“And—where is Lidia Petrovna?” he asked mechanically, albeit loth to utter the question that was uppermost in his mind.
“Lida? Where should she be? Walking with officers on the boulevard, where all our young ladies are to be found at this time of day.”
A look of jealousy darkened his face, as Novikoff asked:
“How can a girl so clever and cultivated as she waste her time with such empty-headed fools?”
“Oh! my friend,” exclaimed Sanine, smiling, “Lida is handsome, and young, and healthy, just as you are; more so, in fact, because she has that which you lack—keen desire for everything. She wants to know everything, to experience everything—why, here she comes! You’ve only got to look at her to understand that. Isn’t she pretty?”
Lida was shorter and much handsomer than her brother. Sweetness combined with supple strength gave to her whole personality charm and distinction. There was a haughty look in her dark eyes, and her voice, of which she was proud, sounded rich and musical. She walked slowly down the steps, moving with the lithe grace of a thoroughbred, while adroitly holding up her long grey dress. Behind her, clinking their spurs, came two good-looking young officers in tightly-fitting riding-breeches and shining top-boots.
“Who is pretty? Is it I?” asked Lida, as she filled the whole garden with the charm of her voice, her beauty and her youth. She gave Novikoff her hand, with a side-glance at her brother, about whose attitude she did not feel quite clear, never knowing whether he was joking or in earnest. Grasping her hand tightly, Novikoff grew very red, but his emotions were unnoticed by Lida, used as she was to his reverent, bashful glance that never troubled her.
“Good evening, Vladimir Petrovitch,” said the elder, handsomer and fairer of the two officers, rigid, erect as a spirited stallion, while his spurs clinked noisily.
Sanine knew him to be Sarudine, a captain of cavalry, one of Lida’s most persistent admirers. The other was Lieutenant Tanaroff, who regarded Sarudine as the ideal soldier, and strove to copy everything he did. He was taciturn, somewhat clumsy, and not so good-looking as Sarudine. Tanaroff rattled his spurs in his turn, but said nothing.
“Yes, you!” replied Sanine to his sister, gravely.
“Why, of course I am pretty. You should have said indescribably pretty!” And, laughing gaily, Lida sank into a chair, glancing again at Sanine. Raising her arms and thus emphasizing the curves of her shapely bosom, she proceeded to remove her hat, but, in so doing, let a long hatpin fall on the gravel, and her veil and hair became disarranged.
“Andrei Pavlovitch, do please help me!” she plaintively cried to the taciturn lieutenant.
“Yes, she’s a beauty!” murmured Sanine, thinking aloud, and never taking his eyes off her. Once more Lida glanced shyly at her brother.
“We’re all of us beautiful here,” said she.
“What’s that? Beautiful? Ha! Ha!” laughed Sarudine, showing his white, shining teeth. “We are at best but the modest frame that serves to heighten the dazzling splendour of your beauty.”
“I say, what eloquence, to be sure!” exclaimed Sanine, in surprise. There was a slight shade of irony in his tone.
“Lidia Petrovna would make anybody eloquent,” said Tanaroff the silent, as he tried to help Lida to take off her hat, and in so doing ruffled her hair. She pretended to be vexed, laughing all the while.
“What?” drawled Sanine. “Are you eloquent too?”
“Oh! let them be!” whispered Novikoff, hypocritically, though secretly pleased.
Lida frowned at Sanine, to whom her dark eyes plainly said:
“Don’t imagine that I cannot see what these people are. I intend to please myself. I am not a fool any more than you are, and I know what I am about.”
Sanine smiled at her.
At last the hat was removed, which Tanaroff solemnly placed on the table.
“Look! Look what you’ve done to me, Andrei Pavlovitch!” cried Lida half peevishly, half coquettishly. “You’ve got my hair into such a tangle! Now I shall have to go indoors.”
“I’m so awfully sorry!” stammered Tanaroff, in confusion.
Lida rose, gathered up her skirts, and ran indoors laughing, followed by the glances of all the men. When she had gone they seemed to breathe more freely, without that nervous sense of restraint which men usually experience in the presence of a pretty young woman. Sarudine lighted a cigarette which he smoked with evident gusto. One felt, when he spoke, that he habitually took the lead in a conversation, and that what he thought was something quite different from what he said.
“I have just been persuading Lidia Petrovna to study singing seriously. With such a voice, her career is assured.”
“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
