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 Deck, 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! no," he said, "not at all. What should I know about Anatole Pavlovitch?"

"But you would not have spoken like that, otherwise," persisted Lialia.

"All that I meant was—well," Yourii stopped short, feeling half ashamed, "well, we men, generally speaking, are all thoroughly depraved, all of us."

Lialia was silent for a while, and then burst out laughing.

"Oh! yes, I know that!" she exclaimed.

Her laughter to him seemed quite out of place.

"You can't take matters so lightly," he replied petulantly, "nor can you be expected to know everything that goes on. You have no idea of all the vile things of life; you are too young, too pure."

"Oh! indeed!" said Lialia, laughing, and flattered. Then in a more serious tone she continued, "Do you suppose that I have not thought of such things? Indeed, I have; and it has always pained and grieved me that we women should care so much for our reputation and our chastity, being afraid to take a step lest we—well, lest we should fall, while men almost look upon it as an heroic deed to seduce a girl. That is all horribly unjust, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied Yourii, bitterly, finding a certain pleasure in lashing his own sins, though conscious that he, Yourii, was absolutely different from other men. "Yes; that is one of the most monstrously unjust things in the world. Ask any one of us if he would like to marry" (he was going to say "a whore," but substituted) "a cocotte, and he will always tell you 'No.' But in what respect is a man really any better than a cocotte? She sells herself at least for money, to earn a living, whereas a man simply gives rein to his lust in wanton and shameless fashion."

Lialia was silent.

A bat darted backwards and forwards beneath the balcony, unseen, struck the wall repeatedly with its wings and then, with faint fluttering, vanished. Yourii listened to all these strange noises of the night, and then he continued speaking with increasing bitterness. The very of his voice drew him on.

"The worst of it is that not only do they all know this, and tacitly agree that it must be so, but they enact complete tragi-comedies, allowing themselves to become betrothed, and then lying to God and man. It is always the purest and most innocent girls, too," (he was thinking jealously of Sina Karsavina) "who become the prey of the vilest debauchees, tainted physically and morally. Semenoff once said to me, 'the purer the woman, the filthier the man who possesses her,' and he was right."

"Is that true?" asked Lialia, in a strange tone.

"Yes, most assuredly it is." Yourii smiled bitterly.

"I know nothing—nothing about it," faltered Lialia, with tears in her voice.

"What?" cried Yourii, for he had not heard her remark.

"Surely Tolia is not like the rest? It's impossible."

She had never spoken of him by his pet name to Yourii before. Then, all at once, she began to weep.

Touched by her distress, Yourii seized her hand.

"Lialia! Lialitschka! What's the matter? I didn't mean to—Come, come, my dear little Lialia, don't cry!" he stammered, as he pulled her hands away from her face and kissed her little wet fingers.

"No! It's true! I know it is!" she sobbed.

Although she had said that she had thought about this, it was in fact pure imagination on her part, for of Riasantzeff's intimate life she had never yet formed the slightest conception. Of course she knew that she was not his first love, and she understood what that meant, though the impression upon her mind had been a vague and never a permanent one.

She felt that she loved him, and that he loved her. This was the essential thing; all else for her was of no importance whatever. Yet now that her brother had spoken thus, in a tone of censure and contempt, she seemed to stand on the verge of a precipice; that of which they talked was horrible, and indeed irreparable, her happiness was at an end; of her love for Riasantzeff there could be no thought now.

Almost in tears himself, Yourii sought to comfort her, as he kissed her and stroked her hair. Yet still she wept, bitterly, hopelessly.

"Oh! dear! Oh! dear!" she sobbed, just like a child.

There, in the dusk, she seemed so helpless, so pitiful, that Yourii felt unspeakably grieved. Pale and confused, he ran into the house, striking his head against the door, and brought her a glass of water, half of which he spilt on the ground and over his hands.

"Oh! don't cry, Lialitschka! You mustn't cry like that! What is the matter? Perhaps Anatole Pavlovitch is better than the rest, Lialia!" he repeated in despair. Lialia, still sobbing, shook violently, and he teeth rattled against the rim of the glass.

"What is the matter, miss?" asked the maid-servant in alarm, as she appeared in the doorway. Lialia rose, and, leaning against the balustrade, went trembling and in tears towards her room.

"My dear little mistress, tell me, what is it? Shall I call the master, Yourii Nicolaijevitch?"

Nicolai Yegorovitch at that moment came out of his study, walking in slow, measured fashion. He stopped short in the doorway, amazed at the sight of Lialia.

"What has happened?"

"Oh! nothing! A mere trifle!" replied Yourii, with a forced laugh. "We were talking about Riasantzeff. It's all nonsense!"

Nicolai Yegorovitch looked hard at him and suddenly his face wore a look of extreme displeasure.

"What the devil have you been saying?" he exclaimed as, shrugging his shoulders, he turned abruptly on his heel and withdrew.

Yourii flushed angrily, and would have made some insolent reply, but a sudden sense of shame caused him to remain silent. Feeling irritated with his father, and grieved for Lialia, while despising himself, he went down the steps into the garden. A little frog, croaking beneath his feet, burst like an acorn. He slipped, and with a cry of disgust sprang aside. Mechanically he wiped his foot for a long while on the wet grass, feeling a cold shiver down his back.

He frowned. Disgust mental and physical made him think that all things were revolting and abominable. He groped his way to a seat, and sat there, staring vacantly at the garden, seeing only broad black patches amid the general gloom. Sad, dismal thoughts drifted through his brain.

He looked across to where in the dark grass that poor little frog was dying, or perhaps, after terrible agony, lay dead. A whole world had, as it were, been destroyed; an individual and independent life had come to a hideous and, yet utterly unnoticed and unheard.

And then, by ways inscrutable, Yourii was led to the strange, disquieting thought that all which went to make up a life, the secret instincts of loving or of hating that involuntarily caused him to accept one thing and to reject another; his intuitive sense regarding good or bad; that all this was merely as a faint mist, in which his personality alone was shrouded. By the world in its huge, vast entirety all his profoundest and most agonising experiences were as utterly and completely ignored as the death-agony of this little frog. In imagining that his sufferings and his emotions were of interest to others, he had expressly and senselessly woven a complicated net between himself and the universe. The moment of death sufficed to destroy this net, and to leave him, devoid of pity or pardon, utterly alone.

Once more his thoughts reverted to Semenoff and to the indifference shown by the deceased student towards all lofty ideals which so profoundly interested him, Yourii, and millions of his kind. This brought him to think of the simple joy of living, the charm of beautiful women, of moonlight, of nightingales, a theme upon which he had mournfully reflected on the day following his last sad talk with Semenoff.

At that time he had not understood why Semenoff attached importance to futile things such as boating or the comely shape of a girl, while deliberately refusing to be interested in the loftiest and most profound conceptions. Now, however, Yourii perceived that it could not have been otherwise for it was these trivial things that constituted life, the real life, full of sensations, emotions, enjoyments; and that all these lofty conceptions were but empty thoughts, vain verbiage, powerless to influence in the slightest the great mystery of life and death. Important, complete though these might be, other words, other thoughts no less weighty and important must follow in the future.

At this conclusion, evolved unexpectedly from his thoughts concerning good and evil, Yourii seemed utterly nonplussed. It was as though a great void lay before him, and, for a moment, his brain felt free and clear, as one in dream feels able to float through space just whither he will. It alarmed him. With all his might he strove to collect his habitual conceptions of life, and then the alarming sensation disappeared. All became gloomy and confused as before.

Yourii came near to admitting that life was the realization of freedom, and consequently that it was natural for a man to live for enjoyment. Thus Riasantzeff's point of view, though inferior, was yet a perfectly logical one in striving to satisfy his sexual needs as much as possible, they being the most urgent. But then he had to admit that the conceptions of debauchery and of purity were merely as withered leaves that cover fresh grown grass, and that girls romantic and chaste as Lialia or Sina Karsavina had the right to plunge into the stream of sensual enjoyment. Such an idea shocked him as being both frivolous and nasty, and he endeavoured to drive it from his brain and heart with his usual vehement, stern phrases.

"Well, yes," he thought, gazing upwards at the starry sky, "life is emotion, but men are not unreasoning beasts. They must master their passions; their desires must be set upon what is good. Yet, is there a God beyond the stars?"

As he suddenly asked himself this, a confused, painful sense of awe seemed to crush him to the ground. Persistently he gazed at a brilliant star in the tail of the Great Bear and recollected how Kousma the peasant in the melon-field had called this majestic constellation a "wheelbarrow." He felt annoyed, in a way, that such an irrelevant thought should have crossed his mind. He gazed at the black garden in sharp contrast to the shining sky, pondering, meditating.

"If the world were deprived of feminine purity and grace, that are as the first sweet flowers of spring, what would remain sacred to mankind?"

