"Yes, I was thinking of doing so. One wants a change you know. By stopping too long in one place, you are apt to get rusty."

Sanine laughed outright. The whole conversation, not one word of which expressed their real thoughts and feelings, all this deceit, which deceived nobody, amused him immensely; and with a sudden sense of gaiety and freedom he got up, and said:

"Well, I should think that the sooner you went, the better!"

In a moment as if from each a stiff, heavy garb had fallen off, the other three persons became changed. Maria Ivanovna looked pale and shrunken, Volochine's eyes expressed animal fear, and Sarudine slowly and irresolutely rose.

"What do you mean?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

Volochine tittered, and looked about nervously for his hat.

Sanine did not reply to the question, but maliciously handed Volochine the hat. From the latter's open mouth a stifled sound escaped like a plaintive squeak.

"What do you mean by that?" cried Sarudine angrily, aware that he was losing his temper. "A scandal!" he thought to himself.

"I mean what I say," replied Sanine. "Your presence here is utterly unnecessary, and we shall all be delighted to see the last of you."

Sarudine took a step forward. He looked extremely uncomfortable, and his white teeth gleamed threateningly, like those of a wild beast.

"Aha! That's it, is it?" he muttered, breathing hard.

"Get out!" said Sanine contemptuously, yet in so terrible a tone that Sarudine glared, and voluntarily drew back.

"I don't know what the deuce it all means!" said Volochine, under his breath, as with shoulders raised he hurried to the door.

But there, in the door-way, stood Lida. She was dressed in a style quite different from her usual one. Instead of a fashionable coiffure, she wore her hair in a thick plait hanging down her back. Instead of an elegant costume she was wearing a loose gown of diaphanous texture, the simplicity of which alluringly heightened the beauty of her form.

As she smiled, her likeness to Sanine became more remarkable, and, in her sweet, girlish voice she said calmly:

"Here I am. Why are you hurrying away? Victor Sergejevitsch, do put down your cap!"

Sanine was silent, and looked at his sister in amazement. "Whatever does she mean?" he thought to himself.

As soon as she appeared, a mysterious influence, at once irresistible and tender, seemed to make itself felt. Like a lion-tamer in a cage filled with wild beasts, Lida stood there, and the men at once became gentle and submissive.

"Well, do you know, Lidia Petrovna ..." stammered Sarudine.

At the sound of his voice, Lida's face assumed a plaintive, helpless expression, and as she glanced swiftly at him there was great grief at her heart not unmixed with tenderness and hope. Yet in a moment such feelings were effaced by a fierce desire to show Sarudine how much he had lost in losing her; to let him see that she was still beautiful, in spite of all the sorrow and shame that he had caused her to endure.

"I don't want to know anything," she replied in an imperious, almost a stagy voice, as for a moment she closed her eyes.

Upon Volochine, her appearance produced an extraordinary effect, as his sharp little tongue darted out from his dry lips, and his eyes grew smaller and his whole frame vibrated from sheer physical excitement.

"You haven't introduced us," said Lida, looking round at Sarudine.

"Volochine ... Pavel Lvovitsch ..." stammered the officer.

"And this beauty," he said to himself, "was my mistress." He felt honestly pleased to think this, at the same time being anxious to show off before Volochine, while yet bitterly conscious of an irrevocable loss.

Lida languidly addressed her mother.

"There is some one who wants to speak to you," she said.

"Oh! I can't go now," replied Maria Ivanovna.

"But they are waiting," persisted Lida, almost hysterically.

Maria Ivanovna got up quickly.

Sanine watched Lida, and his nostrils were dilated.

"Won't you come into the garden? It's so hot in here," said Lida, and without looking round to see if they were coming, she walked out through the veranda.

As if hypnotized, the men followed her, bound, seemingly, with the tresses of her hair, so that she could draw them whither she wished. Volochine walked first, ensnared by her beauty, and apparently oblivious of aught else.

Lida sat down in the rocking-chair under the linden-tree and stretched out her pretty little feet clad in black open-work stockings and tan shoes. It was as if she had two natures; the one overwhelmed with modesty and shame, the other, full of self-conscious coquetry. The first nature prompted her to look with disgust upon men, and life, and herself.

"Well, Pavel Lvovitsch," she asked, as her eyelids drooped, "What impression has our poor little out-of-the-way town made upon you?"

"The impression which probably he experiences who in the depth of the forest suddenly beholds a radiant flower," replied Volochine, rubbing his hands.

Then began talk which was thoroughly vapid and insincere, the spoken being false, and the unspoken, true. Sanine sat silently listening to this mute but sincere conversation, as expressed by faces, hands, feet and tremulous accents. Lida was unhappy, Volochine longed for all her beauty, while Sarudine loathed Lida, Sanine, Volochine, and the world generally. He wanted to go, yet he could not make a move. He was for doing something outrageous, yet he could only smoke cigarette after cigarette, while dominated by the desire to proclaim Lida his mistress to all present.

"And how do you like being here? Are you not sorry to have left Petersburg behind you?" asked Lida, suffering meanwhile intense torture, and wondering why she did not get up and go.

"Mais au contraire!" lisped Volochine, as he waved his hand in a finicking fashion and gazed ardently at Lida.

"Come! come! no pretty speeches!" said Lida, coquettishly, while to Sarudine her whole being seemed to say:

"You think that I am wretched, don't you? and utterly crushed? But I am nothing of the kind, my friend. Look at me!"

"Oh, Lidia Petrovna!" said Sarudine, "you surely don't call that a pretty speech!"

"I beg your pardon?" asked Lida drily, as if she had not heard, and then, in a different tone, she again addressed Volochine.

"Do tell me something about life in Petersburg. Here, we don't live, we only vegetate."

Sarudine saw that Volochine was smiling to himself, as if he did not believe that the former had ever been on intimate terms with Lida.

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Very good!" he said to himself, as he bit his lip viciously.

"Oh! our famous Petersburg life!" Volochine, who chattered with ease, looked like a silly little monkey babbling of things that it did not comprehend.

"Who knows?" he thought to himself, his gaze riveted on Lida's beautiful form.

"I assure you on my word of honour that our life is extremely dull and colourless. Until to-day I thought that life, generally, was always dull, whether in the town or in the country."

"Not really!" exclaimed Lida, as she half closed her eyes.

"What makes life worth living is ... a beautiful woman! And the women in big towns! If you could only see what they were like! Do you know, I feel convinced that if the world is ever saved it will be by beauty." This last phrase Volochine unexpectedly added, believing it to be most apt and illuminating. The expression of his face was one of stupidity and greed, as he kept reverting to his pet theme, Woman. Sarudine alternately flushed and pale with jealousy, found it impossible to remain in one place, but walked restlessly up and down the path.

"Our women are all alike ... stereotyped and made-up. To find one whose beauty is worthy of adoration, it is to the provinces that one must go, where the soil, untilled as yet, produces the most splendid flowers."

Sanine scratched the nape of his neck, and crossed his legs.

"Ah! of what good is it if they bloom here, since there is no one worthy to pluck them?" replied Lida.

"Aha!" thought Sanine, suddenly becoming interested, "so that's what she's driving at!"

This word-play, where sentiment and grossness were so obviously involved, he found extremely diverting.

"Is it possible?"

"Why, of course! I mean what I say, who is it that plucks our unfortunate blossoms? What men are those whom we set up as heroes?" rejoined Lida bitterly.

"Aren't you rather too hard upon us?" asked Sarudine.

"No, Lidia Petrovna is right!" exclaimed Volochine, but, glancing at Sarudine, his eloquence suddenly subsided. Lida laughed outright. Filled with shame and grief and revenge, her burning eyes were set on her seducer, and seemed to pierce him through and through. Volochine again began to babble, while Lida interrupted him with laughter that concealed her tears.

"I think that we ought to be going," said Sarudine, at last, who felt that the situation was becoming intolerable. He could not tell why, but everything, Lida's laughter, her scornful eyes and trembling hands were all to him as so many secret boxes on the ear. His growing hatred of her, and his jealousy of Volochine as well as the consciousness of all that he had lost, served to exhaust him utterly.

"Already?" asked Lida.

Volochine smiled sweetly, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue.

"It can't be helped! Victor Sergejevitsch apparently is not quite himself," he said in a mocking tone, proud of his conquest.

So they took their leave; and, as Sarudine bent over Lida's hand, he whispered:

"This is good-bye!"

Never had he hated Lida as much as at this moment.

In Lida's heart there arose a vague, fleeting desire to bid tender farewell to all those bygone hours of love which had once been theirs. But this feeling she swiftly repressed, as she said in a loud, harsh voice:

"Good-bye! Bon voyage! Don't forget us, Pavel Lvovitsch!"

As they were going, Volochine's remark could be distinctly heard.

"How charming she is! She intoxicates one, like champagne!"

When they had gone, Lida sat down again in the rocking-chair. Her position was a different one, now, for she bent forward, trembling all over, and her silent tears fell fast.

"Come, come! What's the matter?" said Sanine, as he took hold of her hand.

"Oh! don't! What an awful thing life is!" she exclaimed, as her head sank lower, and she covered her face with her hands, while the soft plait of hair, slipping over her shoulder, hung down in front.

"For shame!" said Sanine. "What's the use of crying about such trifles?"

"Are there really no other ... better men, then?" murmured Lida.

Sanine smiled.

"No, certainly not. Man is vile by nature. Expect nothing good from him.... And then the harm that he does to you will not make you grieve."

Lida looked up at him with beautiful tear-stained eyes.

"Do you expect nothing good from your fellow-men, either?"

"Of course not," replied Sanine, "I live alone."



CHAPTER XXIX.

On the following day Dounika, bare-headed and barefooted, came running to Sanine who was gardening.

"Vladimir Petrovitch," she exclaimed, and her silly face had a scared look, "the officers have come, and they wish to speak to you." She repeated the words like a lesson that she had learnt by heart.

Sanine was not surprised. He had been expecting a challenge from Sarudine.

"Are they very anxious to see me?" he asked in a jocular tone.

Dounika, however, must have had an inkling of something dreadful, for instead of hiding her face she gazed at Sanine in sympathetic bewilderment.

Sanine propped his spade against a tree, tightened his belt and walked towards the house with his usual jaunty step.

'What fools they are! What absolute idiots!' he said to himself, as he thought of Sarudine and his seconds. By this no insult was intended; it was just the sincere expression of his own opinion.

