"Lunch?" he said to himself in horror. "To go into lunch! Everything just as before; to go on living and worrying as to what I ought to do about Sina, about my own life, and my own acts? So I"d better be quick, or else, if I go to lunch, there won"t be time afterwards."
A strange desire to make haste dominated him, and he trembled violently in every limb. He felt conscious that nothing was going to happen, and yet he had a clear presentiment of approaching death; there was a buzzing in his ears from sheer terror.
With hands tucked under her white ap.r.o.n, the maidservant still stood motionless on the veranda, enjoying the soft autumnal air.
Like a thief, Yourii crept behind the oak-tree, so that no one should see him from the veranda, and with startling suddenness shot himself in the chest.
"Missed fire!" he thought with delight, longing to live, and dreading death. But above him he saw the topmost branches of the oak-tree against the azure sky, and the yellow cat that leapt away in alarm.
Uttering a shriek, the maid-servant rushed indoors. Immediately afterwards it seemed to Yourii as if he were surrounded by a huge crowd of people. Some one poured cold water on his head, and a yellow leaf stuck to his brow, much to his discomfort. He heard excited voices on all sides, and some one sobbing, and crying out: "Youra, Youra! Oh!
why, why?"
"That"s Lialia!" thought Yourii. Opening his eyes wide, he began to struggle violently, as in a frenzy he screamed:
"Send for the doctor--quick!"
But to his horror he felt that all was over--that now nothing could save him. The dead leaves sticking to his brow felt heavier and heavier, crushing his brain. He stretched out his neck in a vain effort to see more clearly, but the leaves grew and grew, till they had covered everything; and what then happened to him Yourii never knew.
CHAPTER XLII.
Those who knew Yourii Svarogitsch, and those who did not, those who liked, as those who despised him, even those who had never thought about him were sorry, now that he was dead.
n.o.body could understand why he had done it; though they all imagined that they knew, and that in their inmost souls they held of his thoughts a share. There seemed something so beautiful about suicide, of which tears, flowers, and n.o.ble words were the sequel. Of his own relatives not one attended the funeral. His father had had a paralytic stroke, and Lialia could not leave him for a moment. Riasantzeff alone represented the family, and had charge of all the burial-arrangements.
It was this solitariness that to spectators appeared particularly sad, and gave a certain mournful grandeur to the personality of the deceased.
Many flowers, beautiful, scentless, autumn flowers, were brought and placed on the bier; in the midst of their red and white magnificence the face of Yourii lay calm and peaceful, showing no trace of conflict or of suffering.
When the coffin was borne past Sina"s house, she and her friend Dubova joined the funeral-procession. Sina looked utterly dejected and unnerved, as if she were being led out to shameful execution. Although she felt convinced that Yourii had heard nothing of her disgrace, there was yet, as it seemed to her, a certain connection between that and his death which would always remain a mystery. The burden of unspeakable shame was hers to bear alone. She deemed herself utterly miserable and depraved.
Throughout the night she had wept, as in fancy she fondly kissed the face of her dead lover. When morning came her heart was full of hopeless love for Yourii, and of bitter hatred for Sanine. Her accidental _liaison_ with the last-named resembled a hideous dream. All that Sanine had told her, and which at the moment she had believed, was now revolting to her. She had fallen over a precipice; and rescue there was none. When Sanine approached her she stared at him in horror and disgust before turning abruptly away.
As her cold fingers slightly touched his hand held out in hearty greeting, Sanine at once knew all that she thought and felt. Henceforth they could only be as strangers to each other. He bit his lip, and joined Ivanoff who followed at some distance, shaking his smooth fair hair.
"Hark at Peter Ilitsch!" said Sanine, "how he"s forcing his voice!"
A long way ahead, immediately behind the coffin, they were chanting a dirge, and Peter Ilitsch"s long-drawn, quavering notes filled the air.
"Funny thing, eh?" began Ivanoff. "A feeble sort of chap, and yet he goes and shoots himself all in a moment, like that!"
"It"s my belief," replied Sanine, "that three seconds before the pistol went off he was uncertain whether to shoot himself or not. As he lived, so he died."
"Ah! well," said the other, "at any rate, he"s found a place for himself."
This, to Ivanoff, as he tossed back his yellow hair, appeared to be the last word in explanation of the tragic occurrence. Personally, it soothed him much.
In the graveyard the scene was even more autumnal, where the trees seemed splashed with dull red gold, while here and there the gra.s.s showed green through the heaps of withered leaves. The tombstones and crosses looked whiter in this dull setting.
So the black earth received Yourii.
Just at that awful moment when the coffin disappeared from view and the earth became a barrier for ever between the quick and the dead, Sina uttered a piercing shriek. Her sobs echoed through the quiet burial- ground, painfully affecting the little group of silent mourners. She no longer cared to hide her secret from the others who now all guessed it, horrified that death should have separated this handsome young woman from her lover to whom she had longed to give all her youth and beauty, and who now lay dead in the grave.
They led her away, and the sound of her weeping gradually subsided. The grave was hastily filled in, a mound of earth being raised above it on which little green fir-trees were planted.
Schafroff grew restless.
"I say, somebody ought to make a speech. Gentlemen, this won"t do!
There ought to be a speech," he said, hurriedly accosting the bystanders in turn.
"Ask Sanine," was Ivanoff"s malicious suggestion. Schafroff stared at the speaker in amazement, whose face wore an inscrutable expression.
"Sanine? Sanine? Where"s Sanine?" he exclaimed. "Ah! Vladimir Petrovitch, will you say a few words? We can"t go away without a speech."
"Make one yourself, then," replied Sanine morosely. He was listening to Sina, sobbing in the distance.
"If I could do so I would. He really was a very re... mark... able man, wasn"t he? Do, please, say a word or two!"
Sanine looked hard at him, and replied almost angrily. "What is there to say? One fool less in the world. That"s all!"
The bitter words fell with startling clearness on the ears of those present. Such was their amazement that they were at a loss for a reply, but Dubova, in a shrill voice, cried:
"How disgraceful!"
"Why?" asked Sanine, shrugging his shoulders. Dubova sought to shout at him, threatening him with her fists, but was restrained by several girls who surrounded her. The company broke up in disorder. Vehement sounds of protest were heard on every side, and like a group of withered leaves scattered by the wind, the crowd dispersed. Schafroff at first ran on in front, but soon afterwards came back again.
Riasantzeff stood with others aside, and gesticulated violently.
Lost in his thoughts, Sanine gazed at the angry face of a person wearing spectacles, and then turned round to join Ivanoff, who appeared perplexed. When referring Schafroff to Sanine he had foreseen a _contretemps_ of some sort, but not one of so serious a nature. While it amused him, he yet felt sorry that it had occurred. Not knowing what to say, he looked away, beyond the grave-stones and crosses, to the distant fields.
A young student stood near him, engaged in heated talk. Ivanoff froze him with a glance.
"I suppose you think yourself ornamental?" he said.
The lad blushed.
"That"s not in the least funny," he replied.
"Funny be d----d! You clear off!"
There was such a wicked look in Ivanoff"s eyes that the disconcerted youth soon went away.
Sanine watched this little scene and smiled.
"What fools they are!" he exclaimed.
Instantly Ivanoff felt ashamed that even for a moment he should have wavered.