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

sharply into a side-street. The rattle of wheels on the road could now be heard in another direction. Yourii listened to it, furious, and yet secretly jealous. “A bad lot!” he muttered, feeling sorry for his sister. XIV

Having carried the things indoors, Yourii, for want of something else to do, went down the steps leading to the garden. It was dark as the grave, and the sky with it’s vast company of gleaming stars enhanced the weird effect. There, on one of the steps, sat Lialia; her little grey form was scarcely perceptible in the gloom.

“Is that you, Yourii?” she asked.

“Yes, it is,” he replied, as he sat down beside her. Dreamily she leant her head on his shoulder, and the fragrance of her fresh, sweet girlhood touched his senses.

“Did you have good sport?” said Lialia. Then after a pause, she added softly, “and where is Anatole Pavlovitch? I heard you drive up.”

“Your Anatole Pavlovitch is a dirty beast!” is what Yourii, feeling suddenly incensed, would have liked to say. However, he answered carelessly:

“I really don’t know. He had to see a patient.”

“A patient,” repeated Lialia mechanically. She said no more, but gazed at the stars.

She was not vexed that Riasantzeff had not come. On the contrary, she wished to be alone, so that, undisturbed by his presence, she might give herself up to delicious meditation. To her, the sentiment that filled her youthful being was strange and sweet and tender. It was the consciousness of a climax, desired, inevitable, and yet disturbing, which should close the page of her past life and commence that of her new one. So new, indeed, that Lialia was to become an entirely different being.

To Yourii it was strange that his merry, laughing sister should have become so quiet and pensive. Depressed and irritable himself, everything, Lialia, the dark garden, the distant starlit sky seemed to him sad and cold. He did not perceive that this dreamy mood concealed not sorrow, but the very essence and fullness of life. In the wide heaven surged forces immeasurable and unknown; the dim garden drew forth vital sap from the earth; and in Lialia’s heart there was a joy so full, so complete, that she feared lest any movement, any impression should break the spell. Radiant as the starry heaven, mysterious as the dark garden, harmonies of love and yearning vibrated within her soul.

“Tell me, Lialia, do you love Anatole Pavlovitch very much?” asked Yourii, gently, as if he feared to rouse her.

“How can you ask?” she thought, but, recollecting herself, she nestled closer to her brother, grateful to him for not speaking of anything else but of her life’s one interest⁠—the man she adored.

“Yes, very much,” she replied, so softly that Yourii guessed rather than heard what she said, striving to restrain her tears of joy. Yet Yourii thought that he could detect a certain note of sadness in her voice, and his pity for her, as his hatred of Riasantzeff, increased.

“Why?” he asked, feeling amazed at such a question.

Lialia looked up in astonishment, and laughed gently.

“You silly boy! Why, indeed! Because⁠ ⁠… Well, have you never been in love yourself? He’s so good, so honest and upright⁠ ⁠…”

“So good-looking, and strong,” she would have added, but she only blushed and said nothing.

“Do you know him well?” asked Yourii.

“I ought not to have asked that,” he thought, inwardly vexed, “for, of course she thinks that he is the best man in the whole world.”

“Anatole tells me everything,” replied Lialia timidly, yet triumphantly.

Yourii smiled, and, aware now that there was no going back, retorted, “Are you quite sure?”

“Of course I am; why should I not be?” Lialia’s voice trembled.

“Oh! nothing. I merely asked,” said Yourii, somewhat confused.

Lialia was silent. He could not guess what was passing through her mind.

“Perhaps you know something about him?” she said suddenly. There was a suggestion of pain in her voice, which puzzled Yourii.

“Oh! no,” he said, “not at all. What should I know about Anatole Pavlovitch?”

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

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

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

“Oh! yes, I know that!” she exclaimed.

Her laughter to him seemed quite out of place.

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

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

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

Lialia was silent.

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

“The worst of it is that