Passing through the house, he saw Lida coming out of her room. She stood on the threshold; her face white as a shroud, and her eyes, anxious and distressful. Her lips moved, yet no sound escaped from them. At that moment she felt that she was the guiltiest, most miserable woman in all the world.

In an arm-chair in the morning-room sat Maria Ivanovna, looking utterly helpless and panic-stricken. Her cap that resembled a cock's comb was poised sideways on her head, and she gazed in terror at Sanine, unable to utter a word. He smiled at her and was inclined to stop for a moment, yet he preferred to proceed.

Tanaroff and Von Deitz were sitting in the drawing-room bolt upright, with their heads close together, as if in their white tunics and tight riding-breeches they felt extremely uncomfortable. As Sanine entered they both rose slowly and with some hesitation, apparently uncertain how to behave.

"Good day, gentlemen," said Sanine in a loud voice, as he held out his hand.

Von Deitz hesitated, but Tanaroff bowed in such an exaggerated way that for an instant Sanine caught sight of the closely cropped hair at the back of his neck.

"How can I be of service to you?" continued Sanine, who had noticed Tanaroff's excessive politeness, and was surprised at the assurance with which he played his part in this absurd comedy.

Von Deitz drew himself up and sought to give an expression of hauteur to his horse-like countenance; unsuccessfully, however, owing to his confusion. Strange to say, it was Tanaroff, usually so stupid and shy, who addressed Sanine in firm, decisive fashion.

"Our friend, Victor Sergejevitsch Sarudine has done us the honour of asking us to represent him in a certain matter which concerns you and himself." The sentence was delivered with automatic precision.

"Oho!" said Sanine with comic gravity, as he opened his mouth wide.

"Yes, sir," continued Tanaroff, frowning slightly. "He considers that your behaviour towards him was not—er—quite ..."

"Yes, yes, I understand," interrupted Sanine, losing patience.

"I very nearly kicked him out of the house, so that 'not—er—quite' is hardly the right way of putting it."

The speech was lost upon Tanaroff, who went on:

"Well, sir, he insists on your taking back your words."

"Yes, yes," chimed in the lanky Von Deitz, who kept shifting the position of his feet, like a stork.

Sanine smiled.

"Take them back? How can I do that? 'As uncaged bird is spoken word!'"

Too perplexed to reply, Tanaroff looked Sanine full in the face.

"What evil eyes he has!" thought the latter.

"This is no joking matter," began Tanaroff, looking flushed and angry. "Are you prepared to retract your words, or are you not?"

Sanine at first was silent.

"What an utter idiot!" he thought, as he took a chair and sat down.

"Possibly I might be willing to retract my words in order to please and pacify Sarudine," he began, speaking seriously, "the more so as I attach not the slightest importance to them. But, in the first place, Sarudine, being a fool, would not understand my motive, and, instead of holding his tongue, would brag about it. In the second place, I thoroughly dislike Sarudine, so that, under these circumstances, I don't see that there is any sense in my retractation."

"Very well, then..." hissed Tanaroff through his teeth.

Von Deitz stared in amazement, and his long face turned yellow.

"In that case..." began Tanaroff, in a louder and would-be threatening tone.

Sanine felt fresh hatred for the fellow as he looked at his narrow forehead and his tight breeches.

"Yes, yes, I know all about it," he interrupted. "But one thing, let me tell you; I don't intend to fight Sarudine."

Von Deitz turned round sharply.

Tanaroff drew himself up, and said in a tone of contempt.

"Why not, pray?"

Sanine burst out laughing. His hatred had vanished as swiftly as it had come.

"Well, this is why. First of all, I have no wish to kill Sarudine, and secondly, I have even less desire to be killed myself."

"But ..." began Tanaroff scornfully.

"I won't, and there's an end of it!" said Sanine, as he rose. "Why, indeed? I don't feel inclined to give you any explanation. That were too much to expect, really!"

Tanaroff's profound contempt for the man who refused to fight a duel was blended with the implicit belief that only an officer could possibly possess the pluck and the fine sense of honour necessary to do such a thing. That is why Sanine's refusal did not surprise him in the least; in fact, he was secretly pleased.

"That is your affair," he said, in an unmistakably contemptuous tone, "but I must warn you that ..."

Sanine laughed.

"Yes, yes, I know, but I advise Sarudine not to ..."

"Not to—what?" asked Tanaroff, as he picked up his cap from the window-sill.

"I advise him not to touch me, or else I'll give him such a thrashing that ..."

"Look here!" cried Von Deitz, in a fury. "I'm not going to stand this... You ... you are simply laughing at us. Don't you understand that to refuse to accept a challenge is ... is ..."

He was as red as a lobster, his eyes were starting from his head, and there was foam on his lips.

Sanine looked curiously at his mouth, and said:

"And this is the man whose calls himself a disciple of Tolstoi!"

Von Deitz winced, and tossed his head.

"I must beg of you," he spluttered, ashamed all the while at thus addressing a man with whom till now he had been on friendly terms. "I must beg of you not to mention that. It has nothing whatever to do with this matter."

"Hasn't it! though?" replied Sanine. "It has a great deal to do with it."

"Yes, but I must ask you," croaked Von Deitz, becoming hysterical.

"Really, this is too much! In short ..."

"Oh! That'll do!" replied Sanine, drawing back in disgust from Von Deitz, from whose mouth saliva spurted. "Think what you like; I don't care. And tell Sarudine that he is an ass!"

"You've no right, sir, I say, you've no right," shouted Von Deitz.

"Very good, very good," said Tanaroff, quite satisfied

"Let us go."

"No!" cried the other, plaintively, as he waved his lanky arms. "How dare he? ... what business I ... It's simply ..."

Sanine looked at him, and, making a contemptuous gesture, walked out of the room.

"We will deliver your message to our brother-officer," said Tanaroff, calling after him.

"As you please," said Sanine, without looking round. He could hear Tanaroff trying to pacify the enraged Von Deitz, and thought to himself, "As a rule the fellow's an utter fool, but put him on his hobby-horse, and he becomes quite sensible."

"The matter cannot be allowed to rest thus!" cried the implacable Von Deitz, as they went out.

From the door of her room, Lida gently called "Volodja!"

Sanine stood still.

"What is it?"

"Come here; I want to speak to you."

Sanine entered Lida's little room where, owing to the trees in front of the window, soft green twilight reigned. There was a feminine odour of perfume and powder.

"How nice it is in here," said Sanine, with a sigh of relief.

Lida stood facing the window, and green reflected lights from the garden flickered round her cheeks and shoulders.

"What do you want with me?" he asked kindly.

Lida was silent, and she breathed heavily.

"Why, what is the matter?"

"Are you—not going to fight a duel?" she asked hoarsely, without looking round.

"No."

Lida was silent.

"Well, what of that?" said Sanine.

Lida's chin trembled. She turned sharply round and murmured quickly:

"I can't understand that, I can't..."

"Oh!" exclaimed Sanine, frowning. "Well, I'm very sorry for you."

Human stupidity and malice surrounded him on all sides. To find such qualities alike in bad folk and good folk, in handsome people as in ugly, proved utterly disheartening.

He turned on his heels and went out.

Lida watched him go, and then, holding her head with both hands, she flung herself upon the bed. The long black plait lay at full length along the white coverlet. At this moment Lida, strong, supple and beautiful in spite of her despair, looked younger, more full of life than ever. Through the window came warmth and radiance from the garden, and the room was bright and pleasant. Yet of all this Lida saw nothing.



CHAPTER XXX.

It was one of those strangely beautiful evenings in late summer that descend upon earth from the majestic azure vaults of heaven. The sun had set, but the light was still distinct, and the air pure and clear. There was a heavy dew, and the dust which had slowly risen formed long gauze-like strips of cloud against the sky. The atmosphere was sultry and yet fresh. Sounds floated hither and thither, as if borne on rapid wings.

Sanine, hatless, and wearing his blue shirt that at the shoulders was slightly faded, sauntered along the dusty road and turned down the little grass-grown side-street leading to Ivanoff's lodging.

At the window, making cigarettes, sat Ivanoff, broad-shouldered and sedate, with his long, straw-coloured hair carefully brushed back. Humid airs floated towards him from the garden where grass and foliage gained new lustre in the evening dew. The strong odour of tobacco was an inducement to sneeze.

"Good evening," said Sanine, leaning on the windowsill. "Good evening."

"To-day I have been challenged to fight a duel," said Sanine.

"What fun!" replied Ivanoff carelessly. "With whom, and why?"

"With Sarudine. I turned him out of the house, and he considers himself insulted."

"Oho! Then you'll have to meet him," said Ivanoff. "I'll be your second, and you shall shoot his nose off."

"Why? The nose is a noble part of one's physiognomy. I am not going to fight," rejoined Sanine, laughing.

Ivanoff nodded.

"A good thing, too. Duelling is quite unnecessary."

"My sister Lida doesn't think so," said Sanine.

"Because she's a goose," replied Ivanoff. "What a lot of tomfoolery people choose to believe, don't they?"

So saying, he finished making the last cigarette, which he lighted, putting the others in his leather cigarette-case.

Then he blew away the tobacco left on the window-sill, and, vaulting over it, joined Sanine.

"What shall we do this evening?" he asked.

"Let us go and see Soloveitchik," suggested Sanine.

"Oh! no!"

"Why not?"

"I don't like him. He is such a worm."

Sanine shrugged his shoulders.

"Not worse than others. Come along."

"All right," said Ivanoff, who always agreed to anything that Sanine proposed. So they both went along the street together.

Soloveitchik, however, was not at home. The door was shut, and the courtyard dreary and deserted. Only Sultan rattled his chain and barked at these strangers who had invaded his yard. "What a ghastly place!" exclaimed Ivanoff. "Let us go to the boulevard."

They turned back, shutting the gate after them. Sultan barked two or three times and then sat in front of his kennel, sadly gazing at the desolate yard, the silent mill and the little white footpaths across the dusty turf.

In the public garden the band was playing, as usual, and there was a pleasant breeze on the boulevard, where promenaders abounded. Lit up by bright feminine toilettes, the dark throng moved now in the direction of the shady gardens, and now towards the main entrance of massive stone.

On entering the garden arm-in-arm, Sanine and Ivanoff instantly encountered Soloveitchik who was walking pensively along, his hands behind his back, and his eyes on the ground.

"We have just been to your place," said Sanine.

Soloveitchik blushed and smiled, as he timidly replied:

"Oh! I beg your pardon! I am so sorry, but I never thought that you were coming, or else I would have stayed at home. I am just out for a little walk." His wistful eyes shone.