As he thought thus, he pictured to himself a company of lovely maidens, fair as spring flowers, seated in sunlight on green meadows beneath blossoming boughs. Their youthful breasts, delicately moulded shoulders, and supple limbs moved mysteriously before his eyes, provoking exquisitely voluptuous thrills. As if dazed, he passed his hand across his brow.

"My nerves are overwrought; I must get to bed," thought he. With sensuous visions such as these before his eyes, depressed and ill at ease, Yourii went hurriedly indoors. When in bed, after vain efforts to sleep, his thoughts reverted to Lialia and Riasantzeff.

"Why am I so indignant because Lialia is not Riasantzeff's only love?"

To this question he could find no reply. Suddenly the image of Sina Karsavina rose up before him, soothing his heated senses. Yet, though he strove to suppress his feelings, it became ever clearer to him why he wanted her to be just as she was, untouched and pure.

"Yes, but I love her," thought Yourii, for the first time, and it was this idea that banished all others, even bringing tears to his eyes. But in another moment he was asking himself with a bitter smile, "Why, then, did I make love to other women, before her? True, I did not know of her existence, yet neither did Riasantzeff know of Lialia. At that time we both thought that the woman whom we desired to possess was the real, the sole, the indispensable one. We were wrong then; perhaps we are wrong now. It comes to this, that we must either remain perpetually chaste, or else enjoy absolute sexual liberty, allowing women, of course, to do the same. Now, after all, Riasantzeff is not to blame for having loved other women before Lialia, but because he still carries on with several; and that is not what I do."

The thought made Yourii feel very proud and pure, but only for a moment, for he suddenly recollected his seductive vision of sweet, supple girls in sunlight. He was utterly overwhelmed. His mind became a chaos of conflicting thoughts.

Finding it uncomfortable to lie on his right side, he awkwardly turned over on to his left. "The fact is," he thought, "not one of all the women I have known could ever satisfy me for the whole of my life. Thus, what I have called true love is impossible, not to be realized; and to dream of such a thing is sheer folly."

Feeling just as uncomfortable when lying on his left side, he turned over again, restless and perspiring, beneath the hot coverlet; and now his head ached.

"Chastity is an ideal, but, to realize this, humanity would perish. Therefore, it is folly. And life? what is life but folly too?" He almost uttered the words in a loud voice, grinding his teeth with such fury that yellow stars flashed before his eyes.

So, till morning, he tossed from side to side, his heart and brain heavy with despairing thoughts. At last, to escape from them, he sought to persuade himself that he too, was a depraved, sensual egoist, and that his scruples were but the outcome of hidden lust. Yet this only depressed him the more, and relief was finally obtained by the simple question:

"Why, after all, do I torment myself in this way?"

Disgusted at all such futile processes of self-examination, Yourii, nerveless and exhausted, finally fell asleep.



CHAPTER XV.

Lialia wept in her room for such a long while that at last, her face buried in the pillows, she fell asleep. She woke next morning with aching head and swollen eyes, her first thought being that she must not cry, as Riasantzeff, who was coming to lunch, would be shocked to see her looking so plain. Then, suddenly, she recollected that all was over between them, and a sense of bitter pain and burning love caused her to weep afresh.

"How base, how horrible!" she murmured, striving to keep back her tears. "And why? Why?" she repeated, as infinite grief for love that was lost seemed to overwhelm her. It was revolting to think that Riasantzeff had always lied to her in such a facile, heartless way. "And not only he, but all the others lied, too," she thought. "They all of them professed to be so delighted at our marriage, and said that he was such a good, honest fellow! Well, no, they didn't actually lie about it, but they simply didn't think it was wrong. How hateful of them!"

Thus all those who surrounded her seemed odious, evil persons. She leant her forehead against the window-pane and through her tears, gazed at the garden. It was gloomy, there; and large raindrops beat incessantly against the panes, so that Lialia could not tell if it were these or her tears which hid the garden from her view. The trees looked sad and forlorn, their pale, dripping leaves and black boughs faintly discernible amid the general downpour that converted the lawn into a muddy swamp.

And Lialia's whole life seemed to her utterly unhappy; the future was hopeless, the past all dark.

When the maid-servant came to call her to breakfast, Lialia, though she heard the words, failed to understand their meaning. Afterwards, at table, she felt confused when her father spoke to her. It was as if he spoke with special pity in his voice; no doubt, every one knew by this time how abominably false to her the beloved one had been. She hastily returned to her room and once more sat down and gazed at the grey, dreary garden.

"Why should he be so false? Why should he have hurt me like this? Is it that he does not love me? No, Tolia loves me, and I love him. Well, then, what is wrong? Why it's this; he's deceived me; he's been making love to all sorts of nasty women. I wonder if they loved him as I love him?" she asked herself, naively, ardently. "Oh! how silly I am, to be sure! What's the good of worrying about that? He has been false to me, and everything now is at an end. Oh! how perfectly miserable I am! Yes, I ought to worry about it! He was false to me! At least, he might have confessed it to me! But he didn't! Oh! it's abominable! Kissing a lot of other women, and perhaps, even ... It's awful. Oh I I'm so wretched!"

A little frog hopped across the path, With legs outstretched!

Thus sang Lialia, mentally, as she spied a little grey ball hopping timidly across the slippery foot-path.

"Yes, I am miserable, and it is all over," thought she, as the frog disappeared in the long grass. "For me it was all so beautiful, so wonderful, and for him, well—just an ordinary, commonplace affair! That is why he always avoided speaking to me of his past life! That is why he always looked so strange, as if he were thinking of something; as if he were thinking 'I know all about that; I know exactly what you feel and what the result of it will be.' While all the time, I was.... Oh! it's horrible! It's shameful! I'll never, never love anybody again!"

And she wept again, her cheek pressed against the cool window-pane, as she watched the drifting clouds.

"But Tolia is coming to lunch to-day!" The thought of it made her shiver. "What am I to say to him? What ought one to say in cases of this kind?"

Lialia opened her mouth and stared anxiously at the wall.

"I must ask Yourii about it. Dear Yourii! He's so good and upright!" she thought, as tears of sympathy filled her eyes. Then, being never wont to postpone matters, she hastened to her brother's room. There she found Schafroff who was discussing something with Yourii. She stood, irresolute, in the doorway.

"Good morning," she said absently.

"Good morning!" replied Schafroff. "Pray come in, Ludmilla Nicolaijevna; your help is absolutely necessary in this matter."

Still somewhat embarrassed, Lialia sat down obediently at the table and began fingering in desultory fashion some of the green and red pamphlets which were heaped upon it.

"You see, it's like this," began Schafroff, turning towards her as if he were about to explain something extremely complicated, "several of our comrades at Koursk are very hard up, and we must absolutely do what we can to help them. So I think of getting up a concert, eh, what?"

This favourite expression of Schafroff's, "eh, what?" reminded Lialia of her object in coming to her brother's room, and she glanced hopefully at Yourii.

"Why not? It's a very good idea!" she replied, wondering why Yourii avoided her glance.

After Lialia's torrent of tears and the gloomy thoughts which had harassed him all night long, Yourii felt too depressed to speak to his sister. He had expected that she would come to him for advice, yet to give this in a satisfactory way seemed impossible. So, too, it was impossible to take back what he had said in order to comfort Lialia, and thrust her back into Riasantzeff's arms; nor had he the heart to give the death-blow to her childish happiness.

"Well, this is what we have decided to do," continued Schafroff, moving nearer to Lialia, as if the matter were becoming much more complex, "we mean to ask Lida Sanina and Sina Karsavina to sing. Each a solo, first of all, and afterwards a duet. One is a contralto, and the other, a soprano, so that will do nicely. Then I shall play the violin, and afterwards Sarudine might sing, accompanied by Tanaroff."

"Oh! then, officers are to take part in the concert, are they?" asked Lialia mechanically, thinking all the while of something quite different.

"Why, of course!" exclaimed Schafroff, with a wave of his hand. "Lida has only got to accept, and they'll all swarm round her like bees. As for Sarudine, he'll be delighted to sing; it doesn't matter where, so long as he can sing. This will attract a good many of his brother- officers, and we shall get a full house."

"You ought to ask Sina Karsavina," said Lialia, looking wistfully at her brother. "He surely can't have forgotten," she thought. "How can he discuss this stupid concert, whilst I ..."

"Why, I told you just now we had done so!" replied Schafroff. "Oh! yes, so you did," said Lialia, smiling faintly. "Then there's Lida. But you mentioned her I think?"

"Of course I did! Whom else can we ask, eh?"

"I really ... don't know!" faltered Lialia. "I've got such a headache."

Yourii glanced hurriedly at his sister, and then continued to pore over his pamphlets. Pale and heavy-eyed, she excited his compassion.

