Sanine Part 8

s.e.m.e.noff was silent.

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

"My const.i.tution's done for!" said s.e.m.e.noff suddenly in quite a different voice, thin and querulous. "If you knew how I dread dying....

Especially on such a bright, soft night as this," he continued plaintively, turning to Yourii his ugly haggard face and glittering eyes. "Everything lives, and I must die. To you that sounds a hackneyed phrase, I feel certain. 'And I must die.' But it is not from a novel, not taken from a work written with 'artistic truth of presentment.' I really _am_ going to die, and to me the words do not seem hackneyed.

One day you will not think that they are, either. I am dying, dying, and all is over!"

s.e.m.e.noff coughed again.

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

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

"Good-bye!" he said, sighing.

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

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

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

"Life is conflict."

"Yes, but conflict for whom, if not for one's self, for one's own place in the sun?"

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

CHAPTER V.

When Lida Sanine received Lialia's invitation, she showed it to her brother. She thought that he would refuse; in fact, she hoped as much.

She felt that on the moonlit river she would again be drawn to Sarudine, and would again experience that sensation at once delicious and disquieting. At the same time she was ashamed that her brother should know that it was Sarudine, of all people, whom he cordially despised.

But Sanine at once accepted with pleasure.

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

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

"Ah! that's good!" said Sanine. "The weather is lovely, too; so let's go!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the appointed place, a meadow, seated on the gra.s.s were a young student and two girls wearing the dress of Little Russia. Being the first to arrive, they were busily preparing tea and light refreshments.

When the carriage stopped, the horses snorted and whisked away flies with their tails. Everybody jumped down, enlivened and refreshed by the drive and the sweet country air. Lialia bestowed resounding kisses upon the two girls who were making tea, and introduced them to her brother and to Sanine, whom they regarded with shy curiosity. Lida suddenly remembered that the two men did not know each other. "Allow me," she said to Yourii, "to introduce to you my brother Vladimir." Sanine smiled and grasped Yourii's hand, but the latter scarcely noticed him.

Sanine found everybody interesting and liked making new acquaintances.

Yourii considered that very few people in this world were interesting, and always felt disinclined to meet strangers. Ivanoff knew Sanine slightly and liked what he had about him. He was the first to go up to him and begin talking, while s.e.m.e.noff ceremoniously shook hands with him.

"Now we can all enjoy ourselves after these tiresome formalities,"

cried Lialia.

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

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

"Nor the vices either," added Lialia.

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

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

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

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

"Let her go!" cried Lida, in a merry voice of command. The boat slid away from the sh.o.r.e leaving behind it two broad stripes on the water that disappeared in ripples at the river's edge.

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

Yourii smiled. "I've got nothing to say."

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

"Yourii doesn't like talking nonsense," said s.e.m.e.noff. "He requires...."

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

"Look! there is a serious subject!" said Sarudine, pointing to the sh.o.r.e.

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

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

"A cavern," replied Ivanoff.