"Come along with us," said Sanine, kindly, as he took hold of his arm.

Soloveitchik, apparently delighted, accepted the proffered arm, thrust his cap on the back of his head, and walked along as if, instead of Sanine's arm, it was something precious that he was holding. His mouth seemed to reach from ear to ear.

Purple-faced, and with distended cheeks, the members of the regimental band flung out their deafening, brazen notes upon the air, stimulated in their efforts by a smartly-dressed bandmaster who looked like a pert little sparrow, and who zealously flourished his baton. Grouped round the band-stand were clerks, shopmen, schoolboys in Hessian boots, and little girls wearing brightly-coloured handkerchiefs round their heads. In the main walks and side-walks, as if engaged in an endless quadrille, there moved a vivacious throng, composed of officers, students, and ladies.

They soon met Dubova, Schafroff, and Yourii Svarogitsch, and exchanged smiles as they passed. Then, after they had strolled through the entire garden, they again met, Sina Karsavina being now one of the party, looking charmingly graceful in her light summer dress.

"Why are you walking by yourselves, like that?" if asked Dubova.

"Come; and join us."

"Let us go down one of the side-walks," suggested Schafroff. "Here, it's so terribly crowded."

Laughing and chatting, the young people accordingly turned aside into a more shady, quieter avenue. As they reached the end of it and were about to turn, Sarudine, Tanaroff and Volochine suddenly came round the corner. Sanine saw at once that Sarudine had not expected to meet him here, and that he was considerably disconcerted. His handsome face grew dark, and he drew himself up to his full height. Tanaroff laughed contemptuously.

"That little jackanapes is still here," said Ivanoff, as be stared at Volochine. The latter had not noticed them, being so much interested in Sina, who walked first, that he turned round in passing to look at her.

"So he is!" said Sanine, laughing.

Sarudine thought that this laughter was meant for him, and he winced, as if struck by a whip. Flushed with anger, and impelled as by some irresistible force, he left his companions, and rapidly approached Sanine.

"What is it?" said the latter, suddenly becoming serious, while his eyes were fixed on the little riding-whip in Sarudine's trembling hand.

"You fool!" he thought to himself, as much in pity as in anger.

"I should like a word with you," began Sarudine, hoarsely. "Did you receive my challenge?"

"Yes," replied Sanine, intently watching every movement of the officer's hands.

"And you have decided to refuse ... er ... to act as any decent man is bound to act under the circumstances?" asked Sarudine. His voice was muffled, though loud in tone. To himself it seemed a strange one, as uncanny as the cold handle of the whip in his moist fingers. But he had not the strength to turn aside from the path that lay before him. Suddenly in the garden there seemed to be no air whatever. All the others stood still, perplexed, and expectant.

"Oh! what the deuce—" began Ivanoff, endeavouring to interpose.

"Of course I refuse," said Sanine in a strangely calm voice, looking the other straight in the eyes.

Sarudine breathed hard, as if he were lifting a heavy weight.

"Once more I ask you—do you refuse?" His voice had a hard, metallic ring.

Soloveitchik turned very pale. "Oh, dear! Oh! dear! He's going to hit him!" he thought.

"What ... what is the matter?" he stammered, as he endeavoured to protect Sanine.

Scarcely noticing him, Sarudine roughly pushed him aside. He saw nothing else in front of him but Sanine's cold, calm eyes.

"I have already told you so," said Sanine, in the same tone.

To Sarudine everything seemed whirling round. He heard behind him hasty footsteps, and the startled cry of a woman. With a sense of despair such as one who falls headlong into a chasm might feel, he clumsily and threateningly flourished the whip.

At that same moment Sanine, using all his strength, struck him full in the face with his clenched fist.

"Good!" exclaimed Ivanoff involuntarily.

Sarudine's head hung limply on one side. Something hot that stabbed his brain and eyes like sharp needles flooded his mouth and nose.

"Ah!" he groaned, and sank helplessly forward on his hands, dropping the whip, while his cap fell off. He saw nothing, he heard nothing, being only conscious of the horrible disgrace, and of a dull burning pain in his eye.

"Oh! God!" screamed Sina Karsavina, holding her head with both hands, and shutting her eyes tightly.

Horrified and disgusted at the sight of Sarudine crouching there on all fours, Yourii, followed by Schafroff, rushed at Sanine. Volochine, losing his pince-nez as he Stumbled over a bush, ran away as fast as he could across the damp grass, so that his spotless trousers instantly became black up to the knees.

Tanaroff ground his teeth with fury, and also dashed forward, but Ivanoff caught him by the shoulders and pulled him back. "That's all right!" said Sanine scornfully. "Let him come." He stood with legs apart, breathing hard, and big drops of sweat were on his brow.

Sarudine slowly staggered to his feet. Faint, incoherent words escaped from his quivering, swollen lips, vague words of menace that to Sanine sounded singularly ridiculous. The whole left side of Sarudine's face had instantly became swollen. His eye was no longer visible; blood was flowing from his nose and mouth, his lips twitched, and his whole body shook as if in the grip of a fever. Of the smart, handsome officer nothing remained. That awful blow had robbed him of all that was human; it had left only something piteous, terrifying, disfigured. He made no attempt to go away nor to defend himself. His teeth rattled, and, while he spat blood, he mechanically brushed the sand from his knees. Then, reeling forward, he fell down again.

"Oh! how horrible! How horrible!" exclaimed Sina Karsavina, hurrying away from the spot.

"Come along!" said Sanine to Ivanoff, looking upwards to avoid so revolting a sight.

"Come along, Soloveitchik."

But Soloveitchik did not stir. Wide-eyed he stared at Sarudine, at the blood, and the dirty sand on the snow-white tunic, trembling all the while, as his lips moved feebly.

Ivanoff angrily pulled him along, but Soloveitchik shook him off with surprising vehemence, and he then clung to the trunk of a tree, as if he wished to resist being dragged away by main force.

"Oh! why, why, did you do that?" he whimpered.

"What a blackguardly thing to do!" shouted Yourii in Sanine's face.

"Yes, blackguardly!" rejoined Sanine, with a scornful smile. "Would it have been better, do you suppose, to have let him hit me?"

Then, with a careless gesture, he walked rapidly along the avenue. Ivanoff looked at Yourii in disdain, lit a cigarette, and slowly followed Sanine. Even his broad back and smooth hair told one plainly how little such a scene as this affected him.

"How stupid and brutal man can be!" he murmured to himself.

Sanine glanced round once, and then walked faster.

"Just like brutes," said Yourii, as he went away. He looked back, and the garden which he had always thought beautiful, and dim, and mysterious, seemed now, after what had happened, to have been shut off from the rest of the world, a sombre, dreary place.

Schafroff breathed hard, and looked nervously over his spectacles in all directions, as if he thought that at any moment, something equally dreadful might again occur.



CHAPTER XXXI.

In a moment Sarudine's life had undergone a complete change. Careless, easy, and gay as it had been before, so now it seemed to him distorted, dire, and unendurable. The laughing mask had fallen; the hideous face of a monster was revealed.

Tanaroff had taken him home in a droschky. On the way he exaggerated his pain and weakness so as not to have to open his eyes. In this way he thought that he would avoid the shame levelled at him by thousands of eyes so soon as they encountered his.

The slim, blue back of the droschky driver, the passers-by, malicious, inquisitive faces at windows, even Tanaroff's arm round his waist were all, as he imagined, silent expressions of undisguised contempt. So intensely painful did this sensation become, that at last Sarudine almost fainted. He felt as if he were losing his reason, and he longed to die. His brain refused to recognize what had happened. He kept thinking that there was a mistake, some misunderstanding, and that his plight was not as desperate and deplorable as he imagined. Yet the actual fact remained, and ever darker grew his despair.

Sarudine felt that he was being supported, that he was in pain, and that his hands were blood-stained and dirty. It really surprised him to know that he was still conscious of it all. At times, when the vehicle turned a sharp corner, and swayed to one side, he partially opened his eyes, and perceived, as if through tears, familiar streets, and houses, and people, and the church. Nothing had become changed, yet all seemed hostile, strange, and infinitely remote.

Passers-by stopped and stared. Sarudine instantly shut his eyes in shame and despair. The drive seemed endless. "Faster! faster!" he thought anxiously. Then, however, he pictured to himself the faces of his man-servant, of his landlady, and of the neighbours, which made him wish that the journey might never end. Just to drive on, drive on, anywhere, like that, with eyes closed!

Tanaroff was horribly ashamed of this procession. Very red and confused, he looked straight in front of him, and strove to give onlookers the impression that he had nothing whatever to do with the affair.

At first he professed to sympathize with Sarudine, but soon relapsed into silence, occasionally through his clenched teeth urging the coachman to drive quicker. From this, as also from the irresolute support of his arm, which at times almost pushed him away, Sarudine knew exactly what Tanaroff felt. It was this knowledge that a man whom he held to be so absolutely his inferior should feel ashamed of him, which convinced Sarudine that all was now at an end.

He could not cross the courtyard without assistance. Tanaroff and the scared, trembling orderly almost had to carry him. If there were other onlookers, Sarudine did not see them. They made up a bed for him on the sofa and stood there, helpless and irresolute. This irritated him intensely. At last, recovering himself, the servant fetched some hot water and a towel, and carefully washed the blood from Sarudine's face and hands. His master avoided his glance, but in the soldier's eyes there was nothing malicious or scornful; only such fear and pity as some kind-hearted old nurse might feel.

"Oh! however did this happen, your Excellency? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What have they been doing to him?" he murmured.

"It's no business of yours!" hissed Tanaroff angrily; glancing round immediately afterwards, in confusion. He went to the window and mechanically took out a cigarette, but uncertain if, while Sarudine lay there, he ought to smoke, he hurriedly thrust his cigarette-case into his pocket.

"Shall I fetch the doctor?" asked the orderly, standing at attention, and unabashed by the rude answer that he had received.

Tanaroff stretched out his fingers irresolutely.

"I don't know," he said in an altered voice, as he again looked round.

Sarudine had heard these words, and was horrified to think that the doctor would see his battered face. "I don't want anybody," he murmured feebly, trying to persuade himself and the others that he was going to die.

Cleansed now from blood and dirt, his face was no longer horrible to behold, but called rather for compassion.

From mere animal curiosity Tanaroff hastily glanced at him, and then, in a moment, looked elsewhere. Almost imperceptible as this movement had been, Sarudine noticed it with unutterable anguish and despair. He shut his eyes tighter, and exclaimed, in a broken, tearful voice:

"Leave me! Leave me! Oh! Oh!"

