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Sanine

M >> Michael Artzibashef >> Sanine




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

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

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

"Well?"

"Oh! I don't know how to express myself!" And Novikoff snapped his
fingers.

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

"That is just a question. Possibly it is."

Sanine waved his hand, irritably.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Look here," he muttered, "either you are posing, or else--"

"Or else--what?" asked Sanine, smiling.

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

Sanine was silent, and smiled good-humouredly.

After a pause he said:

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

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

"Good dog!" said Sanine, patting him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, you!" replied Sanine to his sister, gravely.

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

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

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

"We're all of us beautiful here," said she.

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

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

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

"What?" drawled Sanine. "Are you eloquent too?"

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

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

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

Sanine smiled at her.

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

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

"I'm so awfully sorry!" stammered Tanaroff, in confusion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Novikoff shrugged his shoulders irritably.

"What a silly, coarse statement!" said he.

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

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

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

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

Novikoff laughed maliciously, but replied politely enough to Sarudine.

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

"Not at all!" said Tanaroff, indignantly.

"Don't you find this sort of talk rather boring?" asked Sanine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maria Ivanovna was obviously displeased.

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

"I really never thought about it at all," was Sanine's rejoinder.

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER III.

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

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

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

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

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

At last be determined to be guided by chance.

"If I step on the last board with my right foot, then I've got to
propose; and if with the left, then--"

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

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

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

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

"Don't stamp like that!" exclaimed Lida, opening her eyes. "One can't
hear anything."

Only then was Novikoff aware that Sarudine was singing.

The young officer had chosen that old romance,

_I loved you once! Can you forget?
Love in my heart is burning yet_.


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

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

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

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

Novikoff sighed, and then blurted out.

"I prefer you to the moon," thinking to himself, "that's an idiotic
remark!"

Lida burst out laughing.

"What a lumpish compliment!" she exclaimed.

"I don't know how to pay compliments," was Novikoff's sullen rejoinder.

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

_But you no longer care, I know,
Why should I grieve you with my woe_?


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

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

"I have long waited--that is--I have been anxious to say something to
you," Novikoff stammered out.

Sanine turned his head round to listen.

"What about?" asked Lida, absently.

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

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

"I--look here--Lidia Petrovna--will you be my wife?"

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

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

"I--love you!" stammered Novikoff.

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

"I don't know how to make speeches--but--no matter, I love you very
much!"

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

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

"I really don't know what to say! I had never thought about it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"We shall be seen," she murmured half audibly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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