His brain seemed on fire, his mouth grew parched, his heart beat so violently that his knees shook.

"Don't stamp like that!" exclaimed Lida, opening her eyes. "One can't hear anything."

Only then was Novikoff aware that Sarudine was singing.

The young officer had chosen that old romance,

_I loved you once! Can you forget?

Love in my heart is burning yet_.

He did not sing badly, but after the style of untrained singers who seek to give expression by exaggerated tone-colour. Novikoff found nothing to please him in such a performance.

"What is that? One of his own compositions?" asked he, with unusual bitterness.

"No! Don't disturb us, please, but sit down!" said Lida, sharply. "And if you don't like music, go and look at the moon!"

Just then the moon, large, round and red, was rising above the black tree-tops. Its soft evasive light touched the stone steps, and Lida's dress, and her pensive, smiling face. In the garden the shadows had grown deeper; they were now sombre and profound as those of the forest.

Novikoff sighed, and then blurted out.

"I prefer you to the moon," thinking to himself, "that's an idiotic remark!"

Lida burst out laughing.

"What a lumpish compliment!" she exclaimed.

"I don't know how to pay compliments," was Novikoff's sullen rejoinder.

"Very well, then, sit still and listen," said Lida, shrugging her shoulders, pettishly.

_But you no longer care, I know, Why should I grieve you with my woe_?

The tones of the piano rang out with silvery clearness through the green, humid garden. The moonlight became more and more intense and the shadows harder. Crossing the gra.s.s, Sanine sat down under a linden-tree and was about to light a cigarette. Then he suddenly stopped and remained motionless, as if spell-bound by the evening calm that the sounds of the piano and of this youthfully sentimental voice in no way disturbed, but rather served to make more complete.

"Lidia Petrovna!" cried Novikoff hurriedly, as if this particular moment must never be lost. "Well?" asked Lida mechanically, as she looked at the garden and the moon above it and the dark boughs that stood out sharply against its silver disc.

"I have long waited--that is--I have been anxious to say something to you," Novikoff stammered out.

Sanine turned his head round to listen.

"What about?" asked Lida, absently.

Sarudine had finished his song and after a pause began to sing again.

He thought that he had a voice of extraordinary beauty, and he much liked to hear it.

Novikoff felt himself growing red, and then pale. It was as if he were going to faint.

"I--look here--Lidia Petrovna--will you be my wife?"

As he stammered out these words he felt all the while that he ought to have said something very different and that his own emotions should have been different also. Before he had got the words out he was certain that the answer would be "no"; and at the same time he had an impression that something utterly silly and ridiculous was about to occur.

Lida asked mechanically, "Whose wife?" Then suddenly, she blushed deeply, and rose, as if intending to speak. But she said nothing and turned aside in confusion. The moonlight fell full on her features.

"I--love you!" stammered Novikoff.

For him, the moon no longer shone; the evening air seemed stifling, the earth, he thought, would open beneath his feet.

"I don't know how to make speeches--but--no matter, I love you very much!"

("Why, very much?" he thought to himself, "as if I were alluding to ice-cream.")

Lida played nervously with a little leaf that had fluttered down into her hands. What she had just heard embarra.s.sed her, being both unexpected and futile; besides, it created a novel feeling of disagreeable restraint between herself and Novikoff whom from her childhood she had always looked upon as a relative, and whom she liked.

"I really don't know what to say! I had never thought about it."

Novikoff felt a dull pain at his heart, as if it would stop beating.

Very pale, he rose and seized his cap.

"Good-bye," he said, not hearing the sound of his own voice. His quivering lips were twisted into a meaningless smile.

"Are you going? Good-bye!" said Lida, laughing nervously and proffering her hand.

Novikoff grasped it hastily, and without putting on his cap strode out across the gra.s.s, into the garden. In the shade he stood still and gripped his head with both hands.

"My G.o.d! I am doomed to such luck as this! Shoot myself? No, that's all nonsense! Shoot myself, eh?" Wild, incoherent thoughts flashed through his brain. He felt that he was the most wretched and humiliated and ridiculous of mortals.

Sanine at first wished to call out to him, but checking the impulse, he merely smiled. To him it was grotesque that Novikoff should tear his hair and almost weep because a woman whose body he desired would not surrender herself to him. At the same time he was rather glad that his pretty sister did not care for Novikoff.

For some moments Lida remained motionless in the same place, and Sanine's curious gaze was riveted on her white silhouette in the moonlight. Sarudine now came from the lighted drawing-room on to the veranda. Sanine distinctly heard the faint jingling of his-spurs. In the drawing-room Tanaroff was playing an old-fashioned, mournful waltz whose languorous cadences floated on the air. Approaching Lida, Sarudine gently and deftly placed his arm round her waist. Sanine could perceive that both figures became merged into one that swayed in the misty light.

"Why so pensive?" murmured Sarudine, with shining eyes, as his lips touched Lida's dainty little ear, Lida was at once joyful and afraid.

Now, as on all occasions when Sarudine embraced her, she felt a strange thrill. She knew that in intelligence and culture he was her inferior, and that she could never be dominated by him; yet at the same time she was aware of something delightful and alarming in letting herself be touched by this strong, comely young man. She seemed to be gazing down into a mysterious, unfathomable abyss, and thinking, "I could hurl myself in, if I chose."

"We shall be seen," she murmured half audibly.

Though not encouraging his embrace, she yet did not shrink from it; such pa.s.sive surrender excited him the more.

"One word, just one!" whispered Sarudine, as he crushed her closer to him, his veins throbbing with desire; "will you come?"

Lida trembled. It was not the first time that he had asked her this question, and each time she had felt strange tremors that deprived her of her will.

"Why?" she asked, in a low voice as she gazed dreamily at the moon.

"Why? That I may have you near me, and see you, and talk to you. Oh!

like this, it's torture! Yes, Lida, you're torturing me! Now, will you come?"

So saying, he strained her to him, pa.s.sionately. His touch as that of glowing iron, sent a thrill through her limbs; it seemed as if she were enveloped in a mist, languorous, dreamy, oppressive. Her lithe, supple frame grew rigid and then swayed towards him, trembling with pleasure and yet with fear. Around her all things had undergone a curious, sudden change. The moon was a moon no longer; it seemed close, close to the trellis-work of the veranda, as if it hung just above the luminous lawn. The garden was not the one that she knew, but another garden, sombre, mysterious, that, suddenly approaching, closed round her. Her brain reeled. She drew back, and with strange languor, freed herself from Sarudine's embrace.