"Yes, yes, I know," said Lida, struggling with her tears.
"It is not I, but it is you that are sacrificing yourself. Yes, it"s you! What more would you have?"
Novikoff was annoyed.
"How little you understand my meaning!" he said. "I love you, and thus it"s no sacrifice. But if you think that our union implies a sacrifice either on your part or on mine, how on earth are we going to live together? Do try and understand me. We can only live together on one condition, and that is, if neither of us imagines that there is any sacrifice about it. Either we love each other, and our union is a reasonable and natural one, or we don"t love each other, and then--"
Lida suddenly began to cry.
"What"s the matter?" exclaimed Novikoff, surprised and irritated. "I can"t make you out. I haven"t said anything that could offend you.
Don"t cry like that! Really, one can"t say a single word!"
"I ... don"t know," sobbed Lida, "but ..."
Sanine frowned, and went into his room.
"So that"s as far as Lida has got!" he thought. "Perhaps, if she had drowned herself, it would have been better, after all."
Underneath the window, Ivanoff could hear Sanine hastily packing his things. There was a rustling of paper, and the sound of something that had fallen on the floor.
"Aren"t you coming?" he asked impatiently.
"In a minute," replied Sanine, as his pale face appeared at the window.
"Catch hold!"
The valise was promptly handed out to Ivanoff and Sanine leapt after it.
"Come along!"
They went swiftly through the garden, that lay dim and desolate in the dusk. The fires of sunset had paled beyond the glimmering stream.
At the rail way-station all the signal-lamps had been lighted. A locomotive was snorting and puffing. Men were running about, banging doors and shouting at each other. A group of peasants who carried large bundles filled one part of the platform.
At the refreshment-room Sanine and Ivanoff had a farewell drink.
"Here"s luck, and a pleasant journey!" said Ivanoff.
Sanine smiled.
"My journeys are always the same," he said. "I don"t expect anything from life, and I don"t ask for anything either. As for luck, there"s not much of that at the finish. Old age and death; that"s about all."
They went out on to the platform, seeking a quiet place for their leave-taking.
"Well, good-bye!"
"Good-bye!"
Hardly knowing why, they kissed each other.
There was a long whistle, and the train began to move.
"Ah! my boy. I had grown so fond of you," exclaimed Ivanoff suddenly.
"You"re the only real man that I have ever met."
"And you"re the only one that ever cared for me," said Sanine as, laughing, he leapt on to the foot-board of a carriage as it rolled past.
"Off we go!" he cried. "Good-bye!"
The carriages hurried past Ivanoff as if, like Sanine, they had suddenly resolved to get away. The red light appeared in the gloom, and then seemed to become stationary. Ivanoff mournfully watched its disappearance, and then sauntered homewards through the ill-lighted streets.
"Shall I drown my sorrow?" he thought; and, as he entered the tavern, the image of his own grey, tedious life like a ghost went in with him also.
CHAPTER XLIV.
The lamps burned dimly in the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rail way-carriage, shedding their fitful light on grimy, ragged pa.s.sengers wedged tightly together, and wreathed in smoke. Sanine sat next to three peasants. As he got in, they were engaged in talk, and one half-hidden by the gloom, said:
"Things are bad, you say?"
"Couldn"t be worse," replied Sanine"s neighbour, an old grey-haired moujik, in a high, feeble voice. "They only think of themselves; they don"t trouble about us. You may say what you like, but when it comes to fighting for your skin, the stronger always gets the best of it."
"Then, why make a fuss?" asked Sanine, who had guessed what was the subject of their grumbling.
The old man turned to him with a questioning wave of the hand.
"What else can we do?"
Sanine got up and changed his seat. He knew these peasants only too well, who lived like beasts, unable either to cope with their oppression or to destroy their oppressors. Vaguely hoping that some miracle might occur, in waiting for which millions and millions of their fellow-slaves had perished, they continued to lead their brutish existence.
Night had come. All were asleep except a little tradesman sitting opposite to Sanine, who was bullying his wife. She said nothing, but looked about her with fear in her eyes.
"Wait a bit, you cow, I"ll soon show you!" he hissed.
Sanine had fallen asleep when a cry from the woman awoke him. The fellow quickly removed his hand, but not before Sanine could see that he had been maltreating his wife.
"What a brute you are!" exclaimed Sanine, angrily.
The man started backwards in alarm, as he blinked his small, wicked eyes, and grinned.
Sanine in disgust went out on to the platform at the rear of the train.
As he pa.s.sed through the corridor-carriages he saw crowds of pa.s.sengers lying prostrate across each other. It was daybreak and their weary faces looked livid in the grey dawn-light which gave them a helpless, pained expression.
Standing on the platform Sanine drank in draughts of the cool morning air.
"What a vile thing man is!" he thought. To get away, if only for a short while, from all his fellow-men, from the train, with its foul air, and smoke, and din--it was for that he longed.