Thereupon a lengthy and apparently interminable discussion ensued. The
Polytechnic student, Ivanoff, and Novikoff all began to argue at once,
and through clouds of tobacco-smoke hot, angry faces could be seen,
while words and phrases were hopelessly blent in a bewildering chaos
devoid at last of all meaning.
Dubova gazed at the lamp, listening and dreaming. Sina Karsavina paid
no attention, but opened the window facing the garden, and, folding her
arms, leaned over the sill and looked out at the night. At first she
could distinguish nothing, but gradually out of the gloom the dark
trees emerged, and she saw the light on the garden-fence and the grass.
A soft, refreshing breeze fanned her shoulders and lightly touched her
hair.
Looking upwards, Sina could watch the swift procession of the clouds.
She thought of Yourii and of her love. Her mood, if pleasurably
pensive, was yet a little sad. It was so good to rest there, exposed to
the cool night wind, and listen with all her heart to the voice of one
man which to her ears sounded clearer and more masterful than the rest.
Meanwhile the din grew greater, and it was evident that each person
thought himself more cultivated and intelligent than his neighbours and
was striving to convert them. Matters at last became so unpleasant that
the most peaceable among them lost their tempers.
"If you judge like that," shouted Yourii, his eyes flashing, for he was
anxious not to yield in the presence of Sina, though she could only
hear his voice, "then we must go back to the origin of all ideas...."
"What ought we, then, in your opinion to read?" said the hostile
Goschienko.
"What you ought to read? Why, Confucius, the Gospels, Ecclesiastes ..."
"The Psalms and the Apocrypha," was the Polytechnic student's mocking
interruption.
Goschienko laughed maliciously, oblivious of the fact himself had never
read one of these works.
"Of what good would that be?" asked Schafroff in a tone of
disappointment.
"It's like they do in church!" tittered Pistzoff.
Yourii's face flushed.
"I am not joking. If you wish to be logical, then ..."
"Ah! but what did you say to me just now about Christ?" cried Von Deitz
exultantly.
"What did I say?...If one wishes to study life, and to form some
definite conception of the mutual relationship of man to man, surely
the best way is to get a thorough knowledge of the Titanic work of
those who, representing the best models of humanity, devoted their
lives to the solution of the simplest and most complex problems with
regard to human relationships."