Tanaroff glanced again at him. Suddenly a feeling of irritation and contempt possessed him.

"He's actually going to cry now!" he thought, with a certain malicious satisfaction.

Sarudine's eyes were closed, and he lay quite still. Tanaroff drummed lightly on the window-sill with his fingers, twirled his moustache, looked round first, and then, out of the window, feeling selfishly eager to get away.

"I can't very well, just yet," he thought. "What a damned bore! Better wait until he goes to sleep."

Another quarter of an hour passed, and Sarudine appeared to be restless. To Tanaroff such suspense was intolerable. At last the sufferer lay motionless.

"Aha! he's asleep," thought Tanaroff, inwardly pleased. "Yes, I'm sure that he is."

He moved cautiously across the room so that the jingling of his spurs was scarcely audible. Suddenly Sarudine opened his eyes. Tanaroff stood still, but Sarudine had already guessed his intention, and the former knew that he had been detected in the act. Now something strange occurred. Sarudine shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Tanaroff tried to persuade himself that this was the case, while yet perfectly well aware that each was watching the other; and so, in an awkward, stooping posture, he crept out of the room on tiptoe, feeling like a convicted traitor.

The door closed gently behind him. In such wise were the bonds of friendship that had bound these two men together broken once and for all. They both felt that a gulf now lay between them that could never be bridged; in this world henceforth they could be nothing to each other.

In the outer room Tanaroff breathed more freely. He had no regret that all was at end between himself and the man with whom for many years his life had been spent.

"Look here!" said he to the servant as if, for form's sake, it behoved him to speak, "I am now going. If anything should happen—well ... you understand ..."

"Very good, sir," replied the soldier, looking scared.

"So now you know.... And see that the bandage is frequently changed."

He hurried down the steps, and, after closing the garden-gate, he drew a deep breath when he saw before him the broad, silent street. It was now nearly dark, and Tanaroff was glad that no one could notice his flushed face.

"I may even be mixed up in this horrid affair myself," he thought, and his heart sank as he approached the boulevard. "After all, what have I got to do with it?"

Thus he sought to pacify himself, endeavouring to forget how Ivanoff had flung him aside with such force that he almost fell down.

"Deuce take it! What a nasty business! It's all that fool of a Sarudine! Why did he ever associate with such canaille?"

The more he brooded over the whole unpleasantness of this incident, the more his commonplace figure, as he strutted along in his tightly- fitting breeches, smart boots, and white tunic, assumed a threatening aspect.

In every passer-by he was ready to detect ridicule and scorn; indeed, at the slightest provocation he would have wildly drawn his sword. However, he met but few folk that, like furtive shadows, passed swiftly along the outskirts of the darkening boulevard. On reaching home he became somewhat calmer, and then he thought again of what Ivanoff had done.

"Why didn't I hit him? I ought to have given him one in the jaw. I might have used my sword. I had my revolver, too, in my pocket. I ought to have shot him like a dog. How came I to forget the revolver? Well, after all, perhaps it's just as well that I didn't. Suppose I had killed him? It would have been a matter for the police. One of those other fellows might have had a revolver, too! A pretty state of things, eh? At all events, nobody knows that I had a weapon on me, and by degrees, the whole thing will blow over."

Tanaroff looked cautiously round before he drew out his revolver and placed it in the table drawer.

"I shall have to go to the colonel at once, and explain to him that I had nothing whatever to do with the matter," he thought, as he locked the drawer. Then an irresistible impulse seized him to go to the officer's mess, and, as an eye-witness, describe exactly what took place. The officers had already heard about the affair in the public gardens, and they hurried back to the brilliantly lighted mess-rooms to give vent in heated language to their indignation. They were really rather pleased at Sarudine's discomfiture, since often enough his smartness and elegance in dress and demeanour had served to put them in the shade.

Tanaroff was hailed with undisguised curiosity. He felt that he was the hero of the hour as he began to give a detailed account of the whole incident. In his narrow black eyes there was a look of hatred for the friend who had always been his superior. He thought of the money incident, and of Sarudine's condescending attitude towards him, and he revenged himself for past slights by a minute description of his comrade's defeat.

Meanwhile, forsaken and alone, Sarudine lay there upon his couch.

His soldier-servant, who had learnt the whole truth elsewhere, moved noiselessly about, looking sad and anxious as before. He set the tea- things ready, fetched some wine, and drove the dog out of the room as it leaped about for joy at the sight of its master.

After a while the man came back on tiptoe. "Your Excellency had better have a little wine," he whispered.

"Eh? What?" exclaimed Sarudine, opening his eyes and shutting them again instantly. In a tone which he thought severe, but which was really piteous, he could just move his swollen lips sufficiently to say: "Bring me the looking-glass."

The servant sighed, brought the mirror, and held a candle close to it.

"Why does he want to look at himself?" he thought.

When Sarudine looked in the glass he uttered an involuntary cry. In the dark mirror a terribly disfigured face confronted him. One side of it was black and blue, his eye was swollen, and his moustache stuck out like bristles on his puffy check.

"Here! Take it away!" murmured Sarudine, and he sobbed hysterically. "Some water!"

"Your Excellency mustn't take it so to heart. You'll soon be all right again," said the kindly soldier, as he proffered water in a sticky glass which smelt of tea.

Sarudine could not drink; his teeth rattled helplessly against the rim of the glass, and the water was spilt over his coat.

"Go away!" he feebly moaned.

His servant, so he thought, was the only man in the world who sympathized with him, yet that kindlier feeling towards him was speedily extinguished by the intolerable consciousness that his serving-man had cause to pity him.

Almost in tears, the soldier blinked his eyes and, going out, sat down on the steps leading to the garden. Fawning upon him, the dog thrust its pretty nose against his knee and looked up at him gravely with dark, questioning eyes. He gently stroked its soft, wavy coat. Overhead shone the silent stars. A sense of fear came over him, as the presage of some great, inevitable mischance.

"Life's a sad thing!" he thought bitterly, remembering for a moment his own native village.

Sarudine turned hastily over on the sofa and lay motionless, without noticing that the compress, now grown warm, had slipped off his face.

"Now all is at an end!" he murmured hysterically, "What is at an end? Everything! My whole life—done for! Why? Because I've been insulted— struck like a dog! My face struck with the fist! I can never remain in the regiment, never!"

He could clearly see himself there, in the avenue, hobbling on all fours, cowed and ridiculous, as he uttered feeble, senseless threats. Again and again he mentally rehearsed that awful incident with ever increasing torture, and, as if illuminated, all the details stood out vividly before his eyes. That which most irritated him was his recollection of Sina Karsavina's white dress, of which he caught a glimpse at the very moment when he was vowing futile vengeance.

"Who was it that lifted me up?" He tried to turn his thoughts into another channel. "Was it Tanaroff? Or that Jew boy who was with them! It must have been Tanaroff. Anyhow, it doesn't matter in the least. What matters is that my whole life is ruined, and that I shall have to leave the regiment. And the duel? What about that? He won't fight. I shall have to leave the regiment."

Sarudine recollected how a regimental committee had forced two brother- officers, married men, to resign because they had refused to fight a duel.

"I shall be asked to resign in the same way. Quite civilly, without shaking hands ... the very fellows that.... Nobody will feel flattered now to be seen walking arm-in-arm with me in the boulevard, or envy me, or imitate my manner. But, after all, that's nothing. It's the shame, the dishonour of it. Why? Because I was struck in the face? It has happened to me before when I was a cadet. That big fellow, Schwartz, gave me a hiding, and knocked out one of my teeth. Nobody thought anything about it, but we shook hands afterwards, and became the best of friends. Nobody despised me then. Why should it be different now? Surely it is just the same thing! On that occasion, too, blood was spilt, and I fell down. So that ..."

To these despairing questions Sarudine could find no answer.

"If he had accepted my challenge and had shot me in the face, that would have been worse, and much more painful. Yet no one would have despised me in that case; on the contrary, I should have had sympathy and admiration. Thus there is a difference between a bullet and the fist. What difference is there, and why should there be any?"

His thoughts came swiftly, incoherently, yet his suffering, and irreparable misfortune would seem to have roused something new and latent within him of which in his careless years of selfish enjoyment he had never been conscious.

"Von Deitz, for instance, was always saying, 'If one smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left.' But how did he come back that day from Sanine's? Shouting angrily, and waving his arms because the fellow wouldn't accept my challenge! The others are really to blame for my wanting to hit him with the riding-whip. My mistake was that I didn't do it in time. The whole thing's absurdly unjust. However, there it is; the disgrace remains; and I shall have to leave the regiment."

With both hands pressed to his aching brow, Sarudine tossed from side to side, for the pain in his eye was excruciating. Then, in a fit of fury, he muttered:

"Get a revolver, rush at him, and put a couple of bullets through his head ... and then, as he lies there, stamp on his face, on his eyes, on his teeth!..."

The compress fell to the floor with a dull thud. Sarudine, startled, opened his eyes and, in the dimly-lighted room, saw a basin with water, a towel, and the dark window, that like an awful eye, stared at him mysteriously.

"No, no, there's no help for it now," he thought, in dull despair. "They all saw it; saw how I was struck in the face, and how I crawled along on all fours. Oh! the shame of it! Struck like that, in the face! No, it's too much! I shall never be free or happy again!"

And again through his mind there flashed a new, keen thought.

"After all, have I ever been free? No. That's just why I've come to grief now, because my life has never been free; because I've never lived it in my own way. Of my own free will should I ever have wanted to fight a duel, or to hit him with the whip? Nobody would have struck me, and everything would have been all right. Who first imagined, and when, that an insult could only be wiped out with blood? Not I, certainly. Well, I've wiped it out, or rather, it's been wiped out with my blood, hasn't it? I don't know what it all means, but I know this, that I shall have to leave the regiment!"

His thoughts would fain have taken another direction, yet, like birds with clipped wings, they always fell back again, back to the one central fact that he had been grossly insulted, and would be obliged to leave the regiment.

He remembered having once seen a fly that had fallen into syrup crawling over the floor, dragging its sticky legs and wings along with the utmost difficulty. It was plain that the wretched insect must die, though it still struggled, and made frantic efforts to regain its feet. At the time he had turned away from it in disgust, and now he saw it again, as in a feverish dream. Then he suddenly thought of a fight that he had once witnessed between two peasants, when one, with a terrific blow in the face, felled the other, an elderly, grey-haired man. He got up, wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve, exclaiming with emphasis, "What a fool!"

