"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 pa.s.sions.
"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, coa.r.s.e statement!" said he.
"At any rate, coa.r.s.e 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 felt ill at ease. Sarudine, who thought himself more intelligent and tactful than the rest, deemed it his duty to dispel this vague feeling of embarra.s.sment.
"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 pa.s.sed 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 supper-time," 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 rea.s.sured 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.
CHAPTER 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 is going to sing something to us."
Maria Ivanovna, as she went out to get supper ready, thought to herself that Fate could surely have nothing but happiness in store for so beautiful and charming a girl as her darling Lida.
Sarudine and Tanaroff went to the piano in the drawing-room, while Lida reclined lazily in the rocking-chair on the veranda. Novikoff, mute, walked up and down on the creaking boards of the veranda floor, furtively glancing at Lida"s face, at her firm, full bosom, at her little feet shod in yellow shoes, and her dainty ankles. But she took no heed of him nor of his glances, so enthralled was she by the might and magic of a first pa.s.sion. She shut her eyes, and smiled at her thoughts.
In Novikoff"s soul there was the old strife; he loved Lida, yet he could not be sure of her feelings towards himself. At times she loved him, so he thought; and again, there were times when she did not. If he thought "yes," how easy and pleasant it seemed for this young, pure, supple body to surrender itself to him. If he thought "no," such an idea was foul and detestable; he was angry at his own l.u.s.t, deeming himself vile, and unworthy of Lida.
At last be determined to be guided by chance.
"If I step on the last board with my right foot, then I"ve got to propose; and if with the left, then--"
He dared not even think of what would happen in that case.
He trod on the last board with his left foot. It threw him into a cold sweat; but he instantly rea.s.sured himself.
"Pshaw! What nonsense! I"m like some old woman! Now then; one, two, three--at three I"ll go straight up to her, and speak. Yes, but what am I going to say? No matter! Here goes! One, two, three! No, three times over! One, two, three! One, two--"