"Very neat!" exclaimed Ilitsch approvingly.
"You can tell in a minute if a man knows what he's about," said
Ivanoff, with a self-complacent air, as he filled the glasses with the
greenish liquid.
"Now gentlemen," said he, raising his voice as he took up his glass.
"To the repose of the departed, &c.!"
With that they began to eat, and more vodka was consumed. They talked
little, and drank the more. Soon the atmosphere of the little room grew
hot and oppressive. Peter Ilitsch lighted a cigarette, and the air was
filled with the bluish fumes of bad tobacco. The drink and the smoke
and the heat made Yourii feel dizzy. Again he thought of Semenoff.
"There's something dreadful about death," he said.
"Why?" asked Peter Ilitsch. "Death? Ho! ho!! It's absolutely necessary.
Death? Suppose one went on living for ever? Ho! ho!! You mustn't talk
like that! Eternal life, indeed! What would eternal life be, eh?"
Yourii at once tried to imagine what living for ever would be like. He
saw an endless grey stripe that stretched aimlessly away into space, as
though swept onward from one wave to another. All conception of colour,
sound and emotion was blurred and dimmed, being merged and fused in one
grey turbid stream that flowed on placidly, eternally. This was not
life, but everlasting death. The thought of it horrified him.
"Yes, of course," he murmured.
"It appears to have made a great impression upon you," said Ivanoff.
"Upon whom does it not make an impression?" asked Yourii. Ivanoff shook
his head vaguely, and began to tell Ilitsch about Semenoff's last
moments. It was now insufferably close in the room. Yourii watched
Ivanoff, as his red lips sipped the vodka that shone in the lamplight.
Everything seemed to be going round and round.
"A--a--a--a--a!" whispered a voice in his ear, a strange small voice.
"No! death is an awful thing!" he said again, without noticing that he
was replying to the mysterious voice. "You're over-nervous about it,"
observed Ivanoff contemptuously.
"Aren't you?" said Yourii.
"I? N--no! Certainly, I don't want to die, as there's not much fun in
it, and living is far jollier. But, if one has to die, I should like it
to be quickly, without any fuss or nonsense."
"You have not tried yet!" laughed Sanine.
"No; that's quite true!" replied the other.
"Ah! well," continued Yourii, "one has heard all that before. Say what
you will, death is death, horrible in itself, and sufficient to rob a
man of all pleasure in life who thinks of such a violent and inevitable
end to it. What is the meaning of life?"