and dreadful it all is!” as if complaining to some one.
The sound of his own voice alarmed him, and he turned round to see if
he had been overheard. “I am drunk,” he thought.

Silent and serene, the night looked down.




CHAPTER XIII.


While Sina Karsavina and Dubova were absent on a visit, Yourii’s life
seemed uneventful and monotonous. His father was engaged, either at the
club or with household matters, and Lialia and Riasantzeff found the
presence of a third person embarrassing, so that Yourii avoided their
society. It thus became his habit to go to bed early and not to rise
till the midday meal. All day long, when in his room, or in the garden,
he brooded over matters, waiting for a supreme access of energy that
should spur him on to do some great work.

This “great work” each day assumed a different form. Now it was a
picture, or, again, it was a series of articles that should show the
world what a huge mistake the social democrats had made in not giving
Yourii a leading role in their party. Or else it was an article in
favour of adherence to the people and of strenuous co-operation with
it—a very broad, imposing treatment of the subject. Each day, however,
as it passed, brought nothing but boredom. Once or twice Novikoff and
Schafroff came to see him. Yourii also attended lectures and paid
visits, yet all this seemed to him empty and aimless. It was not what
he sought, or fancied that he sought.

One day he went to see Riasantzeff. The doctor had large, airy rooms
filled with all such things as an athletic, healthy man needs for his
amusement; Indian clubs, dumb-bells, rapiers, fishing-rods, nets,
tobacco-pipes, and much else that savoured of wholesome, manly
recreation.

Riasantzeff received him with frank cordiality, chatted pleasantly,
offered him cigarettes, and finally asked him to go out shooting with
him.

“I have not got a gun,” said Yourii.

“Have one of mine. I have got five,” replied Riasantzeff. To him,
Yourii was the brother of Lialia, and he was anxious to be as kind to
him as possible. He therefore insisted upon Yourii’s acceptance of one
of his guns, eagerly displaying them all, taking them to pieces, and
explaining their make. He even fired at a target in the yard, so that
at last Yourii laughingly accepted a gun and some cartridges, much to
Riasantzeff’s pleasure.

“That’s first-rate!” he said, “I had meant to get some duck-shooting
to-morrow, so we’ll go together, shall we?”

“I should like it very much,” replied Yourii.

When he got home he spent nearly two hours examining his gun, fingering
the lock, and taking aim at the lamp. He then carefully greased his old
shooting-boots.

On the following day, towards evening, Riasantzeff, fresh, hearty as
ever, drove up in a _droschky_ with a smart bay to fetch Yourii.

“Are you ready?” he called out to him through the open window.

Yourii, who had already donned cartridge-belt and game bag, and carried
his gun, came out, looking somewhat overweighted and ill at ease.

“I’m ready, I’m ready,” he said.

Riasantzeff, who was lightly and comfortably clad, seemed somewhat
astonished at Yourii’s accoutrements.

“You’ll find those things too heavy,” he said, smiling. “Take them all
off and put them here. You needn’t wear them till we get there.” He
helped Yourii to divest himself of his shooting-kit and placed them
underneath the seat. Then they drove away at a good pace. The day was
drawing to a close, but it was still warm and dusty. The _droschky_
swayed from side to side so that Yourii had to hold tightly to the
seat. Riasantzeff talked and laughed the whole time, and Yourii was
compelled to join in his merriment. When they got out into the fields
where the stiff meadow-grass lightly brushed against their feet it was
cooler, and there was no dust.

On reaching a broad level field Riasantzeff pulled up the sweating
horse and, placing his hand to his mouth, shouted, in a clear, ringing
voice, “Kousma—a … Kousma—a—a!”

At the extreme end of the field, like silhouettes, a row of little men
could be descried who, at the sound of Riasantzeff’s voice, looked
eagerly in his direction.

One of the men then came across the field, walking carefully between
the furrows. As he approached, Yourii saw that he was a burly, grey-
haired peasant with a long beard and sinewy arms.

He came up to them slowly, and said, with a smile, “You know how to
shout, Anatole Pavlovitch!”

“Good day, Kousma; how are you? Can I leave the horse with you?”

