Sanine Mikhail Artsybashev (android pdf ebook reader txt) 📖

of life vanished; bravery, passion, beauty, all were dead; duty alone remained, and the dream of a future golden age⁠—golden maybe, for others, coming after. Yes, Christianity has played a sorry part; and the name of Christ⁠ ⁠…”

“Well! I never!” broke in Von Deitz, as he stopped short, waving his long arms in the dusk. “That’s really a bit too much!”

“Yet, have you never thought what a hideous era of bloodshed would have supervened if Christianity had not averted it?” asked Yourii nervously.

“Ha! ha!” replied Sanine, with a disdainful gesture, “at first, under the cloak of Christianity, the arena was drenched with the blood of the martyrs, and then, later, people were massacred and shut up in prisons and madhouses. And now, every day, more blood is spilt than ever could be shed by a universal revolution. The worst of it all is that each betterment in the life of humanity has always been achieved by bloodshed, anarchy and revolt, though men always affect to make humanitarianism and love of one’s neighbour the basis of their lives and actions. The whole thing results in a stupid tragedy; false, hypocritical, neither flesh nor fowl. For my part, I should prefer an immediate world-catastrophe to a dull, vegetable-existence lasting probably another two thousand years.”

Yourii was silent. Strange to say, his thoughts were not fixed upon the speaker’s words, but upon the speaker’s personality. The latter’s absolute assurance he considered offensive, in fact insupportable.

“Would you, please, tell me,” he began, irresistibly impelled to wound Sanine, “why you always talk as if you were teaching little children?”

Von Deitz, feeling uneasy at this speech, uttered something conciliatory, and rattled his spurs.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Sanine sharply, “why are you so angry?”

Yourii felt that his speech was discourteous, and that he ought not to go any farther, yet his wounded self-respect drove him to add:

“Such a tone is really most unpleasant.”

“It is my usual tone,” replied Sanine, partly annoyed, and partly anxious to appease the other.

“Well, it is not always a suitable one,” continued Yourii, raising his voice, “I really fail to see what gives you such assurance.”

“Probably the consciousness of being more intelligent than you are,” replied Sanine, now quite calm.

Yourii stood still, trembling from head to foot.

“Look here!” he exclaimed hoarsely.

“Don’t get angry!” interposed Sanine. “I had no wish to offend you, and only expressed my candid opinion. It is the same opinion that you have of me, and that Von Deitz has of both of us, and so on. It is only natural.”

Sanine spoke in such a frank, friendly way that to show further displeasure would have been absurd. Yourii was silent, and Von Deitz, being still concerned on his behalf, again rattled his spurs and breathed hard.

“At any rate I don’t tell you my opinion to your face,” murmure Yourii.

“No; and that is where you are wrong. I was listening to your discussion just now, and the offensive spirit prompted every word you said. It is merely a question of form. I say what I think, but you don’t say what you think; and that is not in the least interesting. If we were all more sincere, it would be far more amusing for everybody.”

Von Deitz laughed loudly.

“What an original idea!” he exclaimed.

Yourii did not reply. His anger had subsided, and he felt almost pleased, though it irked him to think that he had got the worst of it, and would not admit this.

“Such a state of things might be somewhat too primitive,” added Von Deitz sententiously.

“Then, you had rather that it were complicated and obscure?” asked Sanine.

Von Deitz shrugged his shoulders, lost in thought.

XXV

Leaving the boulevard behind them, they passed along the dreary streets lying outside the town, though they were better lighted than the boulevard. The wood-pavement stood out clearly against the black ground, and above loomed the pale cloud-covered heaven, where here and there stars gleamed.

“Here we are,” said Von Deitz as he opened a low door and disappeared through it. Immediately afterwards they heard the hoarse bark of a dog, and a voice exclaiming, “Lie down, Sultan.” Before them lay a large empty courtyard at the farther side of which they discerned a black mass. It was a steam mill, and its narrow chimney pointed sadly to the sky. Round about it were dark sheds, but no trees, except in a small garden in front of the adjoining house. Through an open window a ray of light touched their green leaves.

“A dismal kind of place,” said Sanine.

“I suppose the mill has been here a long while?” asked Yourii.

“Oh! yes, for ever so long!” replied Von Deitz who, as he passed, looked through the lighted window, and in a tone of satisfaction said, “Oho! Quite a lot of people, already.”

Yourii and Sanine also looked in at the window and saw heads moving in a dim cloud of blue smoke. A broad-shouldered man with curly hair leant over the sill and called out, “Who’s there?”

“Friends!” replied Yourii.

As they went up the steps they pushed against someone who shook hands with them in friendly fashion.

“I was afraid that you wouldn’t come!” said a cheery voice in a strong Jewish accent.

“Soloveitchik⁠—Sanine,” said Von Deitz, introducing the two, and grasping the former’s cold, trembling hand.

Soloveitchik laughed nervously.

“So pleased to meet you!” he said. “I have heard so much about you, and, you know⁠—” He stumbled backwards still holding Sanine’s hand. In doing so he fell against Yourii, and trod on Von Deitz’s foot.

“I beg your pardon, Jakof Adolfovitch!” he exclaimed, as he proceeded to shake Von Deitz’s hand with great energy. Thus it was some time before in the darkness they could find the door. In the anteroom, on rows of nails put up specially for this evening by orderly Soloveitchik, hung hats and caps, while close to the window were dark green bottles containing beer. Even the anteroom was filled with smoke.

In the light Soloveitchik appeared to be a young dark-eyed Jew with curly