"Yes, I remember seeing that," thought Sarudine, "and then they had drinks together at the 'Crown.'"

The night drew near to its end. In silence so strange, so oppressive, it seemed as if Sarudine were the one living, suffering soul left on earth. On the table the guttering candle was still burning with a faint, steady, flame. Lost in the gloom of his disordered thoughts Sarudine stared at it with glittering, feverish eyes.

Amid the wild chaos of impressions and recollections there was one thing which stood out clearly from all others. It was the sense of his utter solitude that stabbed his heart like a dagger. Millions of men at that moment were merrily enjoying life, laughing and joking; some, it might be, were even talking about him. But he, only he, was alone. Vainly he sought to recall familiar faces. Yet pale, and strange, and cold, they appeared to him, and their eyes had a look of curiosity and malevolent glee. Then, in his dejection, he thought of Lida.

He pictured her as he had seen her last; her large, sad eyes; the thin blouse that lightly veiled her soft bosom; her hair in a single loose plait. In her face Sarudine saw neither malice nor contempt. Those dark eyes gazed at him in sorrowful reproach. He remembered how he had repulsed her at the moment of her supreme distress. The sense of having lost her wounded him like a knife.

"She suffered then far more than I do now.... I thrust her from me.... I almost wanted her to drown herself; wanted her to die."

As to a last anchor that should save him, his whole soul turned to her. He yearned for her caresses, her sympathy. For an instant it seemed to him as if all his actual sufferings would efface the past; yet he knew, alas! that Lida would never, never come back to him, and that all was at an end. Before him lay nothing but the blank, abysmal void!

Raising his arm, Sarudine pressed his hand against his brow. He lay there, motionless, with eyes closed and teeth clenched, striving to see nothing, to hear nothing, to feel nothing. But after a little while his hand dropped, and he sat up. His head ached terribly, his tongue seemed on fire, and he trembled from head to foot. Then he rose and staggered to the table.

"I have lost everything; my life, Lida, everything!"

It flashed across him that this life of his, after all, had not been either good, or glad, or sane, but foolish, perverted and base. Sarudine, the handsome Sarudine, entitled to all that was best and most enjoyable in life, no longer existed. There was only a feeble, emasculated body left to bear all this pain and dishonour.

"To live on is impossible," he thought, "for that would mean the entire effacement of the past. I should have to begin a new life, to become quite a different man, and that I cannot do!"

His head fell forward on the table, and in the weird, flickering candlelight he lay there, motionless.



CHAPTER XXXII.

On that same evening Sanine went to see Soloveitchik. The little Jew was sitting alone on the steps of his house, gazing at the bare, deserted space in front of it where several disused pathways crossed the withered grass. Depressing indeed was the sight of the vacant sheds, with their huge, rusty locks, and of the black windows of the mill. The whole scene spoke mournfully of life and activity that long had ceased.

Sanine instantly noticed the changed expression of Soloveitchik's face. He no longer smiled, but seemed anxious and worried. His dark eyes had a questioning look.

"Ah! good evening," he said, as in apathetic fashion he took the other's hand. Then he continued gazing at the calm evening sky, against which the black roofs of the sheds stood out in ever sharper relief.

Sanine sat down on the opposite side of the steps, lighted a cigarette, and silently watched Soloveitchik, whose strange demeanour interested him.

"What do you do with yourself here?" he asked, after a while.

Languidly the other turned to him his large, sad eyes.

"I just live here, that's all. When the mill was at work, I used to be in the office. But now it's closed, and everybody's gone away except myself."

"Don't you find it lonely, to be all by yourself, like this?"

Soloveitchik was silent.

Then, shrugging his shoulders, he said: "It's all the same to me."

They remained silent. There was no sound but the rattling of the dog's chain.

"It's not the place that's lonely," exclaimed Soloveitchik with sudden vehemence. "But it's here I feel it, and here," He touched his forehead and his breast.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Sanine calmly.

"Look here," continued Soloveitchik, becoming more excited, "you struck a man to-day, and smashed his face in. Perhaps you have ruined his whole life. Pray don't be offended at my speaking to you like this. I have thought a great deal about it all, sitting here, as you see, and wondering, wondering. Now, if I ask you something, will you answer me?"

For a moment his features were contorted by his usual set smile.

"Ask me whatever you like," replied Sanine, kindly. "You're afraid of offending me, eh? That won't offend me, I assure you. What's done is done; and, if I thought that I had done wrong, I should be the first to say so."

"I wanted to ask you this," said Soloveitchik, quivering with excitement. "Do you realize that perhaps you might have killed that man?"

"There's not much doubt about that," replied Sanine. "It would have been difficult for a man like Sarudine to get out of the mess unless he killed me, or I killed him. But, as regards killing me, he missed the psychological moment, so to speak; and at present he's not in a fit condition to do me harm. Later on he won't have the pluck. He's played his part."

"And you calmly tell me all this?"

"What do you mean by 'calmly?'" asked Sanine. "I couldn't look on calmly and see a chicken killed, much less a man. It was painful to me to hit him. To be conscious of one's own strength is pleasant, of course, but it was nevertheless a horrible experience—horrible, because such an act in itself was brutal. Yet my conscience is calm. I was but the instrument of fate. Sarudine has come to grief because the whole bent of his life was bound to bring about a catastrophe; and the marvel is that others of his sort do not share his fate. These are the men who learn to kill their fellow-creatures and to pamper their own bodies, not knowing why or wherefore. They are lunatics, idiots! Let them loose, and they would cut their own throats and those of other folk as well. Am I to blame because I protected myself from a madman of this type?"

"Yes, but you have killed him," was Soloveitchik's obstinate reply.

"In that case you had better appeal to the good God who made us meet."

"You could have stopped him by seizing hold of his hands."

Sanine raised his head.

"In a moment like that one doesn't reflect. And how would that have helped matters? His code of honour demanded revenge at any price. I could not have held his hands for ever. It would only have been an additional insult, nothing more."

Soloveitchik limply waved his hand, and did not reply. Imperceptibly the darkness closed round them. The fires of sunset paled, and beneath the deserted sheds the shadows grew deeper, as if in these lonely places mysterious, dreadful beings were about to take up their abode during the night. Their noiseless footsteps may have made Sultan uneasy, for he suddenly crept out of his kennel and sat in front of it, rattling his chain.

"Perhaps you're right," observed Soloveitchik sadly, "but was it absolutely necessary? Would it not have been better if you had borne the blow?"

"Better?" said Sanine. "A blow's always a painful thing. And why? For what reason?"

"Oh! do, please, hear me out," interrupted Soloveitchik, with a pleading gesture. "It might have been better—"

"For Sarudine, certainly,"

"No, for you, too; for you, too."

"Oh! Soloveitchik," replied Sanine, with a touch of annoyance, "a truce to that silly old notion about moral victory; and a false notion, too. Moral victory does not consist in offering one's cheek to the smiter, but in being right before one's own conscience. How this is achieved is a matter of chance, of circumstances. There is nothing so horrible as slavery. Yet most horrible of all is it when a man whose inmost soul rebels against coercion and force yet submits thereto in the name of some power that is mightier than he."

Soloveitchik clasped his head with both hands, as one distraught.

"I've not got the brains to understand it all," he said plaintively. "And I don't in the least know how I ought to live."

"Why should you know? Live as the bird flies. If it wants to move its right wing, it moves it. If it wants to fly round a tree, it does so."

"Yes, a bird may do that, but I'm not a bird; I'm a man," said Soloveitchik with naive earnestness.

Sanine laughed outright, and for a moment the merry sound echoed through the gloomy courtyard.

Soloveitchik shook his head. "No," he murmured sadly, "all that's only talk. You can't tell me how I ought to live. Nobody can tell me that."

"That's very true. Nobody can tell you that. The art of living implies a talent; and he who does not possess that talent perishes or makes shipwreck of his life."

"How calmly you say that! As if you knew everything! Pray don't be offended, but have you always been like that—always so calm?" asked Soloveitchik, keenly interested.

"Oh! no; though certainly my temperament has usually been calm enough, but there were times when I was harassed by doubts of all kinds. At one time, indeed, I dreamed that the ideal life for me was the Christian life."

Sanine paused, and Soloveitchik leaned forward eagerly as if to hear something of the utmost importance.

"At that time I had a comrade, a student of mathematics, Ivan Lande by name. He was a wonderful man, of indomitable moral force; a Christian, not from conviction, but by nature. In his life all Christianity was mirrored. If struck, he did not strike back; he treated every man as his brother, and in woman he did not recognize the sexual attraction. Do you remember Semenoff?"

Soloveitchik nodded, as with childish pleasure.

"Well, at that time Semenoff was very ill. He was living in the Crimea, where he gave lessons. There, solitude and the presentiment of his approaching death drove him to despair. Lande heard of this, and determined to go thither and save this lost soul. He had no money, and no one was willing to lend any to a reputed madman. So he went on foot, and, after walking over a thousand versts, died on the way, and thus sacrificed his life for others."

"And you, oh! do tell me," cried Soloveitchik with flashing eyes, "do you recognize the greatness of such a man?"

"He was much talked about at the time," replied Sanine thoughtfully. "Some did not look upon him as a Christian, and for that reason condemned him. Others said that he was mad and not devoid of self- conceit, while some denied that he had any moral force; and, since he would not fight, they declared that he was neither prophet nor conqueror. I judge him otherwise. At that time he influenced me to the point of folly. One day a student boxed my ears, and I became almost mad with rage. But Lande stood there, and I just looked at him and— Well, I don't know how it was, but I got up without speaking, and walked out of the room. First of all I felt intensely proud of what I had done, and secondly I hated the student from the bottom of my heart. Not because he had struck me, but because to him my conduct must have been supremely gratifying. By degrees the falseness of my position became clear to me, and this set me thinking. For a couple of weeks I was like one demented, and after that I ceased to feel proud of my false moral victory. At the first ironical remark on the part of my adversary I thrashed him until he became unconscious. This brought about an estrangement between Lande and myself. When I came to examine his life impartially, I found it astonishingly poor and miserable."

"Oh! how can you say that?" cried Soloveitchik. "How was it possible for you to estimate the wealth of his spiritual emotions?"

"Such emotions were very monotonous. His life's happiness consisted in the acceptance of every misfortune without a murmur, and its wealth, in the total renunciation of life's joys and material benefits. He was a beggar by choice, a fantastic personage whose life was sacrificed to an idea of which he himself had no clear conception."

Soloveitchik wrung his hands.

