"Women are the very devil!" he thought.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked testily, and his face flushed.
As if the question had brought something to her mind, she suddenly
covered her face with both hands and burst into tears. She wept just as
peasant-women weep, sobbing loudly, her face buried in her hands, her
body being bent forward, while her dishevelled hair drooped over her
wet, distorted countenance. Sarudine was utterly nonplussed. He smiled,
though yet afraid that this might give offence, and tried to pull away
her hands from her face. Lida stubbornly resisted, weeping all the
while.
"Oh! my God!" he exclaimed. He longed to shout at her, to wrench her
hands aside, to call her hard names, "What are you whining for like this? You've gone wrong with me, worse
luck, and there it is! Why all this weeping just to-day? For heaven's
sake, stop!" Speaking thus roughly, he caught hold of her hand.
The jerk caused her head to oscillate to and fro. She suddenly stopped
crying, and removed her hands from her tear-stained face, looking up at
him in childish fear. A crazy thought flashed through her mind that
anybody might strike her now. But Sarudine's manner again softened, and
he said in a consoling voice: "Come, my Lidotschka, don't cry any more! You're to blame, as well! Why
make a scene? You've lost a lot, I know; but, still, we had so much
happiness, too, didn't we? And we must just forget...." Lida began to
sob once more.
"Oh! stop it, do!" he shouted. Then he walked across the room,
nervously pulling his moustache, and his lips quivered.
In the room it was quite still. Outside the window the slender boughs
of a tree swayed gently, as if a bird had just perched thereon.
Sarudine, endeavouring to check himself, approached Lida, and gently
placed his arm round her waist. But she instantly broke away from him
and in so doing struck him violently on the chin, so that his teeth
rattled.
"Devil take it!" he exclaimed angrily. It hurt him considerably, and
the droll sound of his rattling teeth annoyed him even more. Lida had
not heard this, yet instinctively she felt that Sarudine's position was
a ridiculous one, and with feminine cruelty she took advantage of it.
"What words to use!" she said, imitating him.
"It's enough to make any one furious," replied Sarudine peevishly.
"If only I knew what was the matter!"
"You mean to say that you still don't know?" said Lida in a cutting
tone.