“Well, what do you think the young lady ought to do? Get married? Pursue a course of study, or let her talent be lost? That would be a crime against nature that had endowed her with its fairest gift.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Sanine, with undisguised sarcasm, “till now the idea of such a crime had never entered my head.”
Novikoff laughed maliciously, but replied politely enough to Sarudine.
“Why a crime? A good mother or a female doctor is worth a thousand times more than an actress.”
“Not at all!” said Tanaroff, indignantly.
“Don’t you find this sort of talk rather boring?” asked Sanine.
Sarudine’s rejoinder was lost in a fit of coughing. They all of them really thought such a discussion tedious and unnecessary; and yet they all felt somewhat offended. An unpleasant silence reigned.
Lida and Maria Ivanovna appeared on the verandah. Lida had heard her brother’s last words, but did not know to what they referred.
“You seem to have soon become bored!” cried she, laughing. “Let us go down to the river. It is charming there, now.”
As she passed in front of the men, her shapely figure swayed slightly, and there was a look of dark mystery in her eyes that seemed to say something, to promise something.
“Go for a walk till suppertime,” said Maria Ivanovna.
“Delighted,” exclaimed Sarudine. His spurs clinked, as he offered Lida his arm.
“I hope that I may be allowed to come too,” said Novikoff, meaning to be satirical, though his face wore a tearful expression.
“Who is there to prevent you?” replied Lida, smiling, at him over her shoulder.
“Yes, you go, too,” exclaimed Sanine. “I would come with you if she were not so thoroughly convinced that I am her brother.”
Lida winced somewhat, and glanced swiftly at Sanine, as she laughed, a short, nervous laugh.
Maria Ivanovna was obviously displeased.
“Why do you talk in that stupid way?” she bluntly exclaimed. “I suppose you think it is original?”
“I really never thought about it at all,” was Sanine’s rejoinder.
Maria Ivanovna looked at him in amazement. She had never been able to understand her son; she never could tell when he was joking or in earnest, nor what he thought or felt, when other comprehensible persons felt and thought much as she did herself. According to her idea, a man was always bound to speak and feel and act exactly as other men of his social and intellectual status were wont to speak and feel and act. She was also of opinion that people were not simply men with their natural characteristics and peculiarities, but that they must be all cast in one common mould. Her own environment encouraged and confirmed this belief. Education, she thought, tended to divide men into two groups, the intelligent and the unintelligent. The latter might retain their individuality, which drew upon them the contempt of others. The former were divided into groups, and their convictions did not correspond with their personal qualities but with their respective positions. Thus, every student was a revolutionary, every official was bourgeois, every artist a free thinker, and every officer an exaggerated stickler for rank. If, however, it chanced that a student was a Conservative, or an officer an Anarchist, this must be regarded as most extraordinary, and even unpleasant. As for Sanine, according to his origin and education he ought to have been something quite different from what he was; and Maria Ivanovna felt as Lida, Novikoff and all who came into contact with him felt, that he had disappointed expectation. With a mother’s instinct she quickly saw the impression that her son made on those about him; and it pained her.
Sanine was aware of this. He would fain have reassured her, but was at a loss how to begin. At first he thought of professing sentiments that were false, so that she might be pacified; however, he only laughed, and, rising, went indoors. There, for a while, he lay on his bed, thinking. It seemed as if men wished to turn the whole world into a sort of military cloister, with one set of rules for all, framed with a view to destroy all individuality, or else to make this submit to one vague, archaic power of some kind. He was even led to reflect upon Christianity and its fate, but this bored him to such an extent that he fell asleep, and did not wake until evening had turned to night.
Maria Ivanovna watched him go, and she, too, sighing deeply, became immersed in thought. Sarudine, so she said to herself, was obviously paying court to Lida, and she hoped that his intentions were serious.
“Lida’s already twenty, and Sarudine seems to be quite a nice sort of young man. They say he’ll get his squadron this year. Of course, he’s heavily in debt—But oh! why did I have that horrid dream? I know it’s absurd, yet somehow I can’t get it out of my head!”
This dream was one that she had dreamed on the same day that Sarudine had first entered the house. She thought that she saw Lida, dressed all in white, walking in a green meadow bright with flowers.
Maria Ivanovna sank into an easy chair, leaning her head on her hand, as old women do, and she gazed at the darkening sky. Thoughts gloomy and tormenting gave no respite, and there was an indefinable something caused her to feel anxious and afraid.
III
It was already quite dark when the others returned from their walk. Their clear, merry voices rang out through the soft dusk that veiled the garden. Lida ran, flushed and laughing, to her mother. She brought with her cool scents from the river that blended delightfully with the fragrance of her own sweet youth and beauty which the companionship of sympathetic admirers heightened and enhanced.
“Supper, mamma, let’s have supper!” she cried playfully dragging her mother along. “Meanwhile Victor Sergejevitsch
