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

turned to look at the last-named. Their faces expressed honest indignation and a certain shy curiosity.

“They’re plotting against you,” said Ivanoff, somewhat amazed to see the baleful look in Sanine’s eyes. Red as a lobster, Schafroff came forward, blinking his eyelids, and approached Sanine, who turned round sharply on his heel, as though he were ready to knock the first man down.

Schafroff probably perceived this, for he turned pale, and stopped at a respectful distance. The students and girls followed close at his heels like a flock of sheep behind a bellwether.

“What else do you want?” asked Sanine, without raising his voice.

“We want nothing,” replied Schafroff in confusion, “but all my fellow-comrades wish me to express their displeasure at⁠—”

“Much I care about your displeasure!” hissed Sanine through his clenched teeth. “You asked me to say something about the deceased, and after I had said what I thought, you come and express to me your displeasure! Very good of you, I’m sure! If you weren’t a pack of silly, sentimental boys, I would show you that I was right, and that Svarogitsch’s life was an absolutely foolish one, for he worried himself about all sorts of useless things and died a fool’s death, but you⁠—well, you’re all of you too dense and too narrow-minded for words! To the deuce with the lot of you! Be off, I say!”

So saying, he walked straight on, forcing the crowd to make way for him.

“Don’t push, please!” croaked Schafroff, feebly protesting.

“Well of all the insolent⁠ ⁠…” cried someone, but he did not finish his phrase.

“How is it you frighten people like that?” asked Ivanoff, as they walked down the street. “You’re a perfect terror!”

“If such young fellows with their mad ideas about liberty were always to come bothering you,” replied Sanine, “I expect that you would treat them in a much rougher way. Let them all go to hell!”

“Cheer up, my friend!” said Ivanoff, half in jest and half in earnest. “Do you know what we’ll do? Buy some beer and drink to the memory of Yourii Svarogitsch. Shall we?”

“If you like,” replied Sanine carelessly.

“By the time we get back all the others will have gone,” continued Ivanoff, “and we’ll drink at the side of the grave, giving honour to the dead and to ourselves enjoyment.”

“Very well.”

When they returned, not a living soul was to be seen The tombstones and crosses, erect and rigid, stood there as in mute expectation. From a heap of dry leaves a hideous black snake suddenly darted across the path.

“Reptile!” cried Ivanoff, shuddering.

Then, on to the grass beside the newly-made grave that smelt of humid mould and green fir-trees they flung their empty beer-bottles.

XLIII

“Look here,” said Sanine, as they walked down the street in the dusk.

“Well, what is it?”

“Come to the railway-station with me. I’m going away.”

Ivanoff stood still.

“Why?”

“Because this place bores me.”

“Something has scared you, eh?”

“Scared me? I’m going because I wish to go.”

“Yes, but the reason?”

“My good fellow, don’t ask silly questions. I want to go, and that’s enough. As long as one hasn’t found people out, there is always a chance that they may prove interesting. Take some of the folk here, for instance Sina Karsavina, or Semenoff, or Lida even, who might have avoided becoming commonplace. But oh! they bore me now. I’m tired of them. I’ve put up with it all as long as I could; I can’t stand it any longer.”

Ivanoff looked at him for a good while.

“Come, come!” he said. “You’ll surely say goodbye to your people?”

“Not I! It’s just they who bore me most.”

“But what about luggage?”

“I haven’t got much. If you’ll stop in the garden, I’ll go into my room and hand you my valise through the window. Otherwise they’ll see me, and overwhelm me with questions as to why and wherefore. Besides, what is there to say?”

“Oh! I see!” drawled Ivanoff, as with a gesture he seemed to bid the other adieu. “I’m very sorry that you’re going, my friend, but⁠ ⁠… what can I do?”

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t matter where. We can see about that, later.”

“But I’ve no money?”

Sanine laughed.

“Neither have I.”

“No, no, you’d better go by yourself. School begins in a fortnight, an I shall get back into the old groove.”

Each looked straight into the other’s eyes, and Ivanoff turned away in confusion, as if he had seen a distorted reflection of his own face in a mirror.

Crossing the yard, Sanine went indoors while Ivanoff waited in the dark garden, with its sombre shadows and its odour of decay. The leaves rustled under his feet as he approached Sanine’s bedroom-window. When Sanine passed through the drawing-room he heard voices on the veranda, and he stopped to listen.

“But what do you want of me?” he could hear Lida saying. Her peevish, languid tone surprised him.

“I want nothing,” replied Novikoff irritably, “only it seems strange that you should think you were sacrificing yourself for me, whereas⁠—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Lida, struggling with her tears.

“It is not I, but it is you that are sacrificing yourself. Yes, it’s you! What more would you have?”

Novikoff was annoyed.

“How little you understand my meaning!” he said. “I love you, and thus it’s no sacrifice. But if you think that our union implies a sacrifice either on your part or on mine, how on earth are we going to live together? Do try and understand me. We can only live together on one condition, and that is, if neither of us imagines that there is any sacrifice about it. Either we love each other, and our union is a reasonable and natural one, or we don’t love each other, and then⁠—”

Lida suddenly began to cry.

“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Novikoff, surprised and irritated. “I can’t make you out. I haven’t said anything that could offend you. Don’t cry like that! Really, one can’t say a single word!”

“I⁠ ⁠… don’t know,” sobbed Lida, “but⁠ ⁠…”

Sanine frowned, and went into his room.

“So that’s as far as Lida has got!” he thought. “Perhaps, if she had