"Oh! you cannot imagine how it distresses me to hear this!" he exclaimed.

"Really, Soloveitchik, you're quite hysterical," said Sanine, in surprise. "I have not told you anything extraordinary. Possibly the subject is, to you, a painful one?"

"Oh! most painful. I am always thinking, thinking, till my head seems as if it would burst. Was all that really an error, nothing more? I grope about, as in a dark room, and there is no one to tell me what I ought to do. Why do we live? Tell me that."

"Why? That nobody knows."

"And should we not live for the future, so that later on, at least, mankind may have a golden age?"

"There will never be a golden age. If the world and mankind could become better all in a moment, then, perhaps, a golden age would be possible. But that cannot be. Progress towards improvement is slow, and man can only see the step in front of him, and that immediately behind him. You and I have not lived the life of a Roman slave, nor that of some savage of the Stone Age, and therefore we cannot appreciate the boon of our civilization. Thus, if there should ever be a golden age, the men of that period will not perceive any difference between their lives and those of their ancestors. Man moves along an endless road, and to wish to level the road to happiness would be like adding new units to a number that is infinite."

"Then you believe that it all means nothing—that all is of no avail?"

"Yes, that is what I think."

"But what about your friend Lande? You yourself were—"

"I loved Lande," said Sanine gravely, "not because he was a Christian, but because he was sincere, and never swerved from his path, being undaunted by obstacles either ridiculous or formidable. It was as a personality that I prized Lande. When he died, his worth ceased to exist."

"And don't you think that such men have an ennobling influence upon life? Might not such men have followers or disciples?"

"Why should life be ennobled? Tell me that, first of all. And, secondly, one doesn't want disciples. Men like Lande are born so. Christ was splendid; Christians, however, are but a sorry crew. The idea of his doctrine was a beautiful one, but they have made of it a lifeless dogma."

Tired with talking, Sanine said no more. Soloveitchik remained silent also. There was great stillness around them, while overhead the stars seemed to maintain a conversation wordless and unending. Then Soloveitchik suddenly whispered something that sounded so weird that Sanine, shuddering, exclaimed:

"What's that you said?"

"Tell me," muttered Soloveitchik, "tell me what you think. Suppose a man can't see his way clear, but is always thinking and worrying, as everything only perplexes and terrifies him—tell me, wouldn't it be better for him to die?"

"Well," replied Sanine, who clearly read the other's thoughts, "perhaps death in that case would be better. Thinking and worrying are of no avail. He only ought to live who finds joy in living; but for him who suffers, death is best."

"That is what I thought, too," exclaimed Soloveitchik, and he excitedly grasped Sanine's hand. His face looked ghastly in the gloom; his eyes were like two black holes.

"You are a dead man," said Sanine with inward apprehension, as he rose to go; "and for a dead man the best place is the grave. Good-bye."

Soloveitchik apparently did not hear him, but sat there motionless. Sanine waited for a while and then slowly walked away. At the gate he stopped to listen, but could hear nothing. Soloveitchik's figure looked blurred and indistinct in the darkness. Sanine, as if in response to a strange presentiment, said to himself:

"After all, it comes to the same thing whether he lives on like this or dies. If it's not to-day, then it will be to-morrow." He turned sharply round; the gate creaked on its hinges, and he found himself in the street.

On reaching the boulevard he heard, at a distance, some one running along and sobbing as if in great distress. Sanine stood still. Out of the gloom a figure emerged, and rapidly approached him. Again Sanine felt a sinister presentiment.

"What's the matter?" he called out.

The figure stopped for a moment, and Sanine was confronted by a soldier whose dull face showed great distress.

"What has happened?" exclaimed Sanine.

The soldier murmured something and ran on, wailing as he went. As a phantom he vanished in the night.

"That was Sarudine's servant," thought Sanine, and then it flashed across him:

"Sarudine has shot himself!"

For a moment he peered into the darkness, and his brow grew cold. Between the dread mystery of night and the soul of this stalwart man a conflict, brief yet terrible, was in progress.

The town was asleep; the glimmering roadways lay bare and white beneath the sombre trees; the windows were like dull, watchful eyes glaring at the gloom. Sanine tossed his head and smiled, as he looked calmly in front of him.

"I am not guilty," he said aloud. "One more or less—"

Erect and resolute, he strode onward, an imposing spectre in the silent night.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

The news that two persons had committed suicide on the same night spread rapidly through the little town. It was Ivanoff who told Yourii. The latter had just come back from a lesson, and was at work upon a portrait of Lialia. She posed for him in a light-coloured blouse, open at the neck, and her pretty shell-pink arms showed through the semi- transparent stuff. The room was filled with sunlight which lit up her golden hair, and heightened the charm of her girlish grace.

"Good day," said Ivanoff, as, entering, he flung his hat on to a chair.

"Ah! it's you. Well, what's the news?" asked Yourii, smiling.

He was in a contented, happy mood, for at last he had got some teaching which made him less dependent upon his father, and the society of his bright, charming sister served to cheer him, also.

"Oh! lots of news," said Ivanoff, with a vague look in his eyes. "One man has hanged himself, and another has blown his brains out, and the devil's got hold of a third."

"What on earth do you mean?" exclaimed Yourii.

"The third catastrophe is my own invention, just to heighten the effect; but as regards the other two, the news is correct. Sarudine shot himself last night, and I have just heard that Soloveitchik has committed suicide by hanging."

"Impossible!" cried Lialia, jumping up. Her eyes expressed horror and intense curiosity.

Yourii hurriedly laid aside his palette, and approached Ivanoff.

"You're not joking?"

"No, indeed."

As usual, he put on an air of philosophic indifference, yet evidently he was much shocked at what had happened.

"Why did he shoot himself? Because Sanine struck him?"

"Does Sanine know?" asked Lialia anxiously.

"Yes. Sanine heard about it last night," replied Ivanoff.

"And what does he say?" exclaimed Yourii.

Ivanoff shrugged his shoulders. He was in no mood to discuss Sanine with Yourii, and he answered, not without irritation.

"Nothing. What has it to do with him?"

"Anyhow, he was the cause of it," said Lialia.

"Yes, but what business had that fool to attack him? It is not Sanine's fault. The whole affair is deplorable, but it is entirely due to Sarudine's stupidity."

"Oh! I think that the real reason lies deeper," said Yourii sadly. "Sarudine lived in a certain set that..."

Ivanoff shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, and the very fact that he lived in, and was influenced by, such an idiotic set is only proof positive that he was a fool."

Yourii rubbed his hands and said nothing. It pained him to hear the dead man spoken of thus.

"Well I can understand why Sarudine did it," said Lialia, "but Soloveitchik? I never would have thought it possible! What was the reason?"

"God knows!" replied Ivanoff. "He was always a bit queer."

At that moment Riasantzeff drove up, and meeting Sina Karsavina on the doorstep, they came upstairs together. Her voice, high-pitched and anxious, could be heard, and also his jovial, bantering tones that talk with pretty girls always evoked.

"Anatole Pavlovitch has just come from there," said Sina excitedly.

Riasantzeff followed her, laughing as usual, and endeavouring to light a cigarette as he entered.

"A nice state of things!" he said gaily. "If this goes on we soon shan't have any young people left."

Sina sat down without speaking. Her pretty face looked sad and dejected.

"Now then, tell us all about it," said Ivanoff.

"As I came out of the club last night," began Riasantzeff, "a soldier rushed up to me and stammered out, 'His Excellency's shot himself!' I jumped into a droschky and got there as fast as I could. I found nearly the whole regiment at the house. Sarudine was lying on the bed, and his tunic was unbuttoned."

"And where did he shoot himself?" asked Lialia, clinging to her lover's arm.

"In the temple. The bullet went right through his head and hit the ceiling."

"Was it a Browning?" Yourii asked this.

"Yes. It was an awful sight. The wall was splashed with blood and brains, and his face was utterly disfigured. Sanine must have given him a teaser." He laughed. "A tough customer is that lad!"

Ivanoff nodded approvingly.

"He's strong enough, I warrant you."

"Coarse brute!" said Yourii, in disgust.

Sina glanced timidly at him.

"In my opinion it was not his fault," she said. "He couldn't possibly wait until..."

"Yes, yes," replied Riasantzeff, "but to hit a fellow like that! Sarudine had challenged him."

"There you go!" exclaimed Ivanoff irritably, as he shrugged his shoulders.

"If you come to think of it, duelling is absurd!" said Yourii.

"Of course it is!" chimed in Sina.

To his surprise, Yourii noticed that Sina seemed pleased to take Sanine's part.

"At any rate, it's...." The right phrase failed him wherewith to disparage Sanine.

"A brutal thing," suggested Riasantzeff.

Though Yourii thought Riasantzeff was little better than a brute to himself, he was glad to hear the latter abuse Sanine to Sina when she defended him. However, as she noticed Yourii's look of annoyance, she said no more. Secretly, she was much pleased by Sanine's strength and pluck, and was quite unwilling to accept Riasantzeff's denouncement of duelling as just. Like Yourii, she did not consider that he was qualified to lay down the law like that.

"Wonderfully civilized, certainly," sneered Ivanoff, "to shoot a man's nose off, or run him through the body."

"Is a blow in the face any better?"

"I certainly think that it is. What harm can a fist do? A bruise is soon healed. You won't find that a blow with the fist ever hurt anybody much."

"That's not the point."

"Then, what is, pray?" said Ivanoff, his thin lips curled with scorn.

"I don't believe in fighting at all, myself, but, if it must be, then one ought to draw the line at severe bodily injuries. That's quite clear."

"He almost knocked the other's eye out. I suppose you don't call that severe bodily injury?" retorted Riasantzeff sarcastically.

"Well, of course, to lose an eye is a bad job, but it's not the same as getting a bullet through your body. The loss of an eye is not a fatal injury."

"But Sarudine is dead?"

"Ah! that's because he wished to die."

Yourii nervously plucked at his moustache.

"I must frankly confess," he said, quite pleased at his own sincerity, "that personally, I have not made up my mind as regards this question. I cannot say how I should have behaved in Sanine's place. Of course, duelling's stupid, and to fight with fists is not much better."

"But what is a man to do if he's compelled to fight?" said Sina.

Yourii shrugged his shoulders.

"It's for Soloveitchik that we ought to be sorry," said Riasantzeff, after a pause. The words contrasted strangely with his cheerful countenance. Then all at once, they remembered that not one of them had asked about Soloveitchik.

"Where did he hang himself? Do you know?"

"In the shed next to the dog's kennel. He let the dog loose, and then hanged himself."