“Yes, certainly you can,” said the peasant in a calm, friendly voice,
as he caught hold of the horse’s bridle. “Come for a little shooting,
eh? And who is that?” he asked, with a kindly glance at Yourii.

“It is Nicolai Yegorovitch’s son,” replied Riasantzeff.

“Ah, yes! I see that he is just like Ludmilla Nicolaijevna! Yes, yes!”

Yourii was pleased to find that this genial old peasant knew his sister
and spoke of her in such a simple, friendly way.

“Now, then, let us go!” said Riasantzeff, in his cheery voice, as he
walked first, after getting his gun and game-bag.

“May you have luck!” cried Kousma, and then they could hear him coaxing
the horse as he led it away to his hut.

They had to walk nearly a verst before they reached the marsh. The sun
had almost set, and the soil, covered with lush grasses and reeds, felt
moist beneath their feet. It looked darker, and had a damp smell, while
in places water shimmered. Riasantzeff had ceased smoking, and stood
with legs wide apart, looking suddenly grave as if he had to begin an
important and responsible task. Yourii kept to the right, trying to
find a dry comfortable place. In front of them lay the water which,
reflecting the clear evening sky, looked pure and deep. The other bank,
like a black stripe, could be discerned in the distance.

Almost immediately, in twos and threes, ducks rose and flew slowly over
the water, starting up suddenly out of the rushes, and then passing
over the sportsmen’s heads, a row of silhouettes against the saffron
sky. Raisantzeff had the first shot, and with success. A wounded duck
tumbled sideways into the water, beating down the rushes with its
wings.

“I hit it!” exclaimed Riasantzeff, as he gaily laughed aloud.

“He’s really a good sort of fellow,” thought Yourii, whose turn it was
to shoot. He brought down his bird also, but it fell at such a distance
that he could not find it, though he scratched his hands and waded
knee-deep through the water. This disappointment only made him more
keen; it was fine fun, so he thought.

Amid the clear, cool air from the river the gun-smoke had a strangely
pleasant smell, and, in the darkening landscape, the merry shots
flashed out with charming effect. The wounded wild fowl, as they fell,
described graceful curves against the pale green sky where now the
first faint stars gleamed. Yourii felt unusually energetic and gay. It
was as if he had never taken part in anything so interesting or
exhilarating. The birds rose more rarely now, and the deepening dusk
made it more difficult to take aim.

“Hullo there! We must get home!” shouted Riasantzeff, from a distance.

Yourii felt sorry to go, but in accordance with his companion’s
suggestion he advanced to meet him, stumbling over rushes and splashing
through the water which in the dusk was not distinguishable from dry
soil. As they met, their eyes flashed, and they were both breathless.

“Well,” asked Riasantzeff, “did you have any luck?”

“I should say so,” replied Yourii, displaying his well-filled bag.

“Ah! you’re a better shot than I am,” said Riasantzeff pleasantly.

Yourii was delighted by such praise, although he always professed to
care nothing for physical strength or skill. “I don’t know about
better,” he observed carelessly, “It was just luck.”

By the time they reached the hut it was quite dark. The melon-field was
immersed in gloom, and only the foremost rows of melons shimmered white
in the firelight, casting long shadows. The horse stood, snorting,
beside the hut, where a bright little fire of dried steppe-grass burnt
and crackled. They could hear men talking and women laughing, and one
voice, mellow and cheery in tone, seemed familiar to Yourii.

“Why, it’s Sanine,” said Riasantzeff, in astonishment. “How did he get
here?”

They approached the fire. Grey-bearded Kousma, seated beside it, looked
up, and nodded to welcome them.

“Any luck?” he asked, in his deep bass voice, through a drooping
moustache.

“Just a bit,” replied Riasantzeff.

Sanine, sitting on a huge pumpkin, also raised his head and smiled at
them.

“How is it that you are here?” asked Riasantzeff.

“Oh! Kousma Prokorovitch and I are old friends,” explained Sanine,
smiling the more.

Kousma laughed, showing the yellow stumps of his decayed teeth as he
slapped Sanine’s knee good-naturedly with his rough hand.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Sit down here, Anatole Pavlovitch, and taste this
melon. And you, my young master, what is your name?”

“Yourii Nicolaijevitch,” replied Yourii, pleasantly.