"Oh! why, why did I say all that to her?" he thought. "The whole question is so obscure, to me, as to so many others, and now it must needs trouble her poor little heart! Why, why did I say that!"

He felt as if he could tear his hair.

"If you please, miss," said the maid at the door, "Mr. Anatole Pavlovitch has just come."

Yourii gave another frightened glance at his sister, and met her sad eyes. In confusion he turned to Schafroff, and said hastily:

"Have you read Charles Bradlaugh?"

"Yes, we read some of his works with Dubova, and Sina Karsavina. Most interesting."

"Yes. Oh! have they come back?"

"Yes."

"Since when?" asked Yourii, hiding his emotion.

"Since the day before yesterday."

"Oh! really!" replied Yourii, as he watched Lialia. He felt ashamed and afraid in her presence, as if he had deceived her.

For a moment Lialia stood there irresolute, touching things nervously on the table. Then she approached the door.

"Oh! what have I done!" thought Yourii, as, sincerely grieved, he listened to the sound of her faltering footsteps. As she went towards the other room, Lialia, doubting and distressed, felt as if she were frozen. It seemed as though she were wandering in a dark wood. She glanced at a mirror, and saw the reflection of her own rueful countenance.

"He shall just see me looking like this!" she thought.

Riasantzeff was standing in the dining-room, saying in his remarkably pleasant voice to Nicolai Yegorovitch;

"Of course, it's rather strange, but quite harmless."

At the sound of his voice Lialia felt her heart throb violently, as if it must break. When Riasantzeff saw her, he suddenly stopped talking and came forward to meet her with outstretched arms. She alone knew that this gesture signified his desire to embrace her.

Lialia looked up shyly at him, and her lips trembled. Without a word she pulled her hand away, crossed the room and opened the glass door leading to the balcony. Riasantzeff watched her, calmly, but with slight astonishment.

"My Ludmilla Nicolaijevna is cross," he said to Nicolai Yegorovitch with serio-comic gravity of manner. The latter burst out laughing.

"You had better go and make it up."

"There's nothing else to be done!" sighed Riasantzeff, in droll fashion, as he followed Lialia on to the balcony.

It was still raining. The monotonous sound of falling drops filled the air; but the sky seemed clearer now, and there was a break in the clouds.

Lialia, her cheek propped against one of the cold, damp pillars of the veranda, let the rain beat upon her bare head, so that her hair was wet through.

"My princess is displeased ... Lialitschka!" said Riasantzeff, as he drew her closer to him, and lightly kissed moist, fragrant hair.

At this touch, so intimate and familiar, something seemed to melt in Lialia's breast, and without knowing what she did, she flung her arms round her lover's strong neck as, amid a shower of kisses, she murmured:

"I am very, very angry with you! You're a bad man!"

All the while she kept thinking that after all there was nothing so bad, or awful, or irreparable as she had supposed. What did it matter? All that she wanted was to love and be loved by this big, handsome man.

Afterwards, at table, it was painful to her to notice Yourii's look of amazement, and, when the chance came, she whispered to him, "It's awful of me, I know!" at which he only smiled awkwardly. Yourii was really pleased that the matter should have ended happily like this, while yet affecting to despise such an attitude of bourgeois complacency and toleration. He withdrew to his room, remaining there alone until the evening, and as, before sunset, the sky grew clear, he took his gun, intending to shoot in the same place where he and Riasantzeff had been yesterday.

After the rain, the marsh seemed full of new life. Many strange sounds were now audible, and the grasses waved as if stirred by some secret vital force. Frogs croaked lustily in a chorus; now and again some birds uttered a sharp discordant cry; while at no great distance, yet out of range, ducks could be heard cackling in the wet reeds. Yourii, however, felt no desire to shoot, but he shouldered his gun and turned homeward, listening to sounds of crystalline clearness in the grey calm twilight.

"How beautiful!" thought he. "All is beautiful; man alone is vile!"

Far away he saw the little fire burning in the melon-field, and ere long by its light he recognized the faces of Kousma and Sanine.

"What does he always come here for?" thought Yourii, surprised and curious.

Seated by the fire, Kousma was telling a story, laughing and gesticulating meanwhile. Sanine was laughing, too. The fire burned with a slender flame, as that of a taper, the light being rosy, not red as at night-time, while overhead, in the blue dome of heaven, the first stars glittered. There was an odour of fresh mould and rain-drenched grass.

For some reason or other Yourii felt afraid lest they should see him, yet at the same time it saddened him to think that he could not join them. Between himself and them there seemed to be a barrier incomprehensible and yet unreal; a space devoid of atmosphere, a gulf that could never be bridged.

This sense of utter isolation depressed him greatly. He was alone; from this world with its vesper lights and hues, and fires, and stars, and human sounds, he stood aloof and apart, as though shut close within a dark room. So distressful was this sense of solitude, that as he crossed the melon-field where hundreds of melons were growing in the gloom, to him they seemed like human skulls that Jay strewn upon the ground.



CHAPTER XVI.

Summer now came on, abounding in light and warmth. Between the luminous blue heaven and the sultry earth there floated a tremulous veil of golden haze. Exhausted with the heat, the trees seemed asleep; their leaves, drooping and motionless, cast short, transparent shadows on the parched, arid turf. Indoors it was cool. Pale green reflections from the garden quivered on the ceiling, and while everything else stirred not, the curtains by the window waved.

His linen jacket all unbuttoned, Sarudine slowly paced up and down the room languidly smoking a cigarette, and displaying his large white teeth. Tanaroff, in just his shirt and riding-breeches, lay at full length on the sofa, furtively watching Sarudine with his little black eyes. He was in urgent need of fifty roubles, and had already asked his friend twice for them. He did not venture to do this a third time, and so was anxiously waiting to see if Sarudine himself would return to the subject. The latter had not forgotten by any means, but, having gambled away seven hundred roubles last month, begrudged any further outlay.

"He already owes me two hundred and fifty," thought he, as he glanced at Tanaroff in passing. Then, more irritably, "It's astonishing, upon my word! Of course we're good friends, and all that, but I wonder that he's not the least bit ashamed of himself. He might at any rate make some excuse for owing me all that money. No, I won't lend him another penny," he thought maliciously.

The orderly now entered the room, a little freckled fellow who in slow, clumsy fashion stood at attention, and, without looking at Sarudine, said,

"If you please, sir, you asked for beer, but there isn't any more."

Sarudine's face grew red, as involuntarily he glanced at Tanaroff.

"Well, this is really a bit too much!" he thought. "He knows that I am hard up, yet beer has to be sent for."

"There's very little vodka left, either," added the soldier.

"All right! Damn you! You've still got a couple of roubles. Go and buy what is wanted."

"Please, sir, I haven't got any money at all."

"How's that? What do you mean by lying?" exclaimed Sarudine, stopping short.

"If you please, sir, I was told to pay the washerwoman one rouble and seventy copecks, which I did, and I put the other thirty copecks on the dressing-table, sir."

"Yes, that's right," said Tanaroff, with assumed carelessness of manner, though blushing for very shame, "I told him to do that yesterday ... the woman had been worrying me for a whole week, don't you know."

Two red spots appeared on Sarudine's scrupulously shaven cheeks, and the muscles of his face worked convulsively. He silently resumed his walk up and down the room and suddenly stopped in front of Tanaroff.

"Look here," he said, and his voice trembled with anger, "I should be much obliged if, in future, you would leave me to manage my own money- affairs."

Tanaroff's face flushed crimson.

"H'm! A trifle like that!" he muttered, shrugging his shoulders.

"It is not a question of trifles," continued Sarudine, bitterly, "it is the principle of the thing. May I ask what right you ..."

"I ..." stammered Tanaroff.

"Pray don't explain," said Sarudine, in the same cutting tone. "I must beg you not to take such a liberty again."

Tanaroff's lips quivered. He hung his head, and nervously fingered his mother-of-pearl cigarette-holder. After a moment's pause, Sarudine turned sharply round, and, jingling the keys loudly, opened the drawer of his bureau.

"There! go and buy what is wanted!" he said irritably, but in a calmer tone, as he handed the soldier a hundred-rouble note.

"Very good, sir," replied the soldier, who saluted and withdrew.

Sarudine pointedly locked his cash-box and shut the drawer of the bureau. Tanaroff had just time to glance at the box containing the fifty roubles which he needed so much, and then, sighing, lit a cigarette. He felt deeply mortified, yet he was afraid to show this, lest Sarudine should become more angry.

"What are two roubles to him?" he thought, "He knows very well that I am hard up."

Sarudine continued walking up and down obviously irritated, but gradually growing calmer. When the servant brought in the beer, he drank off a tumbler of the ice-cold foaming beverage with evident gusto. Then as he sucked the end of his moustache, he said, as if nothing had happened.

"Lida came again to see me yesterday, A fine girl, I tell you! As hot as they make them."

