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the splendid woman who had yielded to his charms, and gradually to reveal his own secret lasciviousness. Before the eyes of Volochine, Lida was exhibited as in a state of nudity, her physical attributes and her passion all being displayed as though she were some animal for sale at a fair. By their filthy thoughts she was touched and polluted and held up to ridicule. Their love of woman knew no gratitude for the enjoyment given to them; they merely strove to humiliate and insult the sex, to inflict upon it indescribable pain.

The smoke-laden atmosphere of the room had become stifling. Their bodies at fever heat, exhaled an unwholesome odour, as their eyes gleamed and their voices sounded shrill and rabid as those of wild beasts.

Beyond the window lay the calm, clear moonlit night. But for them the world with all its wealth of colour and sound had vanished; all that their eyes beheld was a vision of woman in her nude loveliness. Soon their imagination became so heated that they felt a burning desire to see Lida, whom now they had dubbed Lidka, by way of being familiar. Sarudine had the horses harnessed, and they drove to a house situated on the outskirts of the town.

XXVIII

A letter sent by Sarudine to Lida on the day following their interview fell by chance into Maria Ivanovna’s hands. It contained a request for the permission to see her, and awkwardly suggested that sundry matters might be satisfactorily arranged. Its pages cast, so Maria Ivanovna thought, an ugly, shameful shadow upon the pure image of her daughter. In her first perplexity and distress, she remembered her own youth with its love, its deceptions, and the grievous episodes of her married life. A long chain of suffering forged by a life based on rigid laws of morality dragged its slow length along, even to the confines of old age. It was like a grey band, marred in places by monotonous days of care and disappointment.

Yet the thought that her daughter had broken through the solid wall surrounding this grey, dusty life, and had plunged into the lurid whirlpool where joy and sorrow and death were mingled, filled the old woman with horror and rage.

“Vile, wicked girl!” she thought, as despairingly she let her hands fall into her lap. Suddenly it consoled her to imagine that possibly things had not gone too far, and her face assumed a dull, almost a cunning expression. She read and reread the letter, yet could gather nothing from its frigid, affected style.

Feeling how helpless she was, the old woman wept bitterly; and then, having set her cap straight, she asked the maidservant:

“Dounika, is Vladimir Petrovitch at home?”

“What?” shouted Dounika.

“Fool! I asked if the young gentleman was at home.”

“He’s just gone into the study. He’s writing a letter!” replied Dounika, looking radiant, as if this letter were the reason for unusual rejoicing.

Maria Ivanovna looked hard at the girl, and an evil light flashed from her faded eyes.

“Toad! if you dare to fetch and carry letters again, I’ll give you a lesson that you’ll never forget.”

Sanine was seated at the table, writing. His mother was so little used to seeing him write, that, in spite of her grief, she was interested.

“What’s that you’re writing?”

“A letter,” replied Sanine, looking up, gaily.

“To whom?”

“Oh! to a journalist I know. I think of joining the staff of his paper.”

“So you write for the papers?”

Sanine smiled. “I do everything.”

“But why do you want to go there?”

“Because I’m tired of living here with you, mother,” said Sanine frankly.

Maria Ivanovna felt somewhat hurt.

“Thank you,” she said.

Sanine looked attentively at her, and felt inclined to tell her not to be so silly as to imagine that a man, especially one who had no employment, could care to remain always in the same place. But it irked him to have to say such a thing; and he was silent.

Maria Ivanovna took out her pocket-handkerchief and crumpled it nervously in her fingers. If it had not been for Sarudine’s letter and her consequent distress and anxiety, she would have bitterly resented her son’s rudeness. But, as it was, she merely said:

“Ah! yes, the one slinks out of the house like a wolf, and the other⁠ ⁠…”

A gesture of resignation completed the sentence.

Sanine looked up quickly, and put down his pen.

“What do you know about it?” he asked.

Suddenly Maria Ivanovna felt ashamed that she had read the letter to Lida. Turning very red, she replied unsteadily, but with some irritation:

“Thank God, I am not blind! I can see.”

“See? You can see nothing,” said Sanine, after a moment’s reflection, “and, to prove it allow me to congratulate you on the engagement of your daughter. She was going to tell you herself, but, after all, it comes to the same thing.”

“What!” exclaimed Maria Ivanovna, drawing herself up. “Lida is going to be married!”

“To whom?”

“To Novikoff, of course.”

“Yes, but what about Sarudine?”

“Oh! he can go to the devil!” exclaimed Sanine angrily. “What’s that to do with you? Why meddle with other people’s affairs?”

“Yes, but I don’t quite understand, Volodja!” said his mother, bewildered, while yet in her heart she could hear the joyous refrain, “Lida’s going to be married, going to be married!”

Sanine shrugged his shoulders.

“What is that you don’t understand? She was in love with one man, and now she’s in love with another; and tomorrow she’ll be in love with a third. Well, God bless her!”

“What’s that you say?” cried Maria Ivanovna indignantly.

Sanine leant against the table and folded his arms.

“In the course of your life did you yourself only love one man?” he asked angrily.

Maria Ivanovna rose. Her wrinkled face wore a look of chilling pride.

“One shouldn’t speak to one’s mother like that,” she said sharply.

“Who?”

“How do you mean, who?”

“Who shouldn’t speak?” said Sanine, as he looked at her from head to foot. For the first time he noticed how dull and vacant was the expression in her eyes, and how absurdly her cap was placed upon

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