He felt somewhat embarrassed, but he at once took a liking to this
gentle old peasant with his friendly speech, half Russian, half
dialect.

“Yourii Nicolaijevitch! Aha! We must make each other’s acquaintance,
eh? Sit you down, Yourii Nicolaijevitch.”

Yourii and Riasantzeff sat down by the fire on two big pumpkins.

“Now, then show us what you have shot,” said Kousma.

A heap of dead birds fell out of the game-bags, and the ground was
dabbled with their blood. In the flickering firelight they had a weird,
unpleasant look. The blood was almost black, and the claws seemed to
move. Kousma took up a duck, and felt beneath its wings.

“That’s a fat one,” he said approvingly. “You might spare me a brace,
Anatole Pavlovitch. What will you do with such a lot?”

“Have them all!” exclaimed Yourii, blushing.

“Why all? Come, come, you’re too generous,” laughed the old man. “I’ll
just have a brace, to show that there’s no ill-feeling.”

Other peasants and their wives now approached the fire, but, dazzled by
the blaze, Yourii could not plainly distinguish them. First one and
then another face swiftly emerged from the gloom, and then vanished.
Sanine, frowning, regarded the dead birds, and, turning away, suddenly
rose. The sight of these beautiful creatures lying there in blood and
dust, with broken wings, was distasteful to him.

Yourii watched everything with great interest as he greedily ate large,
luscious slices of a ripe melon which Kousma cut off with his pocket-
knife that had a yellow bone handle.

“Eat, Yourii Nicolaijevitch; this melon’s good,” he said. “I know your
little sister, Ludmilla Nicolaijevna, and your father, too. Eat, and
enjoy it.”

Everything pleased Yourii; the smell of the peasants, an odour as of
newly-baked bread and sheepskins; the bright blaze of the fire; the
gigantic pumpkin upon which he sat; and the glimpse of Kousma’s face
when he looked downwards, for when the old man raised his head it was
hidden in the gloom and only his eyes gleamed. Overhead there was
darkness now, which made the lighted place seem pleasant and
comfortable. Looking upwards, Yourii could at first see nothing, and
then suddenly the calm, spacious heaven appeared and the distant stars.

He felt, however, somewhat embarrassed, not knowing what to say to
these peasants. The others, Kousma, Sanine, and Riasantzeff, chatted
frankly and simply to them about this or that, never troubling to
choose some special theme for talk.

“Well, how’s the land?” he asked, when there was a short pause in the
conversation, though he felt that the question sounded forced and out
of place.

Kousma looked up, and answered:

“We must wait, just wait a while, and see.” Then he began talking about
the melon-fields and other personal matters, Yourii feeling only more
and more embarrassed, although he rather liked listening to it all.

Footsteps were heard approaching. A little red dog with a curly white
tail appeared in the light, sniffing at Yourii and Riasantzeff, and
rubbing itself against Sanine’s knees, who patted its rough coat. It
was followed by a little, old man with a sparse beard and small bright
eyes. He carried a rusty single-barrelled gun.

“It is grandfather, our guardian,” said Kousma. The old man sat down on
the ground, deposited his weapon, and looked hard at Yourii and
Riasantzeff.

“Been out shooting; yes, yes!” he mumbled, showing his shrivelled,
discoloured gums. “He! He! Kousma, it’s time to boil the potatoes! He!
He!”

Riasantzeff picked up the old fellow’s flint-lock, and laughingly
showed it to Yourii. It was a rusty old barrel-loader, very heavy, with
wire wound round it.

“I say,” said he, “what sort of a gun do you call this? Aren’t you
afraid to shoot with it?”

“He! He! I nearly shot myself with it once! Stepan Schapka, he told me
that one could shoot without … caps? He! He! … without caps! He said
that if there were any sulphur left in the gun one could fire without a
cap. So I put the loaded rifle on my knee like this, and fired it off
at full cock with my finger, like this, see? Then bang! it went off!
Nearly killed myself! He! He! Loaded the rifle, and bang!! Nearly
killed myself!”

They all laughed, and there were tears of mirth in Yourii’s eyes, so
absurd did the little man seem with his tufted grey beard and his
sunken jaws.