Tanaroff, still smarting, made no reply.

Sarudine, however, did not notice this, and slowly crossed the room, his eyes laughing as if at some secret recollection. His strong, healthy organism, enervated by the heat, was the more sensible to the influence of exciting thought. Suddenly he laughed, a short laugh; it was as if he had neighed. Then he stopped.

"You know yesterday I tried to ..." (here he used a coarse, and in reference to a woman, a most humiliating, expression) "She jibbed a bit, at first; that wicked look in her eyes; you know the sort of thing!"

His animal instincts roused in their turn, Tanaroff grinned lecherously.

"But afterwards, it was all right; never had such a time in my life!" said Sarudine, and he shivered at the recollection.

"Lucky chap!" exclaimed Tanaroff, enviously.

"Is Sarudine at home?" cried a loud voice from the Street. "May we come in?" It was Ivanoff.

Sarudine started, fearful lest his words about Lida Sanina should have been heard by some one else. But Ivanoff had hailed him from the roadway, and was not even visible.

"Yes, yes, he's at home!" cried Sarudine from the window.

In the ante-room there was a noise of laughter and clattering of feet, as if the house were being invaded by a merry crowd. Then Ivanoff, Novikoff, Captain Malinowsky, two other officers, and Sanine all appeared.

"Hurrah!" cried Malinowsky, as he pushed his way in. His face was purple, he had fat, flabby cheeks and a moustache like two wisps of straw. "How are you, boys?"

"Bang goes another twenty-five-rouble note!" thought Sarudine with some irritation.

As he was mainly anxious, however, not to lose his reputation for being a wealthy, open-handed fellow, he exclaimed, smiling,

"Hallo! Where are you all going? Here! Tcherepanoff get some vodka, and whatever's wanted. Run across to the club and order some beer. You would like some beer, gentlemen, eh? A hot day like this?"

When beer and vodka had been brought, the din grew greater. All were laughing, and shouting and drinking, apparently bent on making as much noise as possible. Only Novikoff seemed moody and depressed; his good- tempered face wore an evil expression.

It was not until yesterday that he had discovered what the whole town had been talking about; and at first a sense of humiliation and jealousy utterly overcame him.

"It's impossible! It's absurd! Silly gossip!" he said to himself, refusing to believe that Lida, so fair, so proud, so unapproachable, Lida whom he so deeply loved, could possibly have scandalously compromised herself with such a creature as Sarudine whom he looked upon as infinitely inferior and more stupid than himself. Then wild, bestial jealousy took possession of his soul. He had moments of the bitterest despair, and anon he was consumed by fierce hatred of Lida, and specially of Sarudine, To his placid, indolent temperament this feeling was so strange that it craved an outlet. All night long he had pitied himself, even thinking of suicide, but when morning came he only longed with a wild, inexplicable longing to set eyes upon Sarudine.

Now amid the noise and drunken laughter, he sat apart, drinking mechanically glass after glass, while intently watching every movement of Sarudine's, much as some wild beast in a wood watches another wild beast, pretending to see nothing, yet ever ready to spring. Everything about Sarudine, his smile, his white teeth, his good looks, his voice, were for Novikoff, all so many daggers thrust into an open wound.

"Sarudine," said a tall lean officer with exceptionally long, unwieldy arms, "I've brought you a book."

Above the general clamour Novikoff instantly caught the name, Sarudine, and the sound of his voice, as well, all other voices seeming mute.

"What sort of book?"

"It's about women, by Tolstoi," replied the lanky officer, raising his voice as if he were making a report. On his long sallow face there was a look of evident pride at being able to read and discuss Tolstoi.

"Do you read Tolstoi?" asked Ivanoff, who had noticed this naively complacent expression.

"Von Deitz is mad about Tolstoi," exclaimed Malinowsky, with a loud guffaw.

Sarudine took the slender red-covered pamphlet, and, turning over a few pages, said,

"Is it interesting?"

"You'll see for yourself," replied Von Deitz with enthusiasm. "There's a brain for you, my word! It's just as if one had known it all one's self!"

"But why should Victor Sergejevitsch read Tolstoi when he has his own special views concerning women?" asked Novikoff, in a low tone, not taking his eyes off his glass.

"What makes you think that?" rejoined Sarudine warily, scenting an attack.

Novikoff was silent. With all that was in him, he longed to hit Sarudine full in the face, that pretty self-satisfied-looking face, to fling him to the ground, and kick him, in a blind fury of passion. But the words that he wanted would not come; he knew, and it tortured him the more to know, that he was saying the wrong thing, as with a sneer, he replied.

"It is enough to look at you, to know that."

The strange, menacing tone of his voice produced a sudden lull, almost as if a murder had been committed. Ivanoff guessed what was the matter.

"It seems to me that ..." began Sarudine coldly. His manner had changed somewhat, though he did not lose his self-control.

"Come, come, gentlemen! What's the matter?" cried Ivanoff.

"Don't interfere! Let them fight it out!" interposed Sanine, laughing.

"It does not seem, but it is so!" said Novikoff, in the same tone, his eyes still fixed on his glass.

Instantly, as it were, a living wall rose up between the rivals, amid much shouting, waving of arms, and expressions of amusement or of surprise. Sarudine was held back by Malinowsky and Von Deitz, while Ivanoff and the other officers kept Novikoff in check. Ivanoff filled up the glasses, and shouted out something, addressing no one in particular. The gaiety was now forced and insincere, and Novikoff felt suddenly that he must get away.

He could bear it no longer. Smiling foolishly, he turned to Ivanoff and the officers who were trying to engage his attention.

"What is the matter with me?" he thought, half-dazed. "I suppose I ought to strike him ... rush at him, and give him one in the eye! Otherwise, I shall look such a fool, for they must all have guessed that I wanted to pick a quarrel...."

But, instead of doing this, he pretended to be interested in what Ivanoff and Von Deitz were saying.

"As regards women, I don't altogether agree with Tolstoi," said the officer complacently.

"A woman's just a female," replied Ivanoff, "In every thousand men you might find one worthy to be called a man. But women, bah! They're all alike—just little naked, plump, rosy apes without tails!"

"Rather smart, that!" said Von Deitz, approvingly.

"And true, too," thought Novikoff, bitterly.

"My dear fellow," continued Ivanoff, waving his hands close to the other's nose, "I'll tell you what, if you were to go to people and say, 'Whatsoever woman looketh on a man to lust after him hath committed adultery with him already in her heart,' most of them would probably think that you had made a most original remark."

Von Deitz burst into a fit of hoarse laughter that sounded like the barking of a dog. He had not understood Ivanoff's joke, but felt sorry not to have made it himself.

Suddenly Novikoff held out his hand to him.

"What? Are you off?" asked Von Deitz in surprise.

Novikoff made no reply.

"Where are you going?" asked Sanine.

Still Novikoff was silent. He felt that in another moment the grief pent up within his bosom must break forth in a flood of tears.

"I know what's wrong with you," said Sanine. "Spit on it all!"

Novikoff glanced piteously at him. His lips trembled and with a deprecating gesture, he silently went out, feeling utterly overcome at his own helplessness. To soothe himself, he thought:

"Of what good would it have been to hit that blackguard in the face? It would have only led to a stupid fight. Better not soil my hands!"

But the sense of jealously unsatisfied and of utter impotence still oppressed him, and he returned home in deep dejection. Flinging himself on his bed, he buried his face in the pillows and lay thus almost the whole day long, bitterly conscious that he could do nothing.

"Shall we play makao?" asked Malinowsky.

"All right!" said Ivanoff.

The orderly at once opened the card-table and gaily the green cloth beamed upon them all. Malinowsky's suggestion had roused the company, and he now began to shuffle the cards with his short, hairy fingers. The bright coloured cards were now scattered circle-wise on the green table, as the chink of silver roubles was heard after each deal, while on all sides fingers like spiders closed greedily on the coin. Only brief, hoarse ejaculations were audible, expressing either vexation or pleasure. Sarudine had no luck. He obstinately made a point of staking fifteen roubles, and lost every time. His handsome face wore a look of extreme irritation. Last month he had gambled away seven hundred roubles, and now there was all this to add to his previous loss. His ill-humour was contagious, for soon between Von Deitz and Malinowsky there was an interchange of high words.

"I have staked on the side, there!" exclaimed Von Deitz irritably.

It amazed him that this drunken boor, Malinowsky, should dare to dispute with such a clever, accomplished person as himself.

"Oh! so you say!" replied Malinowsky, rudely. "Damnation, take it! when I win, then you tell me you've staked on the side, and when I lose ..."

"I beg your pardon," said Von Deitz, dropping his Russian accent, as he was wont to do when angry.

"Pardon be hanged! Take back your stake! No! No! Take it back, I say!"

"But let me tell you, sir, that ..."

