Sanine

Colonel Nicolai Yegorovitch Svarogitsch who lived in the little town

awaited the arrival of his son, a student at the Moscow Polytechnic.

The latter was under the surveillance of the police and had been

expelled from Moscow as a suspected person. It was thought that he was

in league with revolutionists. Yourii Svarogitsch had already written

to his parents informing them of his arrest, his six months'

imprisonment, and his expulsion from the capital, so that they were

prepared for his return. Though Nicolai Yegorovitch looked upon the

whole thing as a piece of boyish folly, he was really much grieved, for

he was very fond of his son, whom he received with open arms, avoiding

any allusion to this painful subject. For two whole days Yourii had

travelled third-class, and owing to the bad air, the stench, and the

cries of children, he got no sleep at all. He was utterly exhausted,

and had no sooner greeted his father and his sister Ludmilla (who was

always called Lialia) than he lay down on her bed, and fell asleep.

He did not wake until evening, when the sun was near the horizon, and

its slanting rays, falling through the panes, threw rosy squares upon

the wall. In the next room there was a clatter of spoons and glasses;

he could hear Lialia's merry laugh, and also a man's voice both

pleasant and refined which he did not know. At first it seemed to him

as if he were still in the railway-carriage and heard the noise of the

train, the rattle of the window-panes and the voices of travellers in

the next compartment. But he quickly remembered where he was, and sat

bolt upright on the bed. "Yes, here I am," he yawned, as, frowning, he

thrust his fingers through his thick, stubborn black hair.

It then occurred to him that he need never have come home. He had been

allowed to choose where he would stay. Why, then, did he return to his

parents? That he could not explain. He believed, or wished to believe,

that he had fixed upon the most likely place that had occurred to him.

But this was not the case at all. Yourii had never had to work for a

living; his father kept him supplied with funds, and the prospect of

being alone and without means among strangers seemed terrible to him.

He was ashamed of such a feeling, and loth to admit it to himself. Now,

however, he thought that he had made a mistake. His parents could never

understand the whole story, nor form any opinion regarding it; that was

quite plain. Then again, the material question would arise, the many

useless years that he had cost his father--it all made a mutually

cordial, straightforward understanding impossible. Moreover, in this

little town, which he had not seen for two years, he would find it

dreadfully dull. He looked upon all the inhabitants of petty provincial

towns as narrow-minded folk, incapable of being interested in, or even

of understanding those philosophical and political questions which for

him were the only really important things of life.