The old fellow laughed, too, till his little eyes watered. “Very nearly
killed myself! He! He!”

In the darkness, and beyond the circle of light, one could hear
laughter, and the voices of girls whom shyness had kept at a distance.
A few feet away from the fire, and in quite a different place from
where Yourii imagined him to be seated, Sanine struck a match. In the
reddish flare of it Yourii saw his calm, friendly eyes, and beside him
a young face whose soft eyes beneath their dark brows looked up at
Sanine with simple joy.

Riasantzeff, as he winked to Kousma, said:

“Grandfather, hadn’t you better keep an eye on your granddaughter, eh?”

“What’s the good!” replied Kousma, with a careless gesture. “Youth is
youth.”

“He! He!” laughed the old man in his turn, as with his fingers he
plucked a red-hot coal from the fire.

Sanine’s laugh was heard in the darkness. The girls may have felt
ashamed, for they had moved away, and their voices were scarcely
audible.

“It is time to go,” said Riasantzeff, as he got up. “Thank you,
Kousma.”

“Not at all,” replied the other, as with his sleeve he brushed away the
black melon-pips that had stuck to his grey beard. He shook hands with
both of them, and Yourii again felt a certain repugnance to the touch
of his rough, bony hand. As they retreated from the fire, the gloom
seemed less intense. Above were the cold, glittering stars and the vast
dome of heaven, serenely fair. The group by the fire, the horses, and
the pile of melons all became blacker against the light.

Yourii tripped over a pumpkin and nearly fell.

“Look out!” said Sanine. “Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!” replied Yourii, looking round at the other’s tall, dark
form, leaning against which he fancied that he saw another, the
graceful figure of a woman. Yourii’s heart beat faster. He suddenly
thought of Sina Karsavina, and envied Sanine.

Once more the wheels of the _droschky_ rattled, and once again the good
old horse snorted as it ran.

The fire faded in distance, as did the sound of voices and laughter.
Stillness reigned. Yourii slowly looked upwards to the sky with its
jewelled web of stars. As they reached the outskirts of the town,
lights flashed here and there, and dogs barked. Riasantzeff said to
Yourii:

“Old Kousma’s a philosopher, eh?”

Seated behind, Yourii looked at Riasantzeff’s neck, and roused from his
own melancholy thoughts, endeavoured to understand what he said.

“Oh!… Yes!” he replied hesitatingly.

“I didn’t know that Sanine was such a gay dog,” laughed Riasantzeff.

Yourii was not dreaming now, and he recalled the momentary vision of
Sanine and that pretty girlish face illumined by the light of a match.
Again he felt jealous, yet suddenly it occurred to him that Sanine’s
treatment of the girl was base and contemptible.

“No, I had no idea of it, either,” said Yourii, with a touch of irony
that was lost upon Riasantzeff, who whipped up the horse and, after a
while, remarked:

“Pretty girl, wasn’t she? I know her. She’s the old fellow’s
grandchild,”

Yourii was silent. His contemplative mood was in a moment dispelled,
and he now felt convinced that Sanine was a coarse, bad man.

Riasantzeff shrugged his shoulders, and at last blurted out:

“Deuce take it! Such a night, eh? It seems to have got hold of me, too.
I say, suppose we drive back, and—”

Yourii did not at first understand what he meant.

“There are some fine girls there, you know. What do you say? Shall we
go back?” continued Riasantzeff, sniggering.

Yourii blushed deeply. A thrill of animal lust shot through his frame,
and enticing pictures rose up before his heated imagination. Yet,
controlling himself, he answered, in a dry voice:

“No; it is time that we were at home.” Then he added, maliciously:
“Lialia is waiting for us.”

Riasantzeff collapsed.

“Oh, yes, of course; yes, we ought to be back by now!” he hastily
muttered.

Yourii ground his teeth, and, glaring at the driver’s broad back in its
white jacket, remarked aggressively:

“I have no particular liking for adventures of that sort.”

“No, no; I understand. Ha! Ha!” replied Riasantzeff, laughing in a
faint half-hearted way. After that he was silent.

“Damn it! How stupid of me!” he thought.

They drove home without uttering another word, and to each the way
seemed endless.

