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

Novikoff grasped it hastily, and without putting on his cap strode out across the grass, into the garden. In the shade he stood still and gripped his head with both hands.

“My God! I am doomed to such luck as this! Shoot myself? No, that’s all nonsense! Shoot myself, eh?” Wild, incoherent thoughts flashed through his brain. He felt that he was the most wretched and humiliated and ridiculous of mortals.

Sanine at first wished to call out to him, but checking the impulse, he merely smiled. To him it was grotesque that Novikoff should tear his hair and almost weep because a woman whose body he desired would not surrender herself to him. At the same time he was rather glad that his pretty sister did not care for Novikoff.

For some moments Lida remained motionless in the same place, and Sanine’s curious gaze was riveted on her white silhouette in the moonlight. Sarudine now came from the lighted drawing-room on to the veranda. Sanine distinctly heard the faint jingling of his spurs. In the drawing-room Tanaroff was playing an old-fashioned, mournful waltz whose languorous cadences floated on the air. Approaching Lida, Sarudine gently and deftly placed his arm round her waist. Sanine could perceive that both figures became merged into one that swayed in the misty light.

“Why so pensive?” murmured Sarudine, with shining eyes, as his lips touched Lida’s dainty little ear. Lida was at once joyful and afraid. Now, as on all occasions when Sarudine embraced her, she felt a strange thrill. She knew that in intelligence and culture he was her inferior, and that she could never be dominated by him; yet at the same time she was aware of something delightful and alarming in letting herself be touched by this strong, comely young man. She seemed to be gazing down into a mysterious, unfathomable abyss, and thinking, “I could hurl myself in, if I chose.”

“We shall be seen,” she murmured half audibly.

Though not encouraging his embrace, she yet did not shrink from it; such passive surrender excited him the more.

“One word, just one!” whispered Sarudine, as he crushed her closer to him, his veins throbbing with desire; “will you come?”

Lida trembled. It was not the first time that he had asked her this question, and each time she had felt strange tremors that deprived her of her will.

“Why?” she asked, in a low voice as she gazed dreamily at the moon.

“Why? That I may have you near me, and see you, and talk to you. Oh! like this, it’s torture! Yes, Lida, you’re torturing me! Now, will you come?”

So saying, he strained her to him, passionately. His touch as that of glowing iron, sent a thrill through her limbs; it seemed as if she were enveloped in a mist, languorous, dreamy, oppressive. Her lithe, supple frame grew rigid and then swayed towards him, trembling with pleasure and yet with fear. Around her all things had undergone a curious, sudden change. The moon was a moon no longer; it seemed close, close to the trellis-work of the veranda, as if it hung just above the luminous lawn. The garden was not the one that she knew, but another garden, sombre, mysterious, that, suddenly approaching, closed round her. Her brain reeled. She drew back, and with strange languor, freed herself from Sarudine’s embrace.

“Yes,” she murmured with difficulty. Her lips were white and parched.

With faltering steps she re-entered the house, conscious of something terrible yet alluring that inevitably drew her to the brink of an abyss.

“Nonsense!” she reflected. “It’s not that at all. I am only joking. It just interests me, and it amuses me, too.”

Thus did she seek to persuade herself, as she stood facing the darkened mirror in her room, wherein she only saw herself en silhouette against the glass door of the brightly lighted dining-room. Slowly she raised both arms above her head, and lazily stretched herself, watching meanwhile the sensuous movements of her supple body.

Left to himself, Sarudine stood erect and shook his shapely limbs. His eyes were half closed, and, as he smiled, his teeth shone beneath his fair moustache. He was accustomed to have luck, and on this occasion he foresaw even greater enjoyment in the near future. He imagined Lida in all her voluptuous beauty at the very moment of surrender. The passion of such a picture caused him physical pain.

At first, when he paid court to her, and after that, when she had allowed him to embrace her and kiss her, Lida had always made him feel somewhat afraid. While he caressed her, there was something strange, unintelligible in her dark eyes, as though she secretly despised him. She seemed to him so clever, so absolutely unlike other women to whom he had always felt himself obviously superior, and so proud, that for a kiss he looked to receive a box on the ear. The thought of possessing her was almost disquieting. At times he believed that she was just playing with him and his position appeared simply foolish and absurd. But today, after this promise, uttered hesitatingly, in faltering tones such as he had heard other women use, he felt suddenly certain of his power and that victory was near. He knew that things would be just as he had desired them to be. And to this sense of voluptuous expectancy was added a touch of spite: this proud, pure, cultured girl should surrender to him, as all the others had surrendered; he would use her at his pleasure, as he had used the rest. Scenes libidinous and debasing rose up before him. Lida nude, with hair dishevelled and inscrutable eyes, became the central figure in a turbulent orgy of cruelty and lust. Suddenly he distinctly saw her lying on the ground; he heard the swish of the whip; he observed a blood-red stripe on the soft, nude, submissive body. His temples throbbed, he staggered backwards, sparks danced before his eyes. The thought of it all became physically intolerable.