"I really ... don't know!" faltered Lialia. "I've got such a headache."

Yourii glanced hurriedly at his sister, and then continued to pore over his pamphlets. Pale and heavy-eyed, she excited his compa.s.sion.

"Oh! why, why did I say all that to her?" he thought. "The whole question is so obscure, to me, as to so many others, and now it must needs trouble her poor little heart! Why, why did I say that!"

He felt as if he could tear his hair.

"If you please, miss," said the maid at the door, "Mr. Anatole Pavlovitch has just come."

Yourii gave another frightened glance at his sister, and met her sad eyes. In confusion he turned to Schafroff, and said hastily:

"Have you read Charles Bradlaugh?"

"Yes, we read some of his works with Dubova, and Sina Karsavina. Most interesting."

"Yes. Oh! have they come back?"

"Yes."

"Since when?" asked Yourii, hiding his emotion.

"Since the day before yesterday."

"Oh! really!" replied Yourii, as he watched Lialia. He felt ashamed and afraid in her presence, as if he had deceived her.

For a moment Lialia stood there irresolute, touching things nervously on the table. Then she approached the door.

"Oh! what have I done!" thought Yourii, as, sincerely grieved, he listened to the sound of her faltering footsteps. As she went towards the other room, Lialia, doubting and distressed, felt as if she were frozen. It seemed as though she were wandering in a dark wood. She glanced at a mirror, and saw the reflection of her own rueful countenance.

"He shall just see me looking like this!" she thought.

Riasantzeff was standing in the dining-room, saying in his remarkably pleasant voice to Nicolai Yegorovitch;

"Of course, it's rather strange, but quite harmless."

At the sound of his voice Lialia felt her heart throb violently, as if it must break. When Riasantzeff saw her, he suddenly stopped talking and came forward to meet her with outstretched arms. She alone knew that this gesture signified his desire to embrace her.

Lialia looked up shyly at him, and her lips trembled. Without a word she pulled her hand away, crossed the room and opened the gla.s.s door leading to the balcony. Riasantzeff watched her, calmly, but with slight astonishment.

"My Ludmilla Nicolaijevna is cross," he said to Nicolai Yegorovitch with serio-comic gravity of manner. The latter burst out laughing.

"You had better go and make it up."

"There's nothing else to be done!" sighed Riasantzeff, in droll fashion, as he followed Lialia on to the balcony.

It was still raining. The monotonous sound of falling drops filled the air; but the sky seemed clearer now, and there was a break in the clouds.

Lialia, her cheek propped against one of the cold, damp pillars of the veranda, let the rain beat upon her bare head, so that her hair was wet through.

"My princess is displeased ... Lialitschka!" said Riasantzeff, as he drew her closer to him, and lightly kissed moist, fragrant hair.

At this touch, so intimate and familiar, something seemed to melt in Lialia's breast, and without knowing what she did, she flung her arms round her lover's strong neck as, amid a shower of kisses, she murmured:

"I am very, very angry with you! You're a bad man!"

All the while she kept thinking that after all there was nothing so bad, or awful, or irreparable as she had supposed. What did it matter?

All that she wanted was to love and be loved by this big, handsome man.

Afterwards, at table, it was painful to her to notice Yourii's look of amazement, and, when the chance came, she whispered to him, "It's awful of me, I know!" at which he only smiled awkwardly. Yourii was really pleased that the matter should have ended happily like this, while yet affecting to despise such an att.i.tude of bourgeois complacency and toleration. He withdrew to his room, remaining there alone until the evening, and as, before sunset, the sky grew clear, he took his gun, intending to shoot in the same place where he and Riasantzeff had been yesterday.

After the rain, the marsh seemed full of new life. Many strange sounds were now audible, and the gra.s.ses waved as if stirred by some secret vital force. Frogs croaked l.u.s.tily in a chorus; now and again some birds uttered a sharp discordant cry; while at no great distance, yet out of range, ducks could be heard cackling in the wet reeds. Yourii, however, felt no desire to shoot, but he shouldered his gun and turned homeward, listening to sounds of crystalline clearness in the grey calm twilight.

"How beautiful!" thought he. "All is beautiful; man alone is vile!"

Far away he saw the little fire burning in the melon-field, and ere long by its light he recognized the faces of Kousma and Sanine.

"What does he always come here for?" thought Yourii, surprised and curious.

Seated by the fire, Kousma was telling a story, laughing and gesticulating meanwhile. Sanine was laughing, too. The fire burned with a slender flame, as that of a taper, the light being rosy, not red as at night-time, while overhead, in the blue dome of heaven, the first stars glittered. There was an odour of fresh mould and rain-drenched gra.s.s.

For some reason or other Yourii felt afraid lest they should see him, yet at the same time it saddened him to think that he could not join them. Between himself and them there seemed to be a barrier incomprehensible and yet unreal; a s.p.a.ce devoid of atmosphere, a gulf that could never be bridged.

This sense of utter isolation depressed him greatly. He was alone; from this world with its vesper lights and hues, and fires, and stars, and human sounds, he stood aloof and apart, as though shut close within a dark room. So distressful was this sense of solitude, that as he crossed the melon-field where hundreds of melons were growing in the gloom, to him they seemed like human skulls that Jay strewn upon the ground.

CHAPTER XVI.

Summer now came on, abounding in light and warmth. Between the luminous blue heaven and the sultry earth there floated a tremulous veil of golden haze. Exhausted with the heat, the trees seemed asleep; their leaves, drooping and motionless, cast short, transparent shadows on the parched, arid turf. Indoors it was cool. Pale green reflections from the garden quivered on the ceiling, and while everything else stirred not, the curtains by the window waved.

His linen jacket all unb.u.t.toned, Sarudine slowly paced up and down the room languidly smoking a cigarette, and displaying his large white teeth. Tanaroff, in just his shirt and riding-breeches, lay at full length on the sofa, furtively watching Sarudine with his little black eyes. He was in urgent need of fifty roubles, and had already asked his friend twice for them. He did not venture to do this a third time, and so was anxiously waiting to see if Sarudine himself would return to the subject. The latter had not forgotten by any means, but, having gambled away seven hundred roubles last month, begrudged any further outlay.

"He already owes me two hundred and fifty," thought he, as he glanced at Tanaroff in pa.s.sing. Then, more irritably, "It's astonishing, upon my word! Of course we're good friends, and all that, but I wonder that he's not the least bit ashamed of himself. He might at any rate make some excuse for owing me all that money. No, I won't lend him another penny," he thought maliciously.

The orderly now entered the room, a little freckled fellow who in slow, clumsy fashion stood at attention, and, without looking at Sarudine, said,

"If you please, sir, you asked for beer, but there isn't any more."

Sarudine's face grew red, as involuntarily he glanced at Tanaroff.

"Well, this is really a bit too much!" he thought. "He knows that I am hard up, yet beer has to be sent for."

"There's very little vodka left, either," added the soldier.

"All right! d.a.m.n you! You've still got a couple of roubles. Go and buy what is wanted."

"Please, sir, I haven't got any money at all."