"A fine career, upon my word!" sullenly rejoined Novikoff, looking
aside.
"What is wrong with it?" asked Sarudine, in genuine amazement, removing
the cigarette from his lips.
"Why, what's an actress? Nothing else but a harlot!" replied Novikoff,
with sudden heat. Jealousy tortured him; the thought that the young
woman whose body he loved could appear before other men in an alluring
dress that would exhibit her charms in order to provoke their passions.
"Surely it is going too far to say that," replied Sarudine, raising his
eyebrows.
Novikoff's glance was full of hatred. He regarded Sarudine as one of
those men who meant to rob him of his beloved; moreover, his good looks
annoyed him.
"No, not in the least too far," he retorted. "To appear half nude on
the stage and in some voluptuous scene exhibit one's personal charms to
those who in an hour or so take their leave as they would of some
courtesan after paying the usual fee! A charming career indeed!"
"My friend," said Sanine, "every woman in the first instance likes to
be admired for her personal charms."
Novikoff shrugged his shoulders irritably.
"What a silly, coarse statement!" said he.
"At any rate, coarse or not, it's the truth," replied Sanine. "Lida
would be most effective on the stage, and I should like to see her
there."
Although in the others this speech roused a certain instinctive
curiosity, they all felt ill at ease. Sarudine, who thought himself
more intelligent and tactful than the rest, deemed it his duty to
dispel this vague feeling of embarrassment.
"Well, what do you think the young lady ought to do? Get married?
Pursue a course of study, or let her talent be lost? That would be a
crime against nature that had endowed her with its fairest gift."
"Oh!" exclaimed Sanine, with undisguised sarcasm, "till now the idea of
such a crime had never entered my head."
Novikoff laughed maliciously, but replied politely enough to Sarudine.
"Why a crime? A good mother or a female doctor is worth a thousand
times more than an actress."
"Not at all!" said Tanaroff, indignantly.
"Don't you find this sort of talk rather boring?" asked Sanine.
Sarudine's rejoinder was lost in a fit of coughing. They all of them
really thought such a discussion tedious and unnecessary; and yet they
all felt somewhat offended. An unpleasant silence reigned.
Lida and Maria Ivanovna appeared on the verandah. Lida had heard her
brother's last words, but did not know to what they referred.