Sina and Yourii simultaneously seemed to hear a shrill voice exclaim:

"Lie down, Sultan!"

"Yes, and he left a note behind," continued Riasantzeff, unable to conceal the merry twinkle in his eyes. "I made a copy of it. In a way, it's really a human document." Taking out his pocket-book he read as follows:

"Why should I live, since I do not know how I ought to live? Men such as I cannot make their fellow-creatures happy."

He stopped suddenly, as if somewhat embarrassed. Dead silence ensued. A sad spirit seemed to pass noiselessly through the room. Tears rose to Sina's eyes, and Lialia's face grew red with emotion. Yourii smiled mournfully as he turned towards the window.

"That's all," said Riasantzeff meditatively.

"What more would you have?" asked Sina with quivering lips.

Ivanoff rose and reached across for the matches that were on the table.

"It's nothing more than tomfoolery," he muttered.

"For shame!" was Sina's indignant protest.

Yourii glanced in disgust at Ivanoff's long, smooth hair and turned away.

"To take the case of Soloveitchik," resumed Riasantzeff, and again his eyes twinkled. "I always thought him a nincompoop—a silly Jew boy. And now, see what he has shown himself to be! There is no love more sublime than the love which bids one sacrifice one's life for humanity."

"But he didn't sacrifice his life for humanity," replied Ivanoff, as he looked askance at Riasantzeff's portly face and figure, and observed how tightly his waistcoat fitted him.

"Yes, but it's the same thing, for if ..."

"It's not the same thing at all," was Ivanoff's stubborn retort, and his eyes flashed angrily. "It's the act of an idiot, that's what it is!"

His strange hatred of Soloveitchik made a most unpleasant impression upon the others.

Sina Karsavina, as she got up to go, whispered to Yourii, "I am going. He is simply detestable."

Yourii nodded. "Utterly brutal," he murmured.

Immediately after Sina's departure, Lialia and Riasantzeff went out. Ivanoff sat pensively smoking his cigarette for a while, as he stared sulkily at a corner of the room. Then he also departed.

In the street as he walked along, swinging his arms in the usual way, he thought to himself, in his wrath:

"These fools imagine that I am not capable of understanding what they understand! I like that! I know exactly what they think and feel, better than they do themselves. I also know that there is no love more sublime than the love which bids a man lay down his life for others. But for a man to go and hang himself simply because he is of no good to anybody—that's absolute nonsense!"



CHAPTER XXXIV.

When to the sound of martial music Sarudine's remains were borne to the churchyard, Yourii from his window watched the sad, imposing procession. He saw the horses draped in black, and the deceased officer's cap that lay on the coffin-lid. There were flowers in profusion, and many female mourners, Yourii was deeply grieved at the sight.

That evening he walked for a long while with Sina Karsavina; yet her beautiful eyes and gentle caressing manner did not enable him to shake off his depression.

"How awful it is to think," he said, his eyes fixed on the ground, "to think that Sarudine no longer exists. A handsome, merry, careless young officer like that! One would have thought that he would live for ever, and that the horrible things of life, such as pain and doubt and suffering, were unknown to him, would never touch him. Yet one fine day this very man is swept away like dust, after passing through a terrible ordeal known to none but himself. Now he's gone, and will never, never return. All that's left of him is the cap on the coffin-lid."

Yourii was silent, and he still gazed at the ground. Swaying slightly as she walked beside him, Sina listened attentively, while with her pretty, dimpled hands she kept twisting the lace of her parasol. She was not thinking about Sarudine. It was a keen pleasure for her to be near Yourii, yet unconsciously she shared his melancholy mood, and her face assumed a mournful expression. "Yes! wasn't it sad? That music, too!"

"I don't blame Sanine," said Yourii with emphasis.

"He could not have acted otherwise. The horrible part of it all is that the paths of these two men crossed, so that one or the other was obliged to give way. It is also horrible that the victor does not realize that his triumph is an appalling one. He calmly sweeps a man off the face of the earth, and yet is in the right."

"Yes, he's in the right, and—" exclaimed Sina, who had not heard all that Yourii had said. Her bosom heaved with excitement.

"But I call it horrible!" cried Yourii, hastily interrupting her, as he glanced at her shapely form and eager face.

"Why is it so?" asked Sina in a timid voice. She blushed suddenly, and her eyes lost their brightness.

"Anyone else would have felt remorse, or have suffered some kind of spiritual anguish," said Yourii. "But he showed not the slightest sign of it. 'I'm very sorry,' says he, 'but it's not my fault.' Fault, indeed! As if the question were one of fault or of blame!"

"Then of what is it?" asked Sina. Her voice faltered, and she looked downwards, fearing to offend her companion.

"That I don't know; but a man has no right to behave like a brute," was the indignant rejoinder.

For some time they walked along without speaking. Sina was grieved at what seemed their momentary estrangement, at this breaking of their spiritual bond which to her was so sweet, while Yourii felt that he had not expressed himself clearly, and this wounded his self-respect.

Soon afterwards they parted, she being sad and somewhat hurt. Yourii noticed her dejection, and was morbidly pleased thereat, as if he had revenged himself on some one he loved for a gross personal insult.

At home his ill-humour was increased. During dinner Lialia repeated what Riasantzeff had told her about Soloveitchik. As the men were removing the corpse, several urchins had called out:

"Ikey's hanged himself! Ikey's hanged himself!"

Nicolai Yegorovitch laughed loudly, and made her say:

"Ikey's hanged himself," over and over again.

Yourii shut himself up in his room, and, while correcting his pupil's exercises, he thought:

"How much of the brute there is in every man! For such dull-witted beasts is it worth while to suffer and to die?"

Then, ashamed of his intolerance, he said to himself.

"They are not to blame. They don't know what they are doing. Well, whether they know or not, they're brutes, and nothing else!"

His thoughts reverted to Soloveitchik.

"How lonely is each of us in this world! There was poor Soloveitchik, great of heart, living in our midst ready to make any sacrifice, and to suffer for others. Yet nobody, any more than I did, noticed him or appreciated him. In fact, we despised him. That was because he could not express himself, and his anxiety to please only had an irritating effect, though, in reality he was striving to get into closer touch with all of us, and to be helpful and kind. He was a saint, and we looked upon him as a fool!"

So keen was his sense of remorse that he left his work, and restlessly paced the room. At last he sat down at the table, and, opening the Bible, read as follows:

"As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more."

"He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more."

"How true that is! How terrible and inevitable!" he thought.

"Here I sit, alive, thirsting for life and joy, and read my death- warrant. Yet I cannot even protest against it!"

As in a frenzy of despair, he clasped his forehead and with ineffectual fury appealed to some Power invisible and supreme.

"What has man done to thee that thou shouldst mock him thus? If thou dost exist, why dost thou hide thyself from him? Why hast thou made me thus, that even though I would believe in thee I yet have no belief in my own faith? And, if thou shouldst answer me, how can I tell if it is thou or I myself that makes reply? If I am right in wishing to live, why dost thou rob me of this right which thou thyself gavest to me? If thou hast need of our sufferings, well, these let us bear for love of thee. Yet we know not even if a tree be not of greater worth than a man."

"For a tree there is always hope. Even when felled it can put forth fresh shoots, and regain new verdure and new life. But man dies, and vanishes for ever. I lie down never to rise again. If I knew for certain that after milliards of years I should come to life again, patient and uncomplaining I would wait through all those centuries in outer darkness."

Once more he read from the book:

"What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?"

"One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever."

"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to his place where he arose."

"The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north: it whirleth about continually; and the wind returneth again according to his circuits."

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; there is nothing new under the sun."

"There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after."

"I, the Preacher, was King over Israel in Jerusalem."

"I, the Preacher, was King!" He shouted out these last words, as in vehement anger and despair, and then looked round in alarm, fearing lest some one should have heard him. Then he took a sheet of paper and began to write."

"I here begin this document which will end with my decease."

"Bah! how absurd it sounds!" he exclaimed as he pushed the paper from him with such violence that it fell to the floor."

"But that miserable little fellow, Soloveitchik, didn't think it absurd that he could not understand the meaning of life!"

Yourii failed to perceive that he was taking as his model a man whom he had described as a miserable little fellow.

"Anyhow, sooner or later, my end will be like that. There is no other way out. Why is there not? Because..."

Yourii paused. He believed that he had got an exact reply to this question, yet the words he wanted could not be found. His brain was over-wrought, and his thoughts confused.

"It's rubbish, all rubbish!" he exclaimed bitterly.

The lamp burned low, and its faint light illumined Yourii's bowed head, as he leant across the table.

"Why didn't I die when I was a boy and had inflammation of the lungs? I should now be happy, and at rest."

He shivered at the thought.

"In that case I should not have seen or known all that now I know. That would have been just as dreadful."

Yourii tossed back his head, and rose.

"It's enough to drive one mad!"

He went to the window and tried to open it, but the shutters were firmly fastened from the outside. By using a pencil, Yourii was able at last to unhook them, and with a creaking sound they swung back, admitting the cool, pure night air, Yourii looked up at the heavens and saw the roseate light of the dawn.

The morning was bright and clear. The seven stars of the Great Bear shone faintly, while large and lustrous in the crimson east flamed the morning star. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves, and dispersed the grey mists that floated above the lawn and veiled the smooth surface of the stream beside whose margin water-lilies and myosotis and white clover grew in abundance. The sky was flecked with little pink clouds, while here and there a last star trembled in the blue. All was so beautiful, so calm, as if the awestruck earth awaited the splendid approach of dawn.

Yourii at last went back to bed, but the garish daylight prevented him from getting sleep, as he lay there with aching brow and jaded eyes.



CHAPTER XXXV.

Early that morning, soon after sunrise, Ivanoff and Sanine walked forth from the town. The dew sparkled in the sunlight, and the damp grass seen in shadow appeared grey. Along the side of the road flanked by gnarled willows, pilgrims were slowly wending their way to the monastery. The red and white kerchiefs covering their heads and their bright-hued coats and shirts gave colour and picturesqueness to the scene. The monastery bells rang out in the cool morning air, and the sound floated across the steppe, away to the dreaming woods in the dim blue distance. A troika came jingling along the highroad, and the rough voices of the pilgrims as they talked could be distinctly heard.

"We've come out a little too early," said Ivanoff.

Sanine looked round about him, contented and happy.

"Well, let us wait a while," he replied.

They sat down on the sand, close to the hedge, and lit their cigarettes.

