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

“Nobody ought to speak to me like that!” she said huskily.

“Anyhow, I’ve done so!” replied Sanine, recovering his good temper, and resuming his pen.

“You’ve had your share of life,” he said, “and you’ve no right to prevent Lida from having hers.”

Maria Ivanovna said nothing, but stared in amazement at her son, while her cap looked droller than ever.

She hastily checked all memories of her past youth with its joyous nights of love, fixing upon this one question in her mind. “How dare he speak thus to his mother?” Yet before she could come to any decision, Sanine turned round, and taking her hand said kindly:

“Don’t let that worry you, but, you must keep Sarudine out of the house, for the fellow’s quite capable of playing us a dirty trick.”

Maria Ivanovna was at once appeased.

“God bless you, my boy,” she said. “I am very glad, for I have always liked Sacha Novikoff. Of course, we can’t receive Sarudine; it wouldn’t do, because of Sacha.”

“No, just that! Because of Sacha,” said Sanine with a humorous look in his eyes.

“And where is Lida?” asked his mother.

“In her room.”

“And Sacha?” She pronounced the pet name lovingly.

“I really don’t know. He went to⁠ ⁠…” At that moment Dounika appeared in the doorway, and said:

“Victor Sergejevitsch is here, and another gentleman.”

“Turn them out of the house,” said Sanine.

Dounika smiled sheepishly.

“Oh! Sir, I can’t do that, can I?”

“Of course you can! What business brings them here?”

Dounika hid her face, and went out.

Drawing herself up to her full height, Maria Ivanovna seemed almost younger, though her eyes looked malevolent. With astonishing ease her point of view had undergone a complete change, as if by playing a trump card she had suddenly scored. Kindly as her feelings for Sarudine had been while she hoped to have him as a son-in-law, they swiftly cooled when she realized that another was to marry Lida, and that Sarudine had only made love to her.

As his mother turned to go, Sanine, who noticed her stony profile and forbidding expression, said to himself, “There’s an old hen for you!” Folding up his letter he followed her out, curious to see what turn matters would take.

With exaggerated politeness Sarudine and Volochine rose to salute the old lady, yet the former showed none of his wonted ease of manner when at the Sanines’. Volochine indeed felt slightly uncomfortable, because he had come expressly to see Lida, and was obliged to conceal his intention.

Despite his simulated ease, Sarudine looked obviously anxious. He felt that he ought not to have come. He dreaded meeting Lida, yet he could on no account let Volochine see this, to whom he wished to pose as a gay Lothario.

“Dear Maria Ivanovna,” began Sarudine, smiling affectedly, “allow me to introduce to you my good friend, Paul Lvovitch Volochine.”

“Charmed!” said Maria Ivanovna, with frigid politeness, and Sarudine observed the hostile look in her eyes, which somewhat unnerved him. “We ought not to have come,” he thought, at last aware of the fact, which in Volochine’s society he had forgotten. Lida might come in at any moment, Lida, the mother of his child; what should he say to her? How should he look her in the face? Perhaps her mother knew all? He fidgeted nervously on his chair; lit a cigarette, shrugged his shoulders, moved his legs, and looked about him right and left.

“Are you making a long stay?” asked Maria Ivanovna of Volochine, in a cold, formal voice.

“Oh! no,” he replied, as he stared complacently at this provincial person, thrusting his cigar into the corner of his mouth so that the smoke rose right into her face.

“It must be rather dull for you, here, after Petersburg.”

“On the contrary, I think it is delightful. There is something so patriarchal about this little town.”

“You ought to visit the environs, which are charming for excursions and picnics. There’s boating and bathing, too.”

“Of course, madam, of course!” drawled Volochine, who was already somewhat bored.

The conversation languished, and they all seemed to be wearing smiling masks behind which lurked hostile eyes. Volochine winked at Sarudine in the most unmistakable manner; and this was not lost upon Sanine, who from his corner was watching them closely.

The thought that Volochine would no longer regard him as a smart, dashing, daredevil sort of fellow gave Sarudine some of his old assurance.

“And where is Lidia Petrovna?” he asked carelessly.

Maria Ivanovna looked at him in surprise and anger. Her eyes seemed to say: “What is that to you, since you are not going to marry her?”

“I don’t know. Probably in her room,” she coldly replied.

Volochine shot another glance at his companion.

“Can’t you manage to make Lida come down quickly?” it said. “This old woman’s becoming a bore.”

Sarudine opened his mouth and feebly twisted his moustache.

“I have heard so many flattering things about your daughter,” began Volochine, smiling, and rubbing his hands, as he bent forward to Maria Ivanovna, “that I hope to have the honour of being introduced to her.”

Maria Ivanovna wondered what this insolent little roué could have heard about her own pure Lida, her darling child, and again she had a terrible presentiment of the latter’s downfall. It utterly unnerved her, and for the moment her eyes had a softer, more human expression.

“If they are not turned out of the house,” thought Sanine, at this juncture, “they will only cause further distress to Lida and Novikoff.”

“I hear that you are going away?” he suddenly said, looking pensively at the floor.

Sarudine wondered that so simple an expedient had occurred to him before. “That’s it! A good idea. Two months’ leave!” he thought, before hastily replying.

“Yes, I was thinking of doing so. One wants a change you know. By stopping too long in one place, you are apt to get rusty.”

Sanine laughed outright. The whole conversation, not one word of which expressed their real thoughts and feelings, all this deceit, which deceived nobody, amused him immensely; and with a sudden sense of gaiety and freedom he got up, and said:

“Well,