The sun shone as brightly as in spring, yet in the calm, clear air the
touch of autumn could be felt. Here and there the trees showed brown
and yellow leaves in which the wistful voice of a bird occasionally
broke the silence, while large insects buzzed lazily above their ruined
kingdom of faded grasses and withered flowers where luxuriant weeds now
waxed apace.
Yourii sauntered through the garden. Lost in his thoughts, he gazed at
the sky, at the green and yellow leaves, and the shining water, as if
he were looking on them all for the last time, and must fix them in his
memory so as never to forget them. He felt vague sorrow at his heart,
for it seemed as though with every moment something precious was
passing away from him that could never be recalled; his youth that had
brought him no joy; his place as an active sharer in the great and
useful work upon which all his energies had once been concentrated. Yet
why he should have thus lost ground he could not tell. He was firmly
convinced that he possessed latent powers that should revolutionize the
world, and a mind far broader in its outlook than that of anyone else;
but he could not explain why he had this conviction, and he would have
been ashamed to admit the fact even to his most intimate friend.
"Ah! well," he thought, gazing at the red and yellow reflections of the
foliage in the stream, "perhaps what I do is the wisest and the best.
Death ends it all, however one may have lived or tried to live. Oh!
there comes Lialia," he murmured, as he saw his sister approaching.
"Happy Lialia! She lives like a butterfly, from day to day, wanting
nothing, and troubled by nothing. Oh! if I could live as she does."
Yet this was only just a passing thought, for in reality he would on no
account have wished to exchange his own spiritual tortures for the
feather-brain existence of a Lialia.
"Yourii! Yourii!" she exclaimed in a shrill voice though she was not
more than three paces distant from him. Laughing roguishly, she handed
him a little rose-coloured missive.
Yourii suspected something.
"From whom?" he asked, sharply, "From Sinotschka Karsavina," said Lialia, shaking her finger at him,
significantly.
Yourii blushed deeply. To receive through his sister a little pink,
scented letter like this seemed utterly silly; in fact ridiculous. It
positively annoyed him. Lialia, as she walked beside him, prattled in
sentimental fashion about his attachment to Sina, just as sisters will,
who are intensely interested in their brothers' love-affairs. She said
how fond she was of Sina, and how delighted she would be if they made a
match of it, and got married.