"Tell me," muttered Soloveitchik, "tell me what you think. Suppose a
man can't see his way clear, but is always thinking and worrying, as
everything only perplexes and terrifies him--tell me, wouldn't it be
better for him to die?"
"Well," replied Sanine, who clearly read the other's thoughts, "perhaps
death in that case would be better. Thinking and worrying are of no
avail. He only ought to live who finds joy in living; but for him who
suffers, death is best."
"That is what I thought, too," exclaimed Soloveitchik, and he excitedly
grasped Sanine's hand. His face looked ghastly in the gloom; his eyes
were like two black holes.
"You are a dead man," said Sanine with inward apprehension, as he rose
to go; "and for a dead man the best place is the grave. Good-bye."
Soloveitchik apparently did not hear him, but sat there motionless.
Sanine waited for a while and then slowly walked away. At the gate he
stopped to listen, but could hear nothing. Soloveitchik's figure looked
blurred and indistinct in the darkness. Sanine, as if in response to a
strange presentiment, said to himself: "After all, it comes to the same thing whether he lives on like this or
dies. If it's not to-day, then it will be to-morrow." He turned sharply
round; the gate creaked on its hinges, and he found himself in the
street.
On reaching the boulevard he heard, at a distance, some one running
along and sobbing as if in great distress. Sanine stood still. Out of
the gloom a figure emerged, and rapidly approached him. Again Sanine
felt a sinister presentiment.
"What's the matter?" he called out.
The figure stopped for a moment, and Sanine was confronted by a soldier
whose dull face showed great distress.
"What has happened?" exclaimed Sanine.
The soldier murmured something and ran on, wailing as he went. As a
phantom he vanished in the night.
"That was Sarudine's servant," thought Sanine, and then it flashed
across him: "Sarudine has shot himself!"
For a moment he peered into the darkness, and his brow grew cold.
Between the dread mystery of night and the soul of this stalwart man a
conflict, brief yet terrible, was in progress.
The town was asleep; the glimmering roadways lay bare and white beneath
the sombre trees; the windows were like dull, watchful eyes glaring at
the gloom. Sanine tossed his head and smiled, as he looked calmly in
front of him.
"I am not guilty," he said aloud. "One more or less--"