"Do you really need one? If I desire, and am able, to do something, I
do it. That's my programme!"
"A fine one indeed!" exclaimed Schafroff hotly, Yourii merely shrugged
his shoulders and made no reply.
For a while they all went on drinking in silence. Then Yourii turned to
Sanine and proceeded to expound his views concerning the Supreme Good.
He intended Ivanoff to hear what he said, though he did not look at
him. Schafroff listened with reverence and enthusiasm. While Ivanoff
who had partly turned his back to Yourii received each new statement
with a mocking "We've heard all that before!"
At last Sanine languidly interposed.
"Oh! do stop all this," he said. "Don't you find it terribly boring?
Every man is entitled to his own opinion, surely?"
He slowly lit a cigarette and went out into the courtyard. To his
heated body the calm, blue night was deliciously soothing. Behind the
wood the moon rose upward, like a globe of gold, shedding soft, strange
light over the dark world. At the back of the orchard with its odour of
apples and plums the other white-walled hospice could be dimly seen,
and one of the lighted windows seemed to peer down at Sanine through
its fence of tender leaves. Suddenly a sound was heard of naked feet
pattering on the grass, and Sanine saw the figure of a boy emerge from
the gloom.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I want to see Mademoiselle Karsavina, the schoolteacher," replied the
bare-footed urchin, in a shrill voice.
"Why?"
To Sanine the name instantly recalled a vision of Sina, standing at the
water's edge in all her nude, sunlit loveliness.
"I have got a letter for her," said the boy.
"Aha! She must be at the hospice over the way, as she is not here. You
had better go there."
The lad crept away, barefoot, like some little animal, disappearing so
quickly in the darkness that it seemed as if he had hidden himself
behind a bush.
Sanine slowly followed, breathing to the full the soft, honey-sweet air
of the garden.
He went close up to the other hospice, so that the light from the
window as he stood under it fell full upon his calm, pensive face, and
illuminated large, heavy pears hanging on the dark orchard trees. By
standing on tip-toe Sanine was able to pluck one, and, just as he did
so he caught sight of Sina at the window.
He saw her in profile, clad in her night-dress. The light on her soft,
round shoulders gave them a lustre as of satin. She was lost in her
thoughts, that seemingly made her joyous yet ashamed, for her eyelids
quivered, and on her lips there was a smile. To Sanine it was like the
ecstatic smile of a maiden ripe and ready for a long, entrancing kiss.
Riveted to the spot, he stood there and gazed.