"Good God, gentlemen! what the devil does all this mean?" shouted Sarudine, as he flung down his cards.

At this juncture a new comer appeared in the doorway, Sarudine was ashamed of his own vulgar outburst, and of his noisy, drunken guests, with their cards and bottles, for the whole scene suggested a low tavern.

The visitor was tall and thin, and wore a loosely-fitting white suit, and an extremely high collar. He stood on the threshold amazed, endeavouring to recognize Sarudine.

"Hallo! Pavel Lvovitsch! What brings you here?" cried Sarudine, as, crimson with annoyance, he advanced to greet him.

The newcomer entered in hesitating fashion, and the eyes of all were fixed on his dazzlingly white shoes picking their way through the beer- bottles, corks and cigarette-ends. So white and neat and scented was he, that, in all these clouds of smoke, and amid all these flushed, drunken fellows, he might have been likened to a lily in the marsh, had he not looked so frail and worn-out, and if his features had not been so puny, nor his teeth so decayed under his scanty, red moustache.

"Where have you come from? Have you been away a long while from Pitjer?" [Footnote: A slang term for St. Petersburg.] said Sarudine, somewhat flurried, as he feared that "Pitjer" was not exactly the word which he ought to have used.

"I only got here yesterday," said the gentleman in white, in a determined tone, though his voice sounded like the suppressed crowing of a cock. "My comrades," said Sarudine, introducing the others. "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Pavel Lvovitsch Volochine."

Volochine bowed slightly.

"We must make a note of that!" observed the tipsy Ivanoff, much to Sarudine's horror.

"Pray sit down, Pavel Lvovitsch. Would you like some wine or some beer?"

Volochine sat down carefully in an arm-chair and his white, immaculate form stood out sharply against the dingy oil-cloth cover.

"Please don't trouble. I just came to see you for a moment," he said, somewhat coldly, as he surveyed the company.

"How's that? I'll send for some white wine. You like white wine, don't you?" asked Sarudine, and he hurried out.

"Why on earth does the fool want to come here today?" he thought, irritably, as he sent the orderly to fetch wine. "This Volochine will say such things about me in Petersburg that I shan't be able to get a footing in any decent house."

Meanwhile Volochine was taking stock of the others with undisguised curiosity, feeling that he himself was immeasurably superior. There was a look in his little glassy, grey eyes of unfeigned interest, as if he were being shown a collection of wild beasts. He was specially attracted by Sanine's height, his powerful physique, and his dress.

"An interesting type, that! He must be pretty strong!" he thought, with the genuine admiration of the weakling for the athlete. In fact, he began to speak to Sanine but the latter, leaning against the window- sill, was looking out at the garden. Volochine stopped short; the very sound of his own squeaky voice vexed him.

"Hooligans!" he thought.

At this moment Sarudine came back. He sat down next to Volochine and asked questions about St. Petersburg, and also about the latter's factory, so as to let the others know what a very wealthy and important person his visitor was. The handsome face of this sturdy animal now wore an expression of petty vanity and self-importance.

"Everything's the same with us, just the same!" replied Volochine, in a bored tone of voice. "How is it with you?"

"Oh! I'm just vegetating," said Sarudine with a mournful sigh.

Volochine was silent, and looked up disdainfully at the ceiling where the green reflections from the garden wavered.

"Our one and only amusement is this," continued Sarudine, as with a gesture he indicated the cards, the bottles, and his guests.

"Yes, yes!" drawled Volochine; to Sarudine his tone seemed to say, "and you're no better, either."

"I think I must be going now. I'm staying at the hotel on the boulevard. I may see you again!" Volochine rose to take his leave.

At this moment the orderly entered and saluting in slovenly fashion, said,

"The young lady is there, sir."

Sarudine started. "What?" he cried.

"She has come, sir."

"Ah I yes, I know," said Sarudine. He glanced about him nervously, feeling a sudden presentiment.

"I wonder if it's Lida?" he thought. "Impossible!"

Volochine's inquisitive eyes twinkled. His puny little body in its loose white clothes seemed to acquire new vitality.

"Well, good-bye!" he said, laughing. "Up to your old tricks, as usual! Ha! Ha!"

Sarudine smiled uneasily, as he accompanied his visitor to the door, and with a parting stare the latter in his immaculate shoes hurried off.

"Now, sirs," said Sarudine, on his return, "how's the game going? Take the bank for me, will you, Tanaroff? I shall be back directly." He spoke hastily; his eyes were restless.

"That's a lie!" growled the drunken, bestial Malinowsky. "We mean to have a good look at that young lady of yours."

Tanaroff seized him by the shoulders and forced him back into his chair. The others hurriedly resumed their places at the card-table, not looking at Sarudine. Sanine also sat down, but there was a certain seriousness in his smile. He had guessed that it was Lida who had come, and a vague sense of jealousy and pity was roused within him for his handsome sister, now obviously in great distress.



CHAPTER XVII.

Sideways, on Sarudine's bed, sat Lida, in despair, convulsively twisting her handkerchief. As he came in he was struck by her altered appearance. Of the proud, high-spirited girl there was not a trace. He now saw before him a dejected woman, broken by grief, with sunken cheeks and lifeless eyes. These dark eyes instantly met his, and then as swiftly shunned his gaze. Instinctively he knew that Lida feared him, and a feeling of intense irritation suddenly arose within him. Closing the door with a bang, he walked straight up to her.

"You really are a most extraordinary person," he began, with difficulty checking his fierce wish to strike her. "Here am I, with a room full of people; your brother's there, too! Couldn't you have chosen some other time to come? Upon my word, it is too provoking!"

From the dark eyes there shot such a strange flash that Sarudine quailed. His tone changed. He smiled, showing his white teeth, and taking Lida's hand, sat down beside her on the bed.

"Well, well, it doesn't matter. I was only anxious on your account. I am ever so glad that you've come. I was longing to see you."

Sarudine raised her hot, perfumed little hand to his lips, and kissed it just above the glove.

"Is that the truth?" asked Lida. The curious tone of her voice surprised him. Again she looked up at him, and her eyes said plainly, "Is it true that you love me? You see how wretched I am, now. Not like I was once. I am afraid of you, and I feel all the humiliation of my present state, but I have no one except you that can help me."

"How can you doubt it?" replied Sarudine. The words sounded insincere, almost cold.

Again he took her hand and kissed it. He was entangled in a strange coil of sensations and of thoughts. Only two days ago on this very pillow had lain the dark tresses of Lida's dishevelled hair as he held her in his arms and their lips had met in a frenzy of passion uncontrolled. In that moment of desire the whole world and all his countless sensuous schemes of enjoyment with other women seemed realized and attained; the desire in deliberate and brutal fashion deeply to wrong this nature placed by passion within his power. And now, all at once, his feeling for her was one of loathing. He would have liked to thrust her from him; he wished never to see her or hear her again. So overpowering was this desire, that to sit beside her became positive torture. At the same time a vague dread of her deprived him of will-power and forced him to remain. He was perfectly aware that there was nothing whatever to bind him to her, and that it was with her own consent that he had possessed her, without any promise on his part. Each had given just as each had taken. Nevertheless he felt as if caught in some sticky substance from which he could not free himself. He foresaw that Lida would make some claim upon him, and that he must either consent, or else commit a base, vile act. He appeared to be as utterly powerless as if the bones had been removed from his legs and arms, and as if, instead of a tongue in his mouth, there were a moist rag. He wanted to shout at her, and let her know once for all that she had no right to ask anything of him, but his heart was benumbed by craven fear, and to his lips there rose a senseless phrase which he knew to be absolutely unfitting.

"Oh! women, women!"

Lida looked at him in horror. A pitiless light seemed to flash across her mind. In one instant she realized that she was lost. What she had given that was noble and pure, she had given to a man that did not exist. Her fair young life, her purity, her pride, had all been flung at the feet of a base, cowardly brute who instead of being grateful to her had merely soiled her by acts of coarse lubricity. For a moment she felt ready to wring her hands and fall to the ground in an agony of despair, but lightning-swift her mood changed to one of revenge and bitter hatred.

"Can't you really see how intensely stupid you are?" she hissed through her clenched teeth, as she looked straight into his eyes.

The insolent words and the look of hatred were so unsuited to Lida, gracious, feminine Lida, that Sarudine instinctively recoiled. He had not quite understood their import, and sought to pass them by with a jest.

"What words to use!" he said, surprised and annoyed.

"I'm not in a mood to choose my words," replied Lida bitterly, as she wrung her hands. Sarudine frowned.

"Why all these tragic airs?" he asked. Unconsciously allured by their beauty of outline, he glanced at her soft shoulders and exquisitely moulded arms. Her gesture of helplessness and despair made him feel sure of his superiority. It was as if they were being weighed in scales, one sinking when the other rose. Sarudine felt a cruel pleasure in knowing that this girl whom instinctively he had considered superior to himself was now made to suffer through him. In the first stage of their intimacy he had feared her. Now she had been brought to shame and dishonour; at which he was glad.

