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

her pride, had all been flung at the feet of a base, cowardly brute who instead of being grateful to her had merely soiled her by acts of coarse lubricity. For a moment she felt ready to wring her hands and fall to the ground in an agony of despair, but lightning-swift her mood changed to one of revenge and bitter hatred.

“Can’t you really see how intensely stupid you are?” she hissed through her clenched teeth, as she looked straight into his eyes.

The insolent words and the look of hatred were so unsuited to Lida, gracious, feminine Lida, that Sarudine instinctively recoiled. He had not quite understood their import, and sought to pass them by with a jest.

“What words to use!” he said, surprised and annoyed.

“I’m not in a mood to choose my words,” replied Lida bitterly, as she wrung her hands. Sarudine frowned.

“Why all these tragic airs?” he asked. Unconsciously allured by their beauty of outline, he glanced at her soft shoulders and exquisitely moulded arms. Her gesture of helplessness and despair made him feel sure of his superiority. It was as if they were being weighed in scales, one sinking when the other rose. Sarudine felt a cruel pleasure in knowing that this girl whom instinctively he had considered superior to himself was now made to suffer through him. In the first stage of their intimacy he had feared her. Now she had been brought to shame and dishonour; at which he was glad.

He grew softer. Gently he took her strengthless hands in his, and drew her closer to him. His senses were roused; his breath came quicker.

“Never mind! It’ll be all right! There is nothing so dreadful about it, after all!”

“So you think, eh?” replied Lida scornfully. It was scorn that helped her to recover herself, and she gazed at him with strange intensity.

“Why, of course I do,” said Sarudine, attempting to embrace her in a way that he knew to be effective. But she remained cold and lifeless.

“Come, now, why are you so cross, my pretty one?” he murmured in a gentle tone of reproof.

“Let me go! Let me go, I say!” exclaimed Lida, as she shook him off. Sarudine felt physically hurt that his passion should have been roused in vain.

“Women are the very devil!” he thought.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked testily, and his face flushed.

As if the question had brought something to her mind, she suddenly covered her face with both hands and burst into tears. She wept just as peasant-women weep, sobbing loudly, her face buried in her hands, her body being bent forward, while her dishevelled hair drooped over her wet, distorted countenance. Sarudine was utterly nonplussed. He smiled, though yet afraid that this might give offence, and tried to pull away her hands from her face. Lida stubbornly resisted, weeping all the while.

“Oh! my God!” he exclaimed. He longed to shout at her, to wrench her hands aside, to call her hard names.

“What are you whining for like this? You’ve gone wrong with me, worse luck, and there it is! Why all this weeping just today? For heaven’s sake, stop!” Speaking thus roughly, he caught hold of her hand.

The jerk caused her head to oscillate to and fro. She suddenly stopped crying, and removed her hands from her tear-stained face, looking up at him in childish fear. A crazy thought flashed through her mind that anybody might strike her now. But Sarudine’s manner again softened, and he said in a consoling voice:

“Come, my Lidotschka, don’t cry any more! You’re to blame, as well! Why make a scene? You’ve lost a lot, I know; but, still, we had so much happiness, too, didn’t we? And we must just forget.⁠ ⁠…” Lida began to sob once more.

“Oh! stop it, do!” he shouted. Then he walked across the room, nervously pulling his moustache, and his lips quivered.

In the room it was quite still. Outside the window the slender boughs of a tree swayed gently, as if a bird had just perched thereon. Sarudine, endeavouring to check himself, approached Lida, and gently placed his arm round her waist. But she instantly broke away from him and in so doing struck him violently on the chin, so that his teeth rattled.

“Devil take it!” he exclaimed angrily. It hurt him considerably, and the droll sound of his rattling teeth annoyed him even more. Lida had not heard this, yet instinctively she felt that Sarudine’s position was a ridiculous one, and with feminine cruelty she took advantage of it.

“What words to use!” she said, imitating him.

“It’s enough to make anyone furious,” replied Sarudine peevishly.

“If only I knew what was the matter!”

“You mean to say that you still don’t know?” said Lida in a cutting tone.

There was a pause. Lida looked hard at him, her face red as fire. Sarudine turned pale, as if suddenly covered by a grey veil.

“Well, why are you silent? Why don’t you speak? Speak! Say something to comfort me!” she shrieked, her voice becoming hysterical in tone. The very sound of it alarmed her.

“I⁠ ⁠…” began Sarudine, and his underlip quivered.

“Yes, you, and nobody else but you, worse luck!” she screamed, almost stifled with tears of rage and of despair.

From him as from her the mask of comeliness and good manners had fallen. The wild untrammelled beast became increasingly evident in each.

Ideas like scurrying mice rushed through Sarudine’s mind. His first thought was to give Lida money, and persuade her to get rid of the child. He must break with her at once, and forever. That would end the whole business. Yet though he considered this to be the best way, he said nothing.

“I really never thought that⁠ ⁠…” he stammered.

“You never thought!” exclaimed Lida wildly. “Why didn’t you? What right had you not to think?”

“But, Lida, I never told you that I⁠ ⁠…” he faltered, feeling afraid of what he was going to say, yet conscious that he would yet do so, all the same.

Lida, however, had understood, without waiting for him to speak. Her