Sanine

"No, no, there's no help for it now," he thought, in dull despair.

"They all saw it; saw how I was struck in the face, and how I crawled

along on all fours. Oh! the shame of it! Struck like that, in the face!

No, it's too much! I shall never be free or happy again!"

And again through his mind there flashed a new, keen thought.

"After all, have I ever been free? No. That's just why I've come to

grief now, because my life has never been free; because I've never

lived it in my own way. Of my own free will should I ever have wanted

to fight a duel, or to hit him with the whip? Nobody would have struck

me, and everything would have been all right. Who first imagined, and

when, that an insult could only be wiped out with blood? Not I,

certainly. Well, I've wiped it out, or rather, it's been wiped out with

my blood, hasn't it? I don't know what it all means, but I know this,

that I shall have to leave the regiment!"

His thoughts would fain have taken another direction, yet, like birds

with clipped wings, they always fell back again, back to the one

central fact that he had been grossly insulted, and would be obliged to

leave the regiment.

He remembered having once seen a fly that had fallen into syrup

crawling over the floor, dragging its sticky legs and wings along with

the utmost difficulty. It was plain that the wretched insect must die,

though it still struggled, and made frantic efforts to regain its feet.

At the time he had turned away from it in disgust, and now he saw it

again, as in a feverish dream. Then he suddenly thought of a fight that

he had once witnessed between two peasants, when one, with a terrific

blow in the face, felled the other, an elderly, grey-haired man. He got

up, wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve, exclaiming with emphasis,

"What a fool!"

"Yes, I remember seeing that," thought Sarudine, "and then they had

drinks together at the 'Crown.'"

The night drew near to its end. In silence so strange, so oppressive,

it seemed as if Sarudine were the one living, suffering soul left on

earth. On the table the guttering candle was still burning with a

faint, steady, flame. Lost in the gloom of his disordered thoughts

Sarudine stared at it with glittering, feverish eyes.

Amid the wild chaos of impressions and recollections there was one

thing which stood out clearly from all others. It was the sense of his

utter solitude that stabbed his heart like a dagger. Millions of men at

that moment were merrily enjoying life, laughing and joking; some, it

might be, were even talking about him. But he, only he, was alone.

Vainly he sought to recall familiar faces. Yet pale, and strange, and

cold, they appeared to him, and their eyes had a look of curiosity and

malevolent glee. Then, in his dejection, he thought of Lida.