He grew softer. Gently he took her strengthless hands in his, and drew her closer to him. His senses were roused; his breath came quicker.

"Never mind! It'll be all right! There is nothing so dreadful about it, after all!"

"So you think, eh?" replied Lida scornfully. It was scorn that helped her to recover herself, and she gazed at him with strange intensity.

"Why, of course I do," said Sarudine, attempting to embrace her in a way that he knew to be effective. But she remained cold and lifeless.

"Come, now, why are you so cross, my pretty one?" he murmured in a gentle tone of reproof.

"Let me go! Let me go, I say!" exclaimed Lida, as she shook him off. Sarudine felt physically hurt that his passion should have been roused in vain.

"Women are the very devil!" he thought.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked testily, and his face flushed.

As if the question had brought something to her mind, she suddenly covered her face with both hands and burst into tears. She wept just as peasant-women weep, sobbing loudly, her face buried in her hands, her body being bent forward, while her dishevelled hair drooped over her wet, distorted countenance. Sarudine was utterly nonplussed. He smiled, though yet afraid that this might give offence, and tried to pull away her hands from her face. Lida stubbornly resisted, weeping all the while.

"Oh! my God!" he exclaimed. He longed to shout at her, to wrench her hands aside, to call her hard names,

"What are you whining for like this? You've gone wrong with me, worse luck, and there it is! Why all this weeping just to-day? For heaven's sake, stop!" Speaking thus roughly, he caught hold of her hand.

The jerk caused her head to oscillate to and fro. She suddenly stopped crying, and removed her hands from her tear-stained face, looking up at him in childish fear. A crazy thought flashed through her mind that anybody might strike her now. But Sarudine's manner again softened, and he said in a consoling voice:

"Come, my Lidotschka, don't cry any more! You're to blame, as well! Why make a scene? You've lost a lot, I know; but, still, we had so much happiness, too, didn't we? And we must just forget...." Lida began to sob once more.

"Oh! stop it, do!" he shouted. Then he walked across the room, nervously pulling his moustache, and his lips quivered.

In the room it was quite still. Outside the window the slender boughs of a tree swayed gently, as if a bird had just perched thereon. Sarudine, endeavouring to check himself, approached Lida, and gently placed his arm round her waist. But she instantly broke away from him and in so doing struck him violently on the chin, so that his teeth rattled.

"Devil take it!" he exclaimed angrily. It hurt him considerably, and the droll sound of his rattling teeth annoyed him even more. Lida had not heard this, yet instinctively she felt that Sarudine's position was a ridiculous one, and with feminine cruelty she took advantage of it.

"What words to use!" she said, imitating him.

"It's enough to make any one furious," replied Sarudine peevishly.

"If only I knew what was the matter!"

"You mean to say that you still don't know?" said Lida in a cutting tone.

There was a pause. Lida looked hard at him, her face red as fire. Sarudine turned pale, as if suddenly covered by a grey veil.

"Well, why are you silent? Why don't you speak? Speak! Say something to comfort me!" she shrieked, her voice becoming hysterical in tone. The very sound of it alarmed her.

"I ..." began Sarudine, and his under-lip quivered.

"Yes, you, and nobody else but you, worse luck!" she screamed, almost stifled with tears of rage and of despair.

From him as from her the mask of comeliness and good manners had fallen. The wild untrammelled beast became increasingly evident in each.

Ideas like scurrying mice rushed through Sarudine's mind. His first thought was to give Lida money, and persuade her to get rid of the child. He must break with her at once, and for ever. That would end the whole business. Yet though he considered this to be the best way, he said nothing.

"I really never thought that ..." he stammered.

"You never thought!" exclaimed Lida wildly. "Why didn't you? What right had you not to think?"

"But, Lida, I never told you that I ..." he faltered, feeling afraid of what he was going to say, yet conscious that he would yet do so, all the same.

Lida, however, had understood, without waiting for him to speak. Her beautiful face grew dark, distorted by horror and despair. Her hands fell limply to her side as she sat down on the bed.

"What shall I do?" she said, as if thinking aloud. "Drown myself?"

"No, no! Don't talk like that!"

Lida looked hard at him.

"Do you know, Victor Sergejevitsch, I feel pretty sure that such a thing would not displease you," she said.

In her eyes and in her pretty quivering mouth there was something so sad, so pitiful, that Sarudine involuntarily turned away.

Lida rose. The thought, consoling at first, that she would find in him her saviour with whom she would always live, now inspired her with horror and loathing. She longed to shake her fist at him, to fling her scorn in his face, to revenge herself on him for having humiliated her thus. But she felt that at the very first words she would burst into tears. A last spark of pride, all that remained of the handsome, dashing Lida, deterred her. In a tone of such intense scorn that it surprised herself as much as Sarudine, she hissed out,

"You brute!"

Then she rushed out of the room, tearing the lace trimming of her sleeve which caught on the bolt of the door.

Sarudine flushed to the roots of his hair. Had she called him "wretch," or "villain," he could have borne that calmly, but "brute" was such a coarse word so absolutely opposed to his conception of his own engaging personality, that it utterly stunned him. Even the whites of his eyes became bloodshot. He sniggered uneasily, shrugged his shoulders, buttoned and then unbuttoned his jacket, feeling thoroughly upset. But simultaneously a sense of satisfaction and relief waxed greater within him. All was at an end. It irked him to think that he would never again possess such a woman as Lida, that he had lost so comely and desirable a mistress. But he dismissed all such regret with a gesture of disdain.

"Devil take the lot! I can get hold of as many as I please!"

He put his jacket straight, and, his lips still quivering, lit a cigarette. Then assuming his wonted air of nonchalance, he returned to his guests.



CHAPTER XVIII.

All the gamblers except the drunken Malinowsky had lost their interest in the game. They were intensely curious to know who the lady was that had come to see Sarudine, Those who guessed that it was Lida Sanina felt instinctively jealous, picturing to themselves her white body in Sarudine's embrace. After a while Sanine got up from the table and said:

"I shall not play any more. Good-bye."

"Wait a minute, my friend, where are you going?" asked Ivanoff.

"I'm going to see what they are about, in there," replied Sanine, pointing to the closed door.

"Don't be a fool I Sit down and have a drink!" said Ivanoff.

"You're the fool!" rejoined Sanine, as he went out.

On reaching a narrow side-street where nettles grew in profusion, Sanine bethought himself of the exact spot which Sarudine's windows overlooked. Carefully treading down the nettles, he climbed the wall. When on the top, he almost forgot why he had got up there at all, so charming was it to look down on the green grass and the pretty garden, and to feel the soft breeze blowing pleasantly on his hot, muscular limbs. Then he dropped down into the nettles on the other side, irritably rubbing the places where they had stung him. Crossing the garden, he reached the window just as Lida said:

"You mean to say that you still don't know?"

By the strange tone of her voice Sanine instantly guessed what was the matter. Leaning against the wall and looking at the garden, he eagerly listened. He felt pity for his handsome sister for whose beautiful personality the gross term "pregnant" seemed so unfitting. What impressed him even more than the conversation peas the singular contrast between these furious human voices and the sweet silence of the verdurous garden.

A white butterfly fluttered across the grass, revelling the sunlight. Sanine watched its progress just as intently as he listened to the talking.

When Lida exclaimed:

"You brute!" Sanine laughed merrily, and slowly crossed the garden, careless as to who should see him.

A lizard darted across his path, and for a long while he followed the swift movements of its little supple green body in the long grass.



CHAPTER XIX.

Lida did not go home, but hurriedly turned her steps in an opposite direction. The streets were empty, the air stifling. Close to the wall and fence lay the short shadows, vanquished by the triumphant sun. Through mere force of habit, Lida opened her parasol. She never noticed if it was cold or hot, light or dark. She walked swiftly past the fences all dusty and overgrown with weeds, her head bowed, her eyes downcast. Now and again she met a few gasping pedestrians half- suffocated by the heat. Over the town lay silence, the oppressive silence of a summer afternoon.

A little white puppy had followed Lida. After eagerly sniffing her dress, it ran on in front, and, looking round, wagged its tail, as if to say that they were comrades. At the corner of a street stood a funny little fat boy, a portion of whose shirt peeped out at the back of his breeches. With cheeks distended and fruit-stained, he was vigorously blowing a wooden pipe.

Lida beckoned to the little puppy and smiled at the boy. Yet she did so almost unconsciously; her soul was imprisoned. An obscure force, separating her from the world, swept her onward, past the sunlight, the verdure, and all the joy of life, towards a black gulf that by the dull anguish within her she knew to be near.

An officer of her acquaintance rode by. On seeing Lida he reined in his horse, a roan, whose glossy coat shone in the sunlight.

