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

beautiful face grew dark, distorted by horror and despair. Her hands fell limply to her side as she sat down on the bed.

“What shall I do?” she said, as if thinking aloud. “Drown myself?”

“No, no! Don’t talk like that!”

Lida looked hard at him.

“Do you know, Victor Sergejevitsch, I feel pretty sure that such a thing would not displease you,” she said.

In her eyes and in her pretty quivering mouth there was something so sad, so pitiful, that Sarudine involuntarily turned away.

Lida rose. The thought, consoling at first, that she would find in him her saviour with whom she would always live, now inspired her with horror and loathing. She longed to shake her fist at him, to fling her scorn in his face, to revenge herself on him for having humiliated her thus. But she felt that at the very first words she would burst into tears. A last spark of pride, all that remained of the handsome, dashing Lida, deterred her. In a tone of such intense scorn that it surprised herself as much as Sarudine, she hissed out,

“You brute!”

Then she rushed out of the room, tearing the lace trimming of her sleeve which caught on the bolt of the door.

Sarudine flushed to the roots of his hair. Had she called him “wretch,” or “villain,” he could have borne that calmly, but “brute” was such a coarse word so absolutely opposed to his conception of his own engaging personality, that it utterly stunned him. Even the whites of his eyes became bloodshot. He sniggered uneasily, shrugged his shoulders, buttoned and then unbuttoned his jacket, feeling thoroughly upset. But simultaneously a sense of satisfaction and relief waxed greater within him. All was at an end. It irked him to think that he would never again possess such a woman as Lida, that he had lost so comely and desirable a mistress. But he dismissed all such regret with a gesture of disdain.

“Devil take the lot! I can get hold of as many as I please!”

He put his jacket straight, and, his lips still quivering, lit a cigarette. Then assuming his wonted air of nonchalance, he returned to his guests.

XVIII

All the gamblers except the drunken Malinowsky had lost their interest in the game. They were intensely curious to know who the lady was that had come to see Sarudine. Those who guessed that it was Lida Sanina felt instinctively jealous, picturing to themselves her white body in Sarudine’s embrace. After a while Sanine got up from the table and said:

“I shall not play any more. Goodbye.”

“Wait a minute, my friend, where are you going?” asked Ivanoff.

“I’m going to see what they are about, in there,” replied Sanine, pointing to the closed door.

“Don’t be a fool! Sit down and have a drink!” said Ivanoff.

“You’re the fool!” rejoined Sanine, as he went out.

On reaching a narrow side-street where nettles grew in profusion, Sanine bethought himself of the exact spot which Sarudine’s windows overlooked. Carefully treading down the nettles, he climbed the wall. When on the top, he almost forgot why he had got up there at all, so charming was it to look down on the green grass and the pretty garden, and to feel the soft breeze blowing pleasantly on his hot, muscular limbs. Then he dropped down into the nettles on the other side, irritably rubbing the places where they had stung him. Crossing the garden, he reached the window just as Lida said:

“You mean to say that you still don’t know?”

By the strange tone of her voice Sanine instantly guessed what was the matter. Leaning against the wall and looking at the garden, he eagerly listened. He felt pity for his handsome sister for whose beautiful personality the gross term “pregnant” seemed so unfitting. What impressed him even more than the conversation was the singular contrast between these furious human voices and the sweet silence of the verdurous garden.

A white butterfly fluttered across the grass, revelling the sunlight. Sanine watched its progress just as intently as he listened to the talking.

When Lida exclaimed:

“You brute!” Sanine laughed merrily, and slowly crossed the garden, careless as to who should see him.

A lizard darted across his path, and for a long while he followed the swift movements of its little supple green body in the long grass.

XIX

Lida did not go home, but hurriedly turned her steps in an opposite direction. The streets were empty, the air stifling. Close to the wall and fence lay the short shadows, vanquished by the triumphant sun. Through mere force of habit, Lida opened her parasol. She never noticed if it was cold or hot, light or dark. She walked swiftly past the fences all dusty and overgrown with weeds, her head bowed, her eyes downcast. Now and again she met a few gasping pedestrians half-suffocated by the heat. Over the town lay silence, the oppressive silence of a summer afternoon.

A little white puppy had followed Lida. After eagerly sniffing her dress, it ran on in front, and, looking round, wagged its tail, as if to say that they were comrades. At the corner of a street stood a funny little fat boy, a portion of whose shirt peeped out at the back of his breeches. With cheeks distended and fruit-stained, he was vigorously blowing a wooden pipe.

Lida beckoned to the little puppy and smiled at the boy. Yet she did so almost unconsciously; her soul was imprisoned. An obscure force, separating her from the world, swept her onward, past the sunlight, the verdure, and all the joy of life, towards a black gulf that by the dull anguish within her she knew to be near.

An officer of her acquaintance rode by. On seeing Lida he reined in his horse, a roan, whose glossy coat shone in the sunlight.

“Lidia Petrovna!” he cried, in a pleasant, cheery voice, “Where are you going in all this heat?”

Mechanically her eyes glanced at his forage-cap, jauntily poised on his moist,