"No," replied Sanine. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh! I merely asked. He's a clever fellow, don't you think?"
Her tone was one of childish timidity, as if she sought to obtain
something from a person far older than herself, who had the right to
caress or to punish her.
Sanine smiled at her, as he said; "Ye ... es!"
From his voice Sina knew that he was smiling, and she blushed deeply.
"No ... but, really he is.... Well, he seems to be very unhappy." Her
lip quivered.
"Most likely. Unhappy he certainly is. Are you sorry for him?"
"Of course I am," said Sina with feigned naïveté.
"It's only natural," said Sanine, "but 'unhappy' means to you something
different from what it really is. You think that a man spiritually
discontented, who is for ever analysing his moods and his actions
counts, not as a deplorably unhappy person, but as one of extraordinary
individuality and power. Such perpetual self-analysis appears to you a
fine trait which entitles that man to think himself better than all
others, and deserving not merely of compassion, but of love and
esteem."
"Well, what else is it, if not that?" asked Sina ingenuously.
She had never talked so much to Sanine before. That he was an original,
she knew by hearsay; and she now felt agreeably perturbed at
encountering so novel and interesting a personality.
Sanine laughed.
"There was a time when man lived the narrow life of a brute, not
holding himself responsible for his actions nor his feelings. This was
followed by the period of conscious life, and at its outset man was
wont to overestimate his own sentiments and needs and desires. Here, at
this stage, stands Svarogitsch. He is the last of the Mohicans, the
final representative of an epoch of human evolution which has
disappeared for evermore. He has absorbed, as it were, all the essences
of that epoch, which have poisoned his very soul. He does not really
live his life; each act, each thought is questioned. 'Have I done
right?' 'Have I done wrong?' In his case this becomes almost absurd. In
politics he is not sure whether it is not beneath his dignity to rank
himself with others, yet, if he retires from politics, he wonders if it
is not humiliating to stand aloof. There are many such persons. If
Yourii Svarogitsch forms an exception, it is solely on account of his
superior intelligence."
"I do not quite understand you," began Sina timidly. "You speak of
Yourii Nicolaijevitsch as if he himself were to blame for not being
other than what he is. If life fails to satisfy a man, then that man
stands above life."