“You will come in, won’t you?” asked Yourii, without looking up.

“Er … No! I have got to see a patient. Besides it is rather late,”
replied Riasantzeff hesitatingly.

Yourii got out of the _droschky_, not caring to take the gun or the
game. Everything that belonged to Riasantzeff he now seemed to loathe.
The latter called out to him.

“I say, you’ve left your gun!”

Yourii turned round, took this and the bag with an air of disgust.
After shaking hands awkwardly with Riasantzeff, he entered the house.
The latter drove on slowly for a short distance and then turned sharply
into a side-street. The rattle of wheels on the road could now be heard
in another direction. Yourii listened to it, furious, and yet secretly
jealous. “A bad lot!” he muttered, feeling sorry for his sister.




CHAPTER XIV.


Having carried the things indoors, Yourii, for want of something else
to do, went down the steps leading to the garden. It was dark as the
grave, and the sky with it vast company of gleaming stars enhanced the
weird effect. There, on one of the steps, sat Lialia; her little grey
form was scarcely perceptible in the gloom.

“Is that you, Yourii?” she asked.

“Yes, it is,” he replied, as he sat down beside her. Dreamily she leant
her head on his shoulder, and the fragrance of her fresh, sweet
girlhood touched his senses.

“Did you have good sport?” said Lialia. Then after a pause, she added
softly, “and where is Anatole Pavlovitch? I heard you drive up.”

“Your Anatole Pavlovitch is a dirty beast!” is what Yourii, feeling
suddenly incensed, would have liked to say. However, he answered
carelessly:

“I really don’t know. He had to see a patient.”

“A patient,” repeated Lialia mechanically. She said no more, but gazed
at the stars.

She was not vexed that Riasantzeff had not come. On the contrary, she
wished to be alone, so that, undisturbed by his presence, she might
give herself up to delicious meditation. To her, the sentiment that
filled her youthful being was strange and sweet and tender. It was the
consciousness of a climax, desired, inevitable, and yet disturbing,
which should close the page of her past life and commence that of her
new one. So new, indeed, that Lialia was to become an entirely
different being.

To Yourii it was strange that his merry, laughing sister should have
become so quiet and pensive. Depressed and irritable himself,
everything, Lialia, the dark garden the distant starlit sky seemed to
him sad and cold. He did not perceive that this dreamy mood concealed
not sorrow, but the very essence and fulness of life. In the wide
heaven surged forces immeasurable and unknown; the dim garden drew
forth vital sap from the earth; and in Lialia’s heart there was a joy
so full, so complete, that she feared lest any movement, any impression
should break the spell. Radiant as the starry heaven, mysterious as the
dark garden, harmonies of love and yearning vibrated within her soul.

“Tell me, Lialia, do you love Anatole Pavlovitch very much?” asked
Yourii, gently, as if he feared to rouse her.

“How can you ask?” she thought, but, recollecting herself, she nestled
closer to her brother, grateful to him for not speaking of anything
else but of her life’s one interest—the man she adored.

“Yes, very much,” she replied, so softly that Yourii guessed rather
than heard what she said, striving to restrain her tears of joy. Yet
Yourii thought that he could detect a certain note of sadness in her
voice, and his pity for her, as his hatred of Riasantzeff, increased.

“Why?” he asked, feeling amazed at such a question.

Lialia looked up in astonishment, and laughed gently.

“You silly boy! Why, indeed! Because … Well, have you never been in
love yourself? He’s so good, so honest and upright …”

“So good-looking, and strong,” she would have added, but she only
blushed and said nothing.

“Do you know him well?” asked Yourii.

“I ought not to have asked that,” he thought, inwardly vexed, “for, of
course she thinks that he is the best man in the whole world.”

“Anatole tells me everything,” replied Lialia timidly, yet
triumphantly.

Yourii smiled, and, aware now that there was no going back, retorted,
“Are you quite sure?”

“Of course I am; why should I not be?” Lialia’s voice trembled.

“Oh! nothing. I merely asked,” said Yourii, somewhat confused.

Lialia was silent. He could not guess what was passing through her
mind.

“Perhaps you know something about him?” she said suddenly. There was a
suggestion of pain in her voice, which puzzled Yourii.

“Oh! n

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