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

yet at the same time it saddened him to think that he could not join them. Between himself and them there seemed to be a barrier incomprehensible and yet unreal; a space devoid of atmosphere, a gulf that could never be bridged.

This sense of utter isolation depressed him greatly. He was alone; from this world with its vesper lights and hues, and fires, and stars, and human sounds, he stood aloof and apart, as though shut close within a dark room. So distressful was this sense of solitude, that as he crossed the melon-field where hundreds of melons were growing in the gloom, to him they seemed like human skulls that lay strewn upon the ground.

XVI

Summer now came on, abounding in light and warmth. Between the luminous blue heaven and the sultry earth there floated a tremulous veil of golden haze. Exhausted with the heat, the trees seemed asleep; their leaves, drooping and motionless, cast short, transparent shadows on the parched, arid turf. Indoors it was cool. Pale green reflections from the garden quivered on the ceiling, and while everything else stirred not, the curtains by the window waved.

His linen jacket all unbuttoned, Sarudine slowly paced up and down the room languidly smoking a cigarette, and displaying his large white teeth. Tanaroff, in just his shirt and riding-breeches, lay at full length on the sofa, furtively watching Sarudine with his little black eyes. He was in urgent need of fifty roubles, and had already asked his friend twice for them. He did not venture to do this a third time, and so was anxiously waiting to see if Sarudine himself would return to the subject. The latter had not forgotten by any means, but, having gambled away seven hundred roubles last month, begrudged any further outlay.

“He already owes me two hundred and fifty,” thought he, as he glanced at Tanaroff in passing. Then, more irritably, “It’s astonishing, upon my word! Of course we’re good friends, and all that, but I wonder that he’s not the least bit ashamed of himself. He might at any rate make some excuse for owing me all that money. No, I won’t lend him another penny,” he thought maliciously.

The orderly now entered the room, a little freckled fellow who in slow, clumsy fashion stood at attention, and, without looking at Sarudine, said,

“If you please, sir, you asked for beer, but there isn’t any more.”

Sarudine’s face grew red, as involuntarily he glanced at Tanaroff.

“Well, this is really a bit too much!” he thought. “He knows that I am hard up, yet beer has to be sent for.”

“There’s very little vodka left, either,” added the soldier.

“All right! Damn you! You’ve still got a couple of roubles. Go and buy what is wanted.”

“Please, sir, I haven’t got any money at all.”

“How’s that? What do you mean by lying?” exclaimed Sarudine, stopping short.

“If you please, sir, I was told to pay the washerwoman one rouble and seventy copecks, which I did, and I put the other thirty copecks on the dressing-table, sir.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said Tanaroff, with assumed carelessness of manner, though blushing for very shame, “I told him to do that yesterday⁠ ⁠… the woman had been worrying me for a whole week, don’t you know.”

Two red spots appeared on Sarudine’s scrupulously shaven cheeks, and the muscles of his face worked convulsively. He silently resumed his walk up and down the room and suddenly stopped in front of Tanaroff.

“Look here,” he said, and his voice trembled with anger, “I should be much obliged if, in future, you would leave me to manage my own money-affairs.”

Tanaroff’s face flushed crimson.

“H’m! A trifle like that!” he muttered, shrugging his shoulders.

“It is not a question of trifles,” continued Sarudine, bitterly, “it is the principle of the thing. May I ask what right you⁠ ⁠…”

“I⁠ ⁠…” stammered Tanaroff.

“Pray don’t explain,” said Sarudine, in the same cutting tone. “I must beg you not to take such a liberty again.”

Tanaroff’s lips quivered. He hung his head, and nervously fingered his mother-of-pearl cigarette-holder. After a moment’s pause, Sarudine turned sharply round, and, jingling the keys loudly, opened the drawer of his bureau.

“There! go and buy what is wanted!” he said irritably, but in a calmer tone, as he handed the soldier a hundred-rouble note.

“Very good, sir,” replied the soldier, who saluted and withdrew.

Sarudine pointedly locked his cashbox and shut the drawer of the bureau. Tanaroff had just time to glance at the box containing the fifty roubles which he needed so much, and then, sighing, lit a cigarette. He felt deeply mortified, yet he was afraid to show this, lest Sarudine should become more angry.

“What are two roubles to him?” he thought, “He knows very well that I am hard up.”

Sarudine continued walking up and down obviously irritated, but gradually growing calmer. When the servant brought in the beer, he drank off a tumbler of the ice-cold foaming beverage with evident gusto. Then as he sucked the end of his moustache, he said, as if nothing had happened.

“Lida came again to see me yesterday, A fine girl, I tell you! As hot as they make them.”

Tanaroff, still smarting, made no reply.

Sarudine, however, did not notice this, and slowly crossed the room, his eyes laughing as if at some secret recollection. His strong, healthy organism, enervated by the heat, was the more sensible to the influence of exciting thought. Suddenly he laughed, a short laugh; it was as if he had neighed. Then he stopped.

“You know yesterday I tried to⁠ ⁠…” (here he used a coarse, and in reference to a woman, a most humiliating, expression) “She jibbed a bit, at first; that wicked look in her eyes; you know the sort of thing!”

His animal instincts roused in their turn, Tanaroff grinned lecherously.

“But afterwards, it was all right; never had such a time in my life!” said Sarudine, and he shivered at the recollection.

“Lucky chap!” exclaimed Tanaroff, enviously.

“Is Sarudine at home?” cried a loud voice from the street. “May we come in?” It was Ivanoff.

Sarudine