Gently, caressingly, the dusk, fragrant with the scent of blossoms,
descended. Sanine sat at a table near the window, striving to read in
the waning light a favourite tale of his. It described the lonely,
tragic death of an old bishop, who, clad in his sacerdotal vestments
and holding a jewelled cross, expired amid the odour of incense.
In the room the temperature was as cool as that outside, for the soft
evening breeze played round Sanine's powerful frame, filling his lungs,
and lightly caressing his hair. Absorbed in his book, he read on, while
his lips moved from time to time, and he seemed like a big boy
devouring some story of adventures among Indians. Yet, the more he
read, the sadder became his thoughts. How much there was in this world
that was senseless and absurd! How dense and uncivilized men were, and
how far ahead of them in ideas he was!
The door opened and some one entered. Sanine looked up. "Aha!" he
exclaimed, as he shut the book, "what's the news?"
Novikoff smiled sadly, as he took the other's hand.
"Oh! nothing," he said, as he approached the window, "It's all just the
same as ever it was."
From where he sat Sanine could only see Novikoff's tall figure
silhouetted against the evening sky, and for a long while he gazed at
him without speaking.
When Sanine first took his friend to see Lida, who now no longer
resembled the proud, high-spirited girl of heretofore, neither she nor
Novikoff said a word to each other about all that lay nearest to their
hearts. He knew that, after having spoken, they would be unhappy, yet
doubly so if they kept silence. What to him was plain and easy they
could only accomplish, he felt sure, after much suffering. "Be it so,"
thought he, "for suffering purifies and ennobles." Now, however, the
propitious moment for them had come.
Novikoff stood at the window, silently watching the sunset. His mood
was a strange one, begotten of grief for what was lost, and of longing
for joy that was near. In this soft twilight he pictured to himself
Lida, sad, and covered with shame. If he had but the courage to do it,
this very moment he would kneel before her, with kisses warm her cold
little hands, and by his great, all-forgiving love rouse her to a new
life. Yet the power to go to her failed him.
Of this Sanine was conscious. He rose slowly, and said, "Lida is in the garden. Shall we go to her?"