"Lidia Petrovna!" he cried, in a pleasant, cheery voice, "Where are you going in all this heat?"

Mechanically her eyes glanced at his forage-cap, jauntily poised on his moist, sunburnt brow. She did not speak, but merely smiled her habitual, coquettish smile.

At that moment, ignorant herself as to what might happen, she echoed his question:

"Ah! where, indeed?"

She no longer felt angry with Sarudine. Hardly knowing why she had gone to him, for it seemed impossible to live without him, or bear her grief alone. Yet it was as if he had just vanished from her life. The past was dead. That which remained concerned her alone; and as to that she alone could decide.

Her brain worked with feverish haste, her thoughts being yet clear and plain. The most dreadful thing was, that the proud, handsome Lida would disappear, and in her stead there would be a wretched being, persecuted, besmirched, defenceless. Pride and beauty must be retained. Therefore, she must go, she must get away to some place where the mud could not touch her. This fact clearly established, Lida suddenly imagined herself encircled by a void; life, sunlight, human beings, no longer existed; she was alone in their midst, absolutely alone. There was no escape; she must die, she must drown herself. In a moment this became such a certainty that it was as if round her a wall of stone had arisen to shut her off from all that had been, and from all that might be.

"How simple it really is!" she thought, looking round, yet seeing nothing.

She walked faster now; and though hindered by her wide skirts, she almost ran, it seemed to her as if her progress were intolerably slow.

"Here's a house, and yonder there's another one, with green shutters; and then, an open space."

The river, the bridge, and what was to happen there—she had no clear conception of this. It was as a cloud, a mist that covered all. But such a state of mind only lasted until she reached the bridge.

As she leant over the parapet and saw the greenish, turbid water, her confidence instantly forsook her. She was seized with fear and a wild desire to live. Now her perception of living things came back to her. She heard voices, and the twittering of sparrows; she saw the sunlight, the daisies in the grass, and the little white dog, that evidently looked upon her as his rightful mistress. It sat opposite to her, put up a tiny paw, and beat the ground with its tail.

Lida gazed at it, longing to hug it convulsively, and large tears filled her eyes. Infinite regret for her beautiful, ruined life overcame her. Half fainting, she leant forward, over the edge of the sun-baked parapet, and the sudden movement caused her to drop one of her gloves into the water. In mute horror she watched it fall noiselessly on the smooth surface of the water, making large circles. She saw her pale yellow glove become darker and darker, and then filling slowly with water, and turning over once, as in its death- agony, sink down gradually with a spiral movement to the green depths of the stream. Lida strained her eyes to mark its descent, but the yellow spot grew ever smaller and more indistinct, and at last disappeared. All that met her gaze was the smooth, dark surface of the water.

"How did that happen, miss?" asked a female voice, close to her.

Lida started backwards, and saw a fat, snub-nosed peasant-woman who looked at her with sympathetic curiosity.

Although such sympathy was only intended for the lost glove, to Lida it seemed as if the good-natured, fat woman knew all, and pitied her. For a moment she was minded to tell her the whole story, and thus gain some relief, but she swiftly rejected the idea as foolish. She blushed, and stammered out, "Oh, it's nothing!" as she reeled backwards from the bridge.

"Here it's impossible! They would pull me out!" she thought.

She walked farther along the river-bank and followed a smooth foot-path to the left between the river and a hedge. On either side were nettles and daisies, sheep's parsley and ill-smelling garlic. Here it was calm and peaceful as in some village church. Tall willows bent dreamily over the stream; the steep, green banks were bathed in sunlight; tall burdocks flourished amid the nettles, and prickly thistles became entangled in the lace trimming of Lida's dress. One huge plant powdered her with its white seeds.

Lida had now to force herself to go farther, striving to overcome a mighty power within which held her back. "It must be! It must! It must!" she repeated, as, dragging herself along, her feet seemed to break their bonds at every step which took her farther from the bridge and nearer to the place at which unconsciously she had determined to stop.

On reaching it, when she saw the black, cold water underneath over- arching boughs, and the current swirling past a corner of the steep bank, then she realized for the first time how much she longed to live, and how awful it was to die. Yet die she must, for to live on was impossible. Without looking round, she flung down her other glove and her parasol, and, leaving the path, walked through the tall grasses to the water. In that moment a thousand thoughts passed through her brain. Deep in her soul, where long it had lain dormant, her childish faith awoke, as with simple fervour she repeated this short prayer, "Lord, save me! Lord, help me!" She suddenly recollected the refrain of a song that latterly she had been studying; for an instant she thought of Sarudine, and then she saw the face of her mother who seemed doubly dear to her in this awful moment. Indeed it was this last recollection which drove her faster to the river. Never till then had Lida so keenly realized that her mother and all those who loved her, did not love her for what she really was, with all her defects and desires, but only for that which they wished her to be. Now that she had strayed from the path that according to them was the only right one, these persons, and especially her mother, having loved her much, would now prove proportionately severe.

Then, as in a delirious dream, all became confused; fear, the longing to live, the sense of the inevitable, unbelief, the conviction that all was at an end, hope, despair, the horrible consciousness that this was the spot where she must die, and then the vision of a man strangely like her brother who leapt over a hedge and rushed towards her.

"You could not have thought of anything sillier!" cried Sanine, breathless.

By a strange coincidence it so happened that Lida had reached the very spot adjoining Sarudine's garden where first she had surrendered to him, a place, screened by dark trees from the light of the moon. Sanine had seen her in the distance, and had guessed her intention. At first he was for letting her have her way, but her wild, convulsive movements aroused his pity, and vaulting the garden-seats and the bushes he hastened to her rescue.

Her brother's voice had an alarming effect upon Lida. Her nerves, wrought to the utmost pitch by her inward conflict, suddenly gave way. She became giddy; everything swam before her eyes, and she no longer knew if she were in the water or on the river-bank. Sanine had just time to seize her firmly and drag her backwards, secretly pleased at his own strength and adroitness.

"There!" he said.

He placed her in a sitting posture against the hedge, and then looked about him.

"What shall I do with her?" he thought. Lida in that moment recovered consciousness, as pale and confused, she began to weep piteously. "My God! My God!" she sobbed, like a child.

"Silly thing!" said Sanine, chiding her good-humouredly.

Lida did not hear him, but, as he moved, she clutched at his arm, sobbing more violently.

"Ah! what am I doing?" she thought fearfully. "I ought not to weep; I must try and laugh it off, or else he'll guess what is wrong."

"Well, why are you so upset?" asked Sanine, as he patted her shoulder tenderly.

Lida looked up at him under her hat, timidly as a child, and stopped crying.

"I know all about it," said Sanine; "the whole story. I've done so for ever so long."

Though Lida was aware that several persons suspected the nature of her relations with Sarudine, yet when Sanine said this, it was as if he had struck her in the face. Her supple form recoiled in horror; she gazed at him dry-eyed, like some wild animal at bay.

"What's the matter, now? You behave as if I had trodden on your foot," laughed Sanine. Taking hold of her round, soft shoulders, which quivered at his touch, he tenderly drew her back to her former place by the hedge, and she obediently submitted.

"Come now, what is it that distresses you so?" he said. "Is it because I know all? Or do you think your misconduct with Sarudine so dreadful that you are afraid to acknowledge it? I really don't understand you. But, if Sarudine won't marry you, well—that is a thing to be thankful for. You know now, and you must have known before, what a base, common fellow he really is, in spite of his good looks and his fitness for amours. All that he has is beauty, and you have now had your fill of that."

"He of mine, not I of his!" she faltered. "Ah I well yes, perhaps I had! Oh! my God, what shall I do?"

"And now you are pregnant...."

Lida shut her eyes and bowed her head.

"Of course, it's a bad business," continued Sanine, gently. "In the first place, giving birth to children is a nasty, painful affair; in the second place, and what really matters, people would persecute you incessantly. After all, Lidotschka, my Lidotschka," he said with a sudden access of affection, "you've not done harm to anybody; and, if you were to bring a dozen babies into the world, the only person to suffer thereby would be yourself."

Sanine paused to reflect, as he folded his arms across his chest and bit the ends of his moustache.

"I could tell you what you ought to do, but you are too weak and too foolish to follow my advice. You are not plucky enough. Anyhow, it is not worth while to commit suicide. Look at the sun shining, at the calm, flowing stream. Once dead, remember, every one would know what your condition had been. Of what good, then, would that be to you? It is not because you are pregnant that you want to die, but because you are afraid of what other folk will say. The terrible part of your trouble lies, not in the actual trouble itself, but because you put it between yourself and your life which, as you think, ought to end. But, in reality, that will not alter life a jot. You do not fear folk who are remote, but those who are close to you, especially those who love you and who regard your surrender as utterly shocking because it was made in a wood, or a meadow, instead of in a lawful marriage-bed. They will not be slow to punish you for your offence, so, of what good are they to you? They are stupid, cruel, brainless people. Why should you die because of stupid, cruel, brainless people?"

