Sanine

"Well, if you what?" asked Sanine loudly, and his eyes shone. "I can

but tell you this, that there is not and there never has been anything

between Lida and Sarudine."

Novikoff looked at him in amazement.

"I ... well ... I thought ..." he began, feeling, to his dismay, that

he could no longer believe what Sanine said.

"You thought a lot of nonsense!" replied Sanine sharply. "You ought to

know Lida better than that. What sort of love can there be with all

that hesitation and shilly-shallying?"

Novikoff, overjoyed, grasped the other's hand.

Then, suddenly Sanine's face wore a furious expression as he closely

watched the effect of his words upon his companion.

Novikoff showed obvious pleasure at the thought of the woman he desired

being immaculate. Into those honest sorrowful eyes, there came a look

of animal jealousy and concupiscence.

"Oho!" exclaimed Sanine threateningly, as he got up. "Then what I have

to tell you is this: Lida has not only fallen in love with Sarudine,

but she has also had illicit relations with him, and is now

enceinte."

There was dead silence in the room. Novikoff smiled a strange, sickly

smile and rubbed his hands. From his trembling lips there issued a

faint cry. Sanine stood over him, looking straight into his eyes. The

wrinkled corners of his mouth showed suppressed anger.

"Well, why don't you speak?" he asked.

Novikoff looked up for a moment, but instantly avoided the other's

glance, his features being still distorted by a vacuous smile.

"Lida has just gone through a terrible ordeal," said Sanine in a low

voice, as if soliloquising. If I had not chanced to overtake her, she

would not be living now, and what yesterday was a healthful, handsome

girl would now be lying in the river-mud, a bloated corpse, devoured by

crabs. The question is not one of her death--we must each of us die

some day--yet how sad to think that with her all the brightness and joy

created for others by her personality would also have perished. Of

course, Lida is not the only one in all the world; but, my God! if

there were no girlish loveliness left, it would be as sad and gloomy as

the grave.

"For my part, I am eager to commit murder when I see a poor girl

brought to ruin in this senseless way. Personally, it is a matter of

utter indifference to me whether you marry Lida or go to the devil, but

I must tell you that you are an idiot. If you had got one sound idea in

your head, would you worry yourself and others so much merely because a

young woman, free to pick and choose, had become the mistress of a man

who was unworthy of her, and by following her sexual impulse had

achieved her own complete development? Nor are you the only idiot, let

me tell you. There are millions of your sort who make life into a

prison, without sunshine or warmth! How often have you given rein to

your lust in company with some harlot, the sharer of your sordid

debauch? In Lida's case it was passion, the poetry of youth, and

strength, and beauty. By what right, then, do you shrink from her, you

that call yourself an intelligent, sensible man? What has her past to

do with you? Is she less beautiful? Or less fitted for loving, or for

being loved? Is it that you yourself wanted to be the first to possess

her? Now then, speak!"