"No, no, there's no help for it now," he thought, in dull despair.
"They all saw it; saw how I was struck in the face, and how I crawled
along on all fours. Oh! the shame of it! Struck like that, in the face!
No, it's too much! I shall never be free or happy again!"
And again through his mind there flashed a new, keen thought.
"After all, have I ever been free? No. That's just why I've come to
grief now, because my life has never been free; because I've never
lived it in my own way. Of my own free will should I ever have wanted
to fight a duel, or to hit him with the whip? Nobody would have struck
me, and everything would have been all right. Who first imagined, and
when, that an insult could only be wiped out with blood? Not I,
certainly. Well, I've wiped it out, or rather, it's been wiped out with
my blood, hasn't it? I don't know what it all means, but I know this,
that I shall have to leave the regiment!"
His thoughts would fain have taken another direction, yet, like birds
with clipped wings, they always fell back again, back to the one
central fact that he had been grossly insulted, and would be obliged to
leave the regiment.
He remembered having once seen a fly that had fallen into syrup
crawling over the floor, dragging its sticky legs and wings along with
the utmost difficulty. It was plain that the wretched insect must die,
though it still struggled, and made frantic efforts to regain its feet.
At the time he had turned away from it in disgust, and now he saw it
again, as in a feverish dream. Then he suddenly thought of a fight that
he had once witnessed between two peasants, when one, with a terrific
blow in the face, felled the other, an elderly, grey-haired man. He got
up, wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve, exclaiming with emphasis,
"What a fool!"
"Yes, I remember seeing that," thought Sarudine, "and then they had
drinks together at the 'Crown.'"
The night drew near to its end. In silence so strange, so oppressive,
it seemed as if Sarudine were the one living, suffering soul left on
earth. On the table the guttering candle was still burning with a
faint, steady, flame. Lost in the gloom of his disordered thoughts
Sarudine stared at it with glittering, feverish eyes.
Amid the wild chaos of impressions and recollections there was one
thing which stood out clearly from all others. It was the sense of his
utter solitude that stabbed his heart like a dagger. Millions of men at
that moment were merrily enjoying life, laughing and joking; some, it
might be, were even talking about him. But he, only he, was alone.
Vainly he sought to recall familiar faces. Yet pale, and strange, and
cold, they appeared to him, and their eyes had a look of curiosity and
malevolent glee. Then, in his dejection, he thought of Lida.