Sanine

"Our women are all alike ... stereotyped and made-up. To find one whose

beauty is worthy of adoration, it is to the provinces that one must go,

where the soil, untilled as yet, produces the most splendid flowers."

Sanine scratched the nape of his neck, and crossed his legs.

"Ah! of what good is it if they bloom here, since there is no one

worthy to pluck them?" replied Lida.

"Aha!" thought Sanine, suddenly becoming interested, "so that's what

she's driving at!"

This word-play, where sentiment and grossness were so obviously

involved, he found extremely diverting.

"Is it possible?"

"Why, of course! I mean what I say, who is it that plucks our

unfortunate blossoms? What men are those whom we set up as heroes?"

rejoined Lida bitterly.

"Aren't you rather too hard upon us?" asked Sarudine.

"No, Lidia Petrovna is right!" exclaimed Volochine, but, glancing at

Sarudine, his eloquence suddenly subsided. Lida laughed outright.

Filled with shame and grief and revenge, her burning eyes were set on

her seducer, and seemed to pierce him through and through. Volochine

again began to babble, while Lida interrupted him with laughter that

concealed her tears.

"I think that we ought to be going," said Sarudine, at last, who felt

that the situation was becoming intolerable. He could not tell why, but

everything, Lida's laughter, her scornful eyes and trembling hands were

all to him as so many secret boxes on the ear. His growing hatred of

her, and his jealousy of Volochine as well as the consciousness of all

that he had lost, served to exhaust him utterly.

"Already?" asked Lida.

Volochine smiled sweetly, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue.

"It can't be helped! Victor Sergejevitsch apparently is not quite

himself," he said in a mocking tone, proud of his conquest.

So they took their leave; and, as Sarudine bent over Lida's hand, he

whispered: "This is good-bye!"

Never had he hated Lida as much as at this moment.

In Lida's heart there arose a vague, fleeting desire to bid tender

farewell to all those bygone hours of love which had once been theirs.

But this feeling she swiftly repressed, as she said in a loud, harsh

voice: "Good-bye! Bon voyage! Don't forget us, Pavel Lvovitsch!"

As they were going, Volochine's remark could be distinctly heard.

"How charming she is! She intoxicates one, like champagne!"

When they had gone, Lida sat down again in the rocking-chair. Her

position was a different one, now, for she bent forward, trembling all

over, and her silent tears fell fast.