He looked across to where in the dark grass that poor little frog was
dying, or perhaps, after terrible agony, lay dead. A whole world had,
as it were, been destroyed; an individual and independent life had come
to a hideous and, yet utterly unnoticed and unheard.
And then, by ways inscrutable, Yourii was led to the strange,
disquieting thought that all which went to make up a life, the secret
instincts of loving or of hating that involuntarily caused him to
accept one thing and to reject another; his intuitive sense regarding
good or bad; that all this was merely as a faint mist, in which his
personality alone was shrouded. By the world in its huge, vast entirety
all his profoundest and most agonising experiences were as utterly and
completely ignored as the death-agony of this little frog. In imagining
that his sufferings and his emotions were of interest to others, he had
expressly and senselessly woven a complicated net between himself and
the universe. The moment of death sufficed to destroy this net, and to
leave him, devoid of pity or pardon, utterly alone.
Once more his thoughts reverted to Semenoff and to the indifference
shown by the deceased student towards all lofty ideals which so
profoundly interested him, Yourii, and millions of his kind. This
brought him to think of the simple joy of living, the charm of
beautiful women, of moonlight, of nightingales, a theme upon which he
had mournfully reflected on the day following his last sad talk with
Semenoff.
At that time he had not understood why Semenoff attached importance to
futile things such as boating or the comely shape of a girl, while
deliberately refusing to be interested in the loftiest and most
profound conceptions. Now, however, Yourii perceived that it could not
have been otherwise for it was these trivial things that constituted
life, the real life, full of sensations, emotions, enjoyments; and that
all these lofty conceptions were but empty thoughts, vain verbiage,
powerless to influence in the slightest the great mystery of life and
death. Important, complete though these might be, other words, other
thoughts no less weighty and important must follow in the future.
At this conclusion, evolved unexpectedly from his thoughts concerning
good and evil, Yourii seemed utterly nonplussed. It was as though a
great void lay before him, and, for a moment, his brain felt free and
clear, as one in dream feels able to float through space just whither
he will. It alarmed him. With all his might he strove to collect his
habitual conceptions of life, and then the alarming sensation
disappeared. All became gloomy and confused as before.