"I cannot, no, I cannot!" she faltered, "I dare say you're right, but I
cannot! It is so awful!"
"Well, well, if you can't," said Sanine, as he knelt down, and gently
drew away her hands from her face, "we must contrive to hide it,
somehow. I will see to it that Sarudine has to leave the town, and you
--well, you shall marry Novikoff, and be happy. I know that if you had
never met this dashing young officer, you would have accepted Sascha
Novikoff. I am certain of it." At the mention of Novikoff's name Lida
saw light through the gloom. Because Sarudine had made her unhappy, and
she was convinced that Novikoff would never have done so, for an
instant it seemed to her that all could easily be set right. She would
at once get up, go back, say something or other, and life in all its
radiant beauty would again lie before her. Again she would live, again
she would love, only this time it would be a better life, a deeper,
purer love. Yet immediately afterwards she recollected that this was
impossible, for she had been soiled and degraded by an ignoble,
senseless amour.
A gross word, which she scarcely knew and had never uttered, suddenly
came into her mind. She applied it to herself. It was as if she had
received a box on the ears.
"Great heavens! Am I really a ...? Yes, yes, of course, I am!"
"What did you say?" she murmured, ashamed of her own resonant voice.
"Well, what is it to be?" asked Sanine, as he glanced at her pretty
hair falling in disorder about her white neck flecked by sunlight
breaking through the network of leaves. A sudden fear seized him that
he would not succeed in persuading her, and that this young, beautiful
woman, fitted to bestow such joy upon others, might vanish into the
dark, senseless void. Lida was silent. She strove to repress her
longing to live, which, despite her will, had mastered her whole
trembling frame. After all that had occurred, it seemed to her shameful
not only to live, but to wish to live. Yet her body, strong and full of
vitality, rejected so distorted an idea as if it were poison.
"Why this silence?" asked Sanine.
"Because it is impossible.... It would be a vile thing to do!... I...."
"Don't talk such nonsense!" retorted Sanine impatiently.
Lida looked up at him again, and in her tearful eyes there was a
glimmer of hope.