Sanine by Mikhail Artsybashev (ebook pdf reader for pc .TXT) 📕

as ever, lighted the candle, thinking inwardly, “I am making myself rather ridiculous, am I not?” But so far from seeming ridiculous, he won admiration, especially from the ladies, who were in an agreeable state of curiosity bordering on alarm. He waited till the candle burnt more brightly and then, laughing to avoid being laughed at, disappeared in the darkness. The light seemed to have vanished, also. They all suddenly felt concern for his safety and intense curiosity as to what would happen.

“Look out for wolves!” cried Riasantzeff.

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

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

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

“Sinaida Karsavina!” he exclaimed in amazement.

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

“Let us go on,” said Sina shyly.

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

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

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

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

“Of course not,” laughed Yourii.

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

“Suppose we try?”

His voice trembled. Could Sina have read his thoughts?

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

“Will the earth fall in on us?”

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

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

“There! That’s all,” said Yourii.

“Let us go back.”

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

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

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

“And suppose that you had been mistaken?”

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

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

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

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

VI

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

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

“Splendid idea!” replied the other.

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

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

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

Sanine laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Everybody is not like that,” said Riasantzeff.

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

“One can hardly say that,” observed Novikoff.

“Why not, if it is the truth?”

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

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

Lida, who had