Volochine owned immense works in St. Petersburg upon which the
existence of thousands of his _employés_ depended.
At the present time, while a strike was in progress, he had turned his
back upon the crowd of hungry, dirty malcontents, and was enjoying a
trip in the provinces. Libertine as he was, he thought of nothing but
women, and in young, fresh, provincial women he displayed an intense,
in fact, an absorbing interest. He pictured them as delightfully shy
and timid, yet sturdy as a woodland mushroom, and their provocative
perfume of youth and purity he scented from afar.
Volochine had clothed his puny little body in virgin white, after
sprinkling himself from head to foot with various essences; and,
although he did not exactly approve of Sarudine’s society, he hailed a
_droschky_ and hastened to the latter’s rooms.
Sarudine was sitting at the window, drinking cold tea.
“What a lovely evening!” he kept saying to himself, as he looked out on
the garden. But his thoughts were elsewhere. He felt ashamed and
afraid.
He was afraid of Lida. Since their interview, he had not set eyes on
her. To him she seemed another Lida now, unlike the one that had
surrendered to his passion.
“Anyhow,” he thought, “the matter is not at an end yet. The child must
be got rid of … or shall I treat the whole thing as a joke? I wonder
what she is doing now?”
He seemed to see before him Lida’s handsome, inscrutable eyes, and her
lips tightly compressed, vindictive, menacing.
“She may be going to pay me out? A girl of that sort isn’t one to be
trifled with. At all costs I shall have to …”
The prospect of a huge scandal vaguely suggested itself, striking
terror to his craven heart.
“After all,” he thought, “what could she possibly do?” Then suddenly it
all seemed quite clear and simple. “Perhaps she’ll drown herself? Let
her go to the deuce! I didn’t force her to do it! They’ll say that she
was my mistress—well, what of that? It only proves that I am a good-
looking fellow. I never said that I would marry her. Upon my word, it’s
too silly!” Sarudine shrugged his shoulders, yet the sense of
oppression was not lessened. “People will talk, I expect, and I shan’t
be able to show myself,” he thought, while his hand trembled slightly
as he held the glass of cold, over-sweetened tea to his lips.
He was as smart and well-groomed and scented as ever, yet it seemed as
if, on his face, his white jacket, and his hands, and even on his
heart, there was a foul stain which became even greater.
“Bah! After a while it will all blow over. And it’s not the first time,
either!” Thus he sought to soothe his conscience, but an inward voice
refused to accept such consolation.
Volochine entered gingerly, his boots creaking loudly, and his
discoloured teeth revealed by a condescending smile. The room was
instantly filled with an odour of musk and of tobacco, quite
overpowering the fresh scents of the garden.
“Ah! how do you do, Pavel Lvovitsch!” cried Sarudine as he hastily
rose.
Volochine shook hands, sat down by the window and proceeded to light a
cigar. He looked so elegant and self-possessed, that Sarudine felt
somewhat envious, and endeavoured to assume an equally careless
demeanour; but ever since Lida had flung the word “brute” in his face,
he had felt ill at ease, as if every one had heard the insult and was
secretly mocking him.
Volochine smiled, and chatted about various trifling matters. Yet he
found it difficult to keep up such superficial conversation. “Woman”
was the theme that he longed to approach, and it underlay all his stale
jokes and stories of the strike at his St. Petersburg factory.
As he lighted another cigar he took the opportunity of looking hard at
Sarudine. Their eyes met, and they instantly understood each other.
Volochine adjusted his _pince-nez_ and smiled a smile that found its
reflection In Sarudine’s face which suddenly acquired a look of lust.
“I don’t expect you waste much of your time, do you?” said Volochine,
with a knowing wink.
“Oh! as for that, well, what else is there to do?” replied Sarudine,
shrugging his shoulders slightly.
Then they both laughed, and for a while were silent. Volochine was
eager to have details of the other’s conquests. A little vein just
below his left knee throbbed convulsively. Sarudine, however, was not
thinking of such piquant details, but of the distressing events of the
last few days. He turned towards the garden and drummed with his
fingers on the window-sill.
Yet Volochine was evidently waiting, and Sarudine felt that he must
keep to the desired theme of conversation.
“Of course, I know,” he began, with an exaggerated air of nonchalance,
“I know that to you men-about-town these country wenches are
extraordinarily attractive. But you’re wrong. They’re fresh and plump,
it’s true, but they’ve no _chic_; they don’t know how to make love
artistically.”
In a moment Volochine was all animation. His eyes sparkled, and there
was a change in the tone of his voice.
“No, that’s quite true. But after a while all that sort of thing is apt
to become boring. Our Petersburg women are not well made. You know what
I mean? They’re just bundles of nerves; they’ve no limbs on them. Now
here …”
“Yes, you’re right,” said Sarudine, growing interested in his turn, as
he twirled his moustache complacently.
“Take off her corset, and the smartest Petersburg woman becomes—Oh! by
the way, have you heard the latest?” said Volochine, interrupting
himself.
“No, I dare say not,” replied Sarudine, leaning forward, eagerly.
“Well,” said the other, “it’s an awfully good story about a Parisian
_cocotte_.” Then, with much wealth of detail, Volochine proceeded to
relate a spicy anecdote that pleased his companion vastly.
“Yes,” said Volochine in conclusion, as he rolled his eyes, “shape’s
everything in a woman. If she hasn’t got that, well, for me she simply
doesn’t exist.”
Sarudine thought of Lida’s beauty, and he shrank from discussing it
with Volochine. However, after a pause, he observed with much
affectation:
“Every one to his taste. What I like most in a woman is the back; that
sinuous line, don’t you know….”
“Yes,” drawled Volochine nervously.
“Some women, especially very young ones, have got …”
The orderly now entered treading clumsily in his heavy boots. He had
come to light the lamp, and during the process of striking matches and
jingling the glass shade, Sarudine and Volochine were silent.
As the flame of the lamp rose, only their glittering eyes and the
glowing cigarette-ends could be seen. When the soldier had gone out,
they returned to their subject, the word “Woman” forming the theme of
talk that became at times grotesque in its obscenity. Sarudine’s
instinctive longing to boast, and to eclipse Volochine led him at last
to speak of the splendid woman who had yielded to his charms, and
gradually to reveal his own secret lasciviousness. Before the eyes of
Volochine, Lida was exhibited as in a state of nudity, her physical
attributes and her passion all being displayed as though she were some
animal for sale at a fair. By their filthy thoughts she was touched and
polluted and held up to ridicule. Their love of woman knew no gratitude
for the enjoyment given to them; they merely strove to humiliate and
insult the sex, to inflict upon it indescribable pain.
The smoke-laden atmosphere of the room had become stifling. Their
bodies at fever heat, exhaled an unwholesome odour, as their eyes
gleamed and their voices sounded shrill and rabid as those of wild
beasts.
Beyond the window lay the calm, clear moonlit night. But for them the
world with all its wealth of colour and sound had vanished; all that
their eyes beheld was a vision of woman in her nude loveliness. Soon
their imagination became so heated that they felt a burning desire to
see Lida, whom now they had dubbed Lidka, by way of being familiar.
Sarudine had the horses harnessed, and they drove to a house situated
on the outskirts of the town.