Peasants walking along behind their carts turned to look at them, and market-women and girls as they rattled past in rickety traps pointed at the wayfarers amid bursts of merry, mocking laughter. Ivanoff took not the slightest notice of them, but Sanine smiled and nodded in response.

At last there appeared on the steps of a little white house with a bright green roof the proprietor of the "Crown" tavern, a tall man in his shirt-sleeves who noisily unlocked the door, while yawning incessantly. A woman wearing a red kerchief on her head slipped in after him.

"The very thing!" cried Ivanoff. "Let's go there."

So they went to the little inn and bought vodka and fresh gherkins from the woman with the red kerchief.

"Aha! you seem to be pretty flush of money, my friend," said Ivanoff, as Sanine produced his purse.

"I've had an advance," replied the latter, smiling. "Much to my mother's annoyance, I have accepted the secretaryship of an assurance agency. In this way I was able to get a little cash as well as maternal contempt."

When they regained the high-road, Ivanoff exclaimed:

"Oh! I feel ever so much better now!"

"So do I. Suppose we take off our boots?"

"All right."

Having taken off their boots and socks, they walked barefoot through the warm, moist sand, which was a delightful experience after trudging along in heavy boots.

"Jolly, isn't it?" said Sanine, as he drew a deep breath.

The sun's rays had now become far hotter. The town lay well in their rear as the two wayfarers plodded bravely on towards the blue, nebulous horizon. Swallows sat in rows on the telegraph-wires. A passenger-train with its blue, yellow and green carriages rolled past on the adjacent line, and the faces of drowsy travellers could be seen at the windows.

Two saucy-looking girls in white hats stood on the platform at the end of the train and watched the two bare-footed men with astonishment. Sanine laughed at them, and executed a wild impromptu dance.

Before them lay a meadow where walking barefoot in the long lush grass was an agreeable relief.

"How delightful!" cried Ivanoff.

"Life's worth living to-day," rejoined his companion. Ivanoff glanced at Sanine; he thought those words must surely remind him of Sarudine and the recent tragedy. Yet seemingly it was far from Sanine's thoughts, which surprised Ivanoff somewhat, yet did not displease him.

After crossing the meadow, they again got on to the main road which was thronged as before with peasants in their carts, and giggling girls. Then they came to trees, and reeds, and glittering water, while above them, at no great distance on the hill-side, stood the monastery, topped by a cross that shone like some golden star.

Painted rowing-boats lined the shore, where peasants in bright-coloured shirts and vests lounged. After much haggling and good-humoured banter, Sanine hired one of the little boats. Ivanoff was a deft and powerful oarsman, and the boat shot forward across the water like a living thing. Sometimes the oars touched reeds or low-hanging branches which for a long while after such contact trembled above the deep, dark stream. Sanine steered with so much erratic energy that the water foamed and gurgled round the rudder. They reached a narrow backwater where it was shady and cool. So transparent was the stream that one could see the bottom covered with yellow pebbles, where shoals of little pink fish darted backwards and forwards.

"Here's a good place to land," said Ivanoff, and his voice sounded cheery beneath the dark branches of the overhanging trees. As the boat with a grating sound touched the bank, he sprang lightly ashore. Sanine, laughing, did likewise.

"You won't find a better," he cried, plunging knee-deep through the long grasses.

"Anywhere's good in the sun, I say," replied Ivanoff, as from the boat he fetched the vodka, the bread, the cucumbers, and a little packet of hors d'oeuvres. All these he placed on a mossy slope in the shade of the trees, and here he lay down at full length.

"Lucullus dines with Lucullus," he said.

"Lucky man!" replied Sanine.

"Not entirely," added Ivanoff, with a droll expression of discontent, "for he's forgotten the glasses."

"Never mind! We can manage, somehow."

Full of the sheer joy of living in this warm sunlight and green shade, Sanine climbed up a tree and began cutting off a bough with his knife, while Ivanoff watched him as the little white chips kept falling on to the turf below. At last the bough fell, too, when Sanine climbed down, and began to scoop it out, leaving the bark intact.

In a short time he had made a pretty little drinking-cup.

"Let's have a dip afterwards, shall we?" said Ivanoff, who was watching Sanine's craftsmanship with interest.

"Not a bad idea," replied Sanine, as he tossed the newly-made cup into the air and caught it.

Then they sat down on the grass and did ample justice to their appetising little meal.

"I can't wait any longer. I'm going to bathe."

So saying, Ivanoff hastily stripped, and, as he could not swim, he plunged into shallow water where the even sandy bottom was clearly visible.

"It's lovely!" he cried, jumping about, and splashing wildly.

Sanine watched him and then in leisurely fashion he also undressed, and took a header into the deeper part of the stream.

"You'll be drowned," cried Ivanoff,

"No fear!" was the laughing rejoinder, when Sanine, gasping, had risen to the surface.

The sound of their merry voices rang out across the river, and the green pasture-land. After a time they left the cool water, and lying down, naked in the grass, rolled over and over in it.

"Jolly, isn't it?" said Ivanoff, as he turned to the sun his broad back on which little drops of water glistened.

"Here let us build tabernacles!"

"Deuce take your tabernacles," cried Sanine merrily; "No tabernacles for me!"

"Hurrah!" shouted Ivanoff, as he began dancing a wild, barbaric dance. Sanine burst out laughing, and leaped about in the same way. Their nude bodies gleamed in the sun, every muscle showing beneath the tense skin.

"Ouf!" gasped Ivanoff.

Sanine went on dancing by himself, and finished up by turning a somersault, head foremost.

"Come along, or I shall drink up all the vodka," cried his companion.

Having dressed, they ate the remainder of their provisions, while Ivanoff sighed ruefully for a draught of ice-cold beer.

"Let's go, shall we?" he said.

"Right!"

They raced at full speed to the river-bank, jumped into their boat, and pushed off.

"Doesn't the sun sting!" said Sanine, who was lying at full length in the bottom of the boat.

"That means rain," replied Ivanoff. "Get up and steer, for God's sake!"

"You can manage quite well by yourself," was the reply.

Ivanoff struck the water with his oars, so that Sanine got thoroughly splashed.

"Thank you," said the latter, coolly.

As they passed a green spot they heard laughter and the sound of merry girlish voices. It being a holiday, townsfolk had come thither to enjoy themselves.

"Girls bathing," said Ivanoff.

"Let's go and look at them," suggested Sanine.

"They would see us."

"No they wouldn't. We could land here, and go through the reeds."

"Leave them alone," said Ivanoff, blushing slightly.

"Come on."

"No, I don't like to...."

"Don't like to?"

"Well, but ... they're girls ... young ladies ... I don't think it's quite proper."

"You're a silly fool!" laughed Sanine, "Do you mean to say that you wouldn't like to see them?"

"Perhaps I should, but ..."

"Very well, then, let's go. No mock modesty! What man wouldn't do the same, if he had the chance?"

"Yes, but if you reason like that, you ought to watch them openly. Why hide yourself?"

"Because it's so much more exciting," said Sanine gaily.

"I dare say, but I advise you not to—"

"For chastity's sake, I suppose?"

"If you like."

"But chastity is the very thing that we don't possess!"

"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out!" said Ivanoff.

"Oh! please don't talk nonsense, like Yourii Svarogitsch! God didn't give us eyes that we might pluck out."

Ivanoff smiled, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Look here, my boy," said Sanine, steering towards the bank, "if the sight of girls bathing were to rouse in you no carnal desire, then you would have a right to be called chaste. Indeed, though I should be the last to imitate it, such chastity on your part would win my admiration. But, having these natural desires, if you attempt to suppress them, then I say that your so-called chastity is all humbug."

"That's right enough, but, if no check were placed upon desires, great harm might result."

"What harm, pray? Sensuality, I grant you, sometimes has evil results, but it's not the fault of sensuality."

"Perhaps not, but...."

"Very well, then, are you coming?"

"Yes, but I'm—"

"A fool, that's what you are! Gently! Don't make such a noise," said Sanine, as they crept along through the fragrant grass and rustling reeds.

"Look there!" whispered Ivanoff, excitedly.

From the smart frocks, hats and petticoats lying on the grass, it was evident that the party of bathers had come out from the town. Some were merrily splashing about in the water which dripped in silver beads from their round, soft limbs. One stood on the bank, erect and lithe, and the sunlight enhanced the plastic beauty of her form that quivered as she laughed.

"Oh! I say!" exclaimed Sanine, fascinated by the sight.

Ivanoff started backwards as in alarm.

"What's the matter?"

"Hush! It's Sina Karsavina!"

"So it is!" said Sanine aloud. "I didn't recognize her. How charming she looks!"

"Yes, doesn't she?" said the other, chuckling.

At that moment laughter and loud cries told them that they had been overheard. Karsavina, startled, leaped into the clear water from which alone her rosy face and shining eyes emerged. Sanine and Ivanoff fled precipitately, stumbling back through the tall rushes to their boat.

"Oh! how good it is to be alive!" said Sanine, stretching himself.

Down the river, floating onward, Ever onward, to the sea.

So he sang in his clear, resonant voice, while behind the trees the sound of girlish laughter could still be heard. Ivanoff looked at the sky.

"It's going to rain," he said.

The trees had become darker, and a deep shadow passed swiftly across the meadow.

"We shall have to run for it!"

"Where? There's no escape, now," cried Sanine cheerfully.

Overhead a leaden-hued cloud floated nearer and nearer. There was no wind; the stillness and gloom had increased.

"We shall get soaked to the skin," said Ivanoff, "so do give me a cigarette, to console me."

Faintly the little yellow flame of the match flickered in the gloom. A sudden gust of wind swept it away. One big drop of rain splashed the boat, and another fell on to Sanine's brow. Then came the downpour. Pattering on the leaves, the rain hissed as it touched the surface of the water. All in a moment from the dark heaven it fell in torrents, and only the rush and the splash of it could be heard.

"Nice, isn't it?" said Sanine, moving his shoulders to which his wet shirt was sticking.

"Not so bad," replied Ivanoff, who had crouched at the bottom of the boat.

Very soon the rain ceased, though the clouds had not dispersed, but were massed behind the woods where flashes of lighting could be seen at intervals.

"We ought to be getting back," said Ivanoff.

"All right. I'm ready."

They rowed out into the current. Black, heavy clouds hung overhead, and the flashes of lightning became incessant; white scimitars that smote the sullen sky. Though now it did not rain, a feeling of thunder was in the air. Birds with wet and ruffled plumage skimmed the surface of the river, while the trees loomed darkly against the blue-grey heavens.