After waiting a while at the entrance, and making sundry jokes at the
expense of Sina and Yourii, the others wandered along the river-bank.
The men lit cigarettes and threw the matches into the water, watching
these make large circles on the surface of the stream. Lida, with arms
a-kimbo, tripped along, singing softly as she went, and her pretty
little feet in dainty yellow shoes now and again executed an impromptu
dance. Lialia picked flowers, which she flung at Riasantzeff, caressing
him with her eyes.
“What do you say to a drink?” Ivanoff asked Sanine.
“Splendid idea!” replied the other.
Getting into the boat, they uncorked several bottles of beer and
proceeded to drink.
“Shocking intemperance!” cried Lialia, pelting them with tufts of
grass.
“First-rate stuff!” said Ivanoff, smacking his lips.
Sanine laughed.
“I have often wondered why people are so dead against alcohol,” he said
jestingly. “In my opinion only a drunken man lives his life as it ought
to be lived.”
“That is, like a brute!” replied Novikoff from the bank.
“Very likely,” said Sanine, “but at any rate a drunken man only does
just that which he wants to do. If he has a mind to sing, he sings; if
he wants to dance, he dances; and is not ashamed to be merry and
jolly.”
“And he fights too, sometimes,” remarked Riasantzeff.
“Yes, so he does. That is, when men don’t understand how to drink.”
“And do you like fighting when you are drunk?” asked Novikoff.
“No,” replied Sanine, “I’d rather fight when I am sober, but when I’m
drunk I’m the most good-natured person imaginable, for I have forgotten
so much that is mean and vile.”
“Everybody is not like that,” said Riasantzeff.
“I’m sorry for them, that’s all,” replied Sanine. “Besides, what others
are like does not interest me in the least.”
“One can hardly say that,” observed Novikoff.
“Why not, if it is the truth?”
“A fine truth, indeed!” exclaimed Lialia, shaking her head.
“The finest I know, anyhow,” replied Ivanoff for Sanine.
Lida, who had been singing loudly, suddenly stopped, looking vexed.
“They don’t seem in any hurry,” she said.
“Why should they hurry?” replied Ivanoff, “It is a great mistake to do
anything in a hurry.”
“And Sina, I suppose she is the heroine _sans peur et sans reproche_?”
said Lida ironically.
Tanaroff’s thoughts were too much for him at this juncture. He burst
out laughing, and then looked thoroughly sheepish. Lida, her hands on
her hips and swaying gracefully to and fro, turned to look at him.
“I dare say they are enjoying themselves,” she observed with a shrug of
the shoulders.
“Hark!” said Riasantzeff, as the sound of firing reached them.
“That was a shot,” exclaimed Schafroff.
“What’s the meaning of it?” cried Lialia, as she nervously clung to her
lover’s arm.
“Don’t be frightened! If it is a wolf, at this time of year they are
tame, and would never attack two people.” Thus Riasantzeff sought to
reassure her, while secretly annoyed at Yourii’s childish freak.
“Tomfoolery!” growled Schafroff, who was equally vexed.
“They are coming, they are coming! Don’t worry!” said Lida
contemptuously.
A sound of footsteps could now be heard, and soon Sina and Yourii
emerged from the darkness.
Yourii blew out the light and smiled uneasily, as he was not sure of
his reception. He was covered with yellow clay, and Sina’s shoulder
bore traces of this, for she had rubbed against the side of the cavern.
“Well?” asked Semenoff languidly.
“It was quite interesting in there,” said Yourii half apologetically.
“Only the passage does not lead very far. It has been filled up. We saw
some rotten planks lying about.”
“Did you hear us fire?” asked Sina, and her eyes sparkled.
“My friends,” shouted Ivanoff, interrupting, “we have drunk all the
beer, and our souls are abundantly refreshed. Let us be going.”
By the time that the boat reached a broader part of the stream the moon
had already risen. It was a strangely calm, clear evening. Above and
below, in the heaven as in the river, the golden stars gleamed. It was
as if the boat was suspended between two fathomless spaces. The dark
woods at the edge of the stream had a look of mystery. A nightingale
sang, and all listened in silence, not believing it to be a bird, but
rather some joyous dreamer in the gloom. Removing her large straw hat,
Sina Karsavina now began to sing a Russian popular air, sweet and sad
like all Russian songs. Her voice, a high soprano, though not powerful,
was sympathetic in quality.
Ivanoff muttered, “That’s sweet!” and Sanine exclaimed “Charming!” When
she had finished they all clapped their hands and the sound was echoed
strangely in the dark woods on either side.
“Sing something else, Sinotschka!” cried Lialia; “or, better still,
recite one of your own poems.”
“So you’re a poetess, too?” asked Ivanoff. “How many gifts does the
good God bestow upon his creatures!”
“Is that a bad thing?” asked Sina in confusion.
“No, it’s a very good thing,” replied Sanine.
“If a girl’s got youth and good looks, what does she want with poetry,
I should like to know?” observed Ivanoff.
“Never mind! Recite something, Sinotschka, do!” cried Lialia, amorous
and tender.
Sina smiled, and looked away self-consciously before she began to
recite in her clear, musical voice the following lines:
Oh! love, my own true love,
To thee I’ll never tell it,
Never to thee I’ll tell my burning love!
But I will close these amorous eyes,
And they shall guard my secret well.
Only by days of yearning is it known.
The calm blue nights, the golden stars,
The dreaming woods that whisper in the night,
These, yes, they know it, but are dumb;
They will not show the mystery of my great love.
Once more there was great enthusiasm, and they all loudly applauded
Sina, not because her little poem was a good one, but because it was
expressive of their mood, and because they were all longing for love
and love’s delicious sorrow.
“O Night, O Day! O lustrous eyes of Sina, I pray you tell me that it is
I, the happy man!” cried Ivanoff ecstatically in a deep bass voice
which startled them all.
“Well, I can assure you that it is not you,” replied Semenoff.
“Ah! woe is me!” wailed Ivanoff; and everybody laughed.
“Are my verses bad?” Sina asked Yourii.
He did not think that they had much originality, for they reminded him
of hundreds of similar effusions. But Sina was so pretty and looked at
him with those dark eyes of hers in such a pleading way that he gravely
replied:
“I thought them quite charming and melodious.”
Sina smiled, surprised that such praise could please her so much.
“Ah! you don’t know my Sinotschka yet!” said Lialia, “she is all that
is beautiful and melodious.”
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Ivanoff.
“Yes, indeed I do!” persisted Lialia. “Her voice is beautiful and
melodious, and so are her poems; she herself is a beauty; her name,
even, is beautiful and melodious.”
“Oh! my goodness! What more can you say than that!” cried Ivanoff. “But
I am quite of your opinion.”
At all these compliments Sina blushed with pleasure and confusion.
“It is time to go home,” said Lida abruptly. She did not like to hear
Sina praised, for she considered herself far prettier, cleverer, and
more interesting.
“Are you going to sing something?” asked Sanine.
“No,” she replied, “I am not in voice.”
“It really is time to be going,” observed Riasantzeff, for he
remembered that early next morning he must be in the dissecting-room of
the hospital. All the others wished that they could have stayed for a
while. On their homeward way they were silent, feeling tired and
contented. As before, though unseen, the tall stems of the grasses bent
beneath the carriage-wheels, and the dust soon settled on the white
road again. The bare grey fields looked vast and limitless in the faint
light of the moon.