Lida looked up at him with her great questioning eyes in which Sanine could detect a spark of comprehension.

"But what am I to do? Tell me, what ... what ..." she murmured huskily.

"For you there are two ways open: you must get rid of this child that nobody wants, and whose birth, as you must see yourself, will only bring trouble."

Lida's eyes expressed wild horror.

"To kill a being that knows the joy of living and the terror of death is a grave injustice," he continued; "but a germ, an unconscious mass of flesh and blood ..."

Lida experienced a strange sensation. At first shame overwhelmed her, such shame as if she were completely stripped, while brutal fingers touched her. She dared not look at her brother, fearing that for very shame they would both expire. But Sanine's grey eyes wore a calm expression, and his voice was firm and even in tone, as if he were talking of ordinary matters. It was this quiet strength of utterance and the profound truth of his words that removed Lida's shame and fear. Yet suddenly despair prevailed, as she clasped her forehead, while the flimsy sleeves of her dress fluttered like the wings of a startled bird.

"I cannot, no, I cannot!" she faltered, "I dare say you're right, but I cannot! It is so awful!"

"Well, well, if you can't," said Sanine, as he knelt down, and gently drew away her hands from her face, "we must contrive to hide it, somehow. I will see to it that Sarudine has to leave the town, and you —well, you shall marry Novikoff, and be happy. I know that if you had never met this dashing young officer, you would have accepted Sascha Novikoff. I am certain of it." At the mention of Novikoff's name Lida saw light through the gloom. Because Sarudine had made her unhappy, and she was convinced that Novikoff would never have done so, for an instant it seemed to her that all could easily be set right. She would at once get up, go back, say something or other, and life in all its radiant beauty would again lie before her. Again she would live, again she would love, only this time it would be a better life, a deeper, purer love. Yet immediately afterwards she recollected that this was impossible, for she had been soiled and degraded by an ignoble, senseless amour.

A gross word, which she scarcely knew and had never uttered, suddenly came into her mind. She applied it to herself. It was as if she had received a box on the ears.

"Great heavens! Am I really a ...? Yes, yes, of course, I am!"

"What did you say?" she murmured, ashamed of her own resonant voice.

"Well, what is it to be?" asked Sanine, as he glanced at her pretty hair falling in disorder about her white neck flecked by sunlight breaking through the network of leaves. A sudden fear seized him that he would not succeed in persuading her, and that this young, beautiful woman, fitted to bestow such joy upon others, might vanish into the dark, senseless void. Lida was silent. She strove to repress her longing to live, which, despite her will, had mastered her whole trembling frame. After all that had occurred, it seemed to her shameful not only to live, but to wish to live. Yet her body, strong and full of vitality, rejected so distorted an idea as if it were poison.

"Why this silence?" asked Sanine.

"Because it is impossible.... It would be a vile thing to do!... I...."

"Don't talk such nonsense!" retorted Sanine impatiently.

Lida looked up at him again, and in her tearful eyes there was a glimmer of hope.

Sanine broke off a twig, which he bit and then flung away.

"A vile thing!" he went on, "A vile thing! My words amaze you. Yet why? The question is one that neither you nor I can ever rightly answer. Crime! What is a crime? If a mother's life is in danger when giving birth to a child, and that living child, to save its mother, is destroyed that is not a crime, but an unfortunate necessity! But to suppress something that does not yet exist, that is called a crime, a horrible deed. Yes, a horrible deed, even though the mother's life, and, what is more, her happiness, depends upon it! Why must it be so? Nobody knows, but everybody loudly maintains that view, crying, 'Bravo!'" Sanine laughed sarcastically. "Oh! you men, you men! Men create for themselves phantoms, shadows, illusions, and are the first to suffer by them. But they all exclaim, 'Oh! Man is a masterpiece, noblest of all; man is the crown, the King of creation;' but a king that has never yet reigned, a suffering king that quakes at his own shadow."

For a moment, Sanine paused.

"After all, that is not the main point. You say that it is a vile thing. I don't know; perhaps it is. If Novikoff were to hear of your trouble, it would grieve him terribly; in fact, he might shoot himself, but yet he would love you, just the same. In that case, the blame would be his. But if he were a really intelligent man, he would not attach the slightest importance to the fact that you had already (excuse the expression!) slept with somebody else. Neither your body nor your soul have suffered thereby. Good Lord! Why, he might marry a widow himself, for instance! Therefore it is not that which prevents him, but the confused notions with which his head is filled. And, as regards yourself, if it were only possible for human beings to love once in their lives, then, a second attempt to do so would certainly prove futile and unpleasant. But this is not so. To fall in love, or to be loved, is just as delightful and desirable. You will get to love Novikoff, and, if you don't, well, we'll travel together, my Lidotschka; one can live, can't one, anywhere, after all?"

Lida sighed and strove to overcome her final scruples.

"Perhaps ... everything will come right again," she murmured. "Novikoff... he's so good and kind ... nice-looking, too, isn't he? Yes ... no... I don't know what to say."

"If you had drowned yourself, what then? The powers of good and evil would have neither gained nor lost thereby. Your corpse, bloated, disfigured, and covered with slime, would have been dragged from the river, and buried. That would have been all!"

Lida had a lurid vision of greenish, turbid water with slimy, trailing weeds and gruesome bubbles floating round her.

"No, no, never!" she thought, turning pale. "I would rather bear all the shame of it ... and Novikoff ... everything ... anything but that."

"Ah! look how scared you are!" said Sanine, laughing.

Lida smiled through her tears, and her very smile consoled her.

"Whatever happens, I mean to live!" she said with passionate energy.

"Good!" exclaimed Sanine, as he jumped up. "Nothing is more awful than the thought of death. But so long as you can bear the burden without losing perception of the sights and sounds of life, I say live! Am I not right? Now, give me your paw!"

Lida held out her hand. The shy, feminine gesture betokened childish gratitude.

"That's right ... What a pretty little hand you've got."

Lida smiled and said nothing.

But Sanine's words had not proved ineffectual. Hers was a vigorous, buoyant vitality; the crisis through which she had just passed had strained that vitality to the utmost. A little more pressure, and the string would have snapped. But the pressure was not applied, and her whole being vibrated once more with an impetuous, turbulent desire to live. She looked above, around her, in ecstasy, listening to the immense joy pulsating on every side; in the sunlight, in the green meadows, the shining stream, the calm, smiling face of her brother, and in herself. It was as if she now could see and hear all this for the first time. "To be alive!" cried a gladsome voice within her.

"All right!" said Sanine. "I will help you in your trouble, and stand by you when you fight your battles. And now, as you're such a beauty, you must give me a kiss."

Lida smiled; a smile mysterious as that of a wood-nymph. Sanine put his arms round her waist, and, as her warm supple form thrilled at his touch, his fond embrace became almost vehement. A strange, indefinable sense of joy overcame Lida, as she yearned for life ampler and more intense. It mattered not to her what she did. She slowly put both arms round her brother's neck and, with half-closed eyes, set her lips tight to give the kiss.

She felt unspeakably happy beneath Sanine's burning caress, and in that moment cared not who it was that kissed her, just as a flower warmed by the sun never asks whence comes such warmth.

"What is the matter with me?" she thought, pleasurably alarmed. "Ah! yes! I wanted to drown myself ... how silly! And for what? Oh! that's nice! Again! Again! Now, I'll kiss you! It's lovely! And I don't care what happens so long as I'm alive, alive!"

"There, now, you see," said Sanine, releasing her. "All good things are just good, and one mustn't make them out to be anything else."

Lida smiled absently, and slowly re-arranged her hair. Sanine handed her the parasol and glove. To find the other glove was missing at first surprised her, but instantly recollecting the reason, she felt greatly amused at the absurd importance which she had given to that trifling incident.

"Ah! well, that's over!" she thought, and walked with her brother along the river-bank. Fiercely the sun's rays beat upon her round, ripe bosom.



CHAPTER XX.

Novikoff, when he opened the door himself to Sanine, looked far from pleased at the prospect of such a visit. Everything that reminded him of Lida and of his shattered dream of bliss caused him pain.

Sanine noticed this, and came into the room smiling affably. All there was in disorder, as if scattered by a whirlwind. Scraps of paper, straw, and rubbish of all sorts covered the floor. On the bed and the chairs lay books, linen, surgical instruments and a portmanteau.

"Going away?" asked Sanine, in surprise. "Where?" Novikoff avoided the other's glance and continued to overhaul the things, vexed at his own confusion. At last he said:

"Yes, I've got to leave this place. I've had my official notice."

Sanine looked at him and then at the portmanteau. After another glance his features relaxed in a broad smile.