"How"s that? What do you mean by lying?" exclaimed Sarudine, stopping short.
"If you please, sir, I was told to pay the washerwoman one rouble and seventy copecks, which I did, and I put the other thirty copecks on the dressing-table, sir."
"Yes, that"s right," said Tanaroff, with a.s.sumed carelessness of manner, though blushing for very shame, "I told him to do that yesterday ... the woman had been worrying me for a whole week, don"t you know."
Two red spots appeared on Sarudine"s scrupulously shaven cheeks, and the muscles of his face worked convulsively. He silently resumed his walk up and down the room and suddenly stopped in front of Tanaroff.
"Look here," he said, and his voice trembled with anger, "I should be much obliged if, in future, you would leave me to manage my own money- affairs."
Tanaroff"s face flushed crimson.
"H"m! A trifle like that!" he muttered, shrugging his shoulders.
"It is not a question of trifles," continued Sarudine, bitterly, "it is the principle of the thing. May I ask what right you ..."
"I ..." stammered Tanaroff.
"Pray don"t explain," said Sarudine, in the same cutting tone. "I must beg you not to take such a liberty again."
Tanaroff"s lips quivered. He hung his head, and nervously fingered his mother-of-pearl cigarette-holder. After a moment"s pause, Sarudine turned sharply round, and, jingling the keys loudly, opened the drawer of his bureau.
"There! go and buy what is wanted!" he said irritably, but in a calmer tone, as he handed the soldier a hundred-rouble note.
"Very good, sir," replied the soldier, who saluted and withdrew.
Sarudine pointedly locked his cash-box and shut the drawer of the bureau. Tanaroff had just time to glance at the box containing the fifty roubles which he needed so much, and then, sighing, lit a cigarette. He felt deeply mortified, yet he was afraid to show this, lest Sarudine should become more angry.
"What are two roubles to him?" he thought, "He knows very well that I am hard up."
Sarudine continued walking up and down obviously irritated, but gradually growing calmer. When the servant brought in the beer, he drank off a tumbler of the ice-cold foaming beverage with evident gusto. Then as he sucked the end of his moustache, he said, as if nothing had happened.
"Lida came again to see me yesterday, A fine girl, I tell you! As hot as they make them."
Tanaroff, still smarting, made no reply.
Sarudine, however, did not notice this, and slowly crossed the room, his eyes laughing as if at some secret recollection. His strong, healthy organism, enervated by the heat, was the more sensible to the influence of exciting thought. Suddenly he laughed, a short laugh; it was as if he had neighed. Then he stopped.
"You know yesterday I tried to ..." (here he used a coa.r.s.e, and in reference to a woman, a most humiliating, expression) "She jibbed a bit, at first; that wicked look in her eyes; you know the sort of thing!"
His animal instincts roused in their turn, Tanaroff grinned lecherously.
"But afterwards, it was all right; never had such a time in my life!"
said Sarudine, and he shivered at the recollection.
"Lucky chap!" exclaimed Tanaroff, enviously.
"Is Sarudine at home?" cried a loud voice from the Street. "May we come in?" It was Ivanoff.
Sarudine started, fearful lest his words about Lida Sanina should have been heard by some one else. But Ivanoff had hailed him from the roadway, and was not even visible.
"Yes, yes, he"s at home!" cried Sarudine from the window.
In the ante-room there was a noise of laughter and clattering of feet, as if the house were being invaded by a merry crowd. Then Ivanoff, Novikoff, Captain Malinowsky, two other officers, and Sanine all appeared.
"Hurrah!" cried Malinowsky, as he pushed his way in. His face was purple, he had fat, flabby cheeks and a moustache like two wisps of straw. "How are you, boys?"
"Bang goes another twenty-five-rouble note!" thought Sarudine with some irritation.
As he was mainly anxious, however, not to lose his reputation for being a wealthy, open-handed fellow, he exclaimed, smiling,
"Hallo! Where are you all going? Here! Tcherepanoff get some vodka, and whatever"s wanted. Run across to the club and order some beer. You would like some beer, gentlemen, eh? A hot day like this?"
When beer and vodka had been brought, the din grew greater. All were laughing, and shouting and drinking, apparently bent on making as much noise as possible. Only Novikoff seemed moody and depressed; his good- tempered face wore an evil expression.
It was not until yesterday that he had discovered what the whole town had been talking about; and at first a sense of humiliation and jealousy utterly overcame him.
"It"s impossible! It"s absurd! Silly gossip!" he said to himself, refusing to believe that Lida, so fair, so proud, so unapproachable, Lida whom he so deeply loved, could possibly have scandalously compromised herself with such a creature as Sarudine whom he looked upon as infinitely inferior and more stupid than himself. Then wild, b.e.s.t.i.a.l jealousy took possession of his soul. He had moments of the bitterest despair, and anon he was consumed by fierce hatred of Lida, and specially of Sarudine, To his placid, indolent temperament this feeling was so strange that it craved an outlet. All night long he had pitied himself, even thinking of suicide, but when morning came he only longed with a wild, inexplicable longing to set eyes upon Sarudine.
Now amid the noise and drunken laughter, he sat apart, drinking mechanically gla.s.s after gla.s.s, while intently watching every movement of Sarudine"s, much as some wild beast in a wood watches another wild beast, pretending to see nothing, yet ever ready to spring. Everything about Sarudine, his smile, his white teeth, his good looks, his voice, were for Novikoff, all so many daggers thrust into an open wound.
"Sarudine," said a tall lean officer with exceptionally long, unwieldy arms, "I"ve brought you a book."
Above the general clamour Novikoff instantly caught the name, Sarudine, and the sound of his voice, as well, all other voices seeming mute.
"What sort of book?"
"It"s about women, by Tolstoi," replied the lanky officer, raising his voice as if he were making a report. On his long sallow face there was a look of evident pride at being able to read and discuss Tolstoi.
"Do you read Tolstoi?" asked Ivanoff, who had noticed this naively complacent expression.
"Von Deitz is mad about Tolstoi," exclaimed Malinowsky, with a loud guffaw.
Sarudine took the slender red-covered pamphlet, and, turning over a few pages, said,
"Is it interesting?"
"You"ll see for yourself," replied Von Deitz with enthusiasm. "There"s a brain for you, my word! It"s just as if one had known it all one"s self!"
"But why should Victor Sergejevitsch read Tolstoi when he has his own special views concerning women?" asked Novikoff, in a low tone, not taking his eyes off his gla.s.s.
"What makes you think that?" rejoined Sarudine warily, scenting an attack.
Novikoff was silent. With all that was in him, he longed to hit Sarudine full in the face, that pretty self-satisfied-looking face, to fling him to the ground, and kick him, in a blind fury of pa.s.sion. But the words that he wanted would not come; he knew, and it tortured him the more to know, that he was saying the wrong thing, as with a sneer, he replied.
"It is enough to look at you, to know that."
The strange, menacing tone of his voice produced a sudden lull, almost as if a murder had been committed. Ivanoff guessed what was the matter.
"It seems to me that ..." began Sarudine coldly. His manner had changed somewhat, though he did not lose his self-control.