Lunev pressed his hot hand and looked at him silently, finding no words
to bid his comrade farewell; he wanted to say something, wanted so
strongly and so much that his heart pained him.
"Why do you look at me like that?" asked Jakov, smiling.
"Forgive me, brother," said Lunev slowly and heavily, lowering his eyes.
"What then?"
"Just that--forgive."
"Am I a priest then?" said Jakov, smiling gently. "But wait, wait a
minute. I forgot what I wanted to say to you. Mashutka--you know?"
"What?"
"She too--have you heard? She has a bad time too."
"Yes. I heard."
"You see, we all have the same fate. You too. I feel sure. Your heart
is sad--isn't it?"
He spoke with a dull smile. The tone of his voice, and every word of
his conversation, everything about him seemed bloodless, colourless;
Lunev let go his hand--and it fell slackly down.
"Well, Jasha--forgive me, anyway."
"God forgives! You'll come again?"
Ilya went out without replying. Once in the street his heart felt
lighter and less weary. He saw that Jakov must soon die, and the
knowledge irritated him vaguely. He did not exactly pity Jakov, because
he could not imagine how this gentle, quiet youth could live in this
world. Long ago he had come to regard his friend as one who was
ordained to depart from the riot of life. But what irritated him was
the thought--Why do people torture this harmless man? Why do they drive
him out of the world before his time? And from this thought his hostile
feeling against life now became almost the most deeply rooted of his
sensations, grew and strengthened. That night he could not sleep. In
spite of the open window the room was close.
He went out into the courtyard and lay down on the ground under the
elm-tree by the fence. Lying on his back, he looked up into the clear
sky, and the more intently he gazed the more stars he could see. The
Milky Way stretched across the heavens from one end to the other, like
a silver tissue, and to look up at it through the branches of the tree
was at once pleasant and saddening. The sky where no one lives glitters
with stars, and the earth--What is there to adorn it? Ilya blinked his
eyes, the branches seemed to mount up higher and higher; against the
blue velvet of the arch of heaven sown with sparkling stars, the black
outlines of the leaves looked like hands stretched up in the attempt
to scale the heights. Ilya thought involuntarily of his friend's "blue
dreams," and before his mind appeared the image of Jakov--blue, light,
and transparent, his kind eyes shining like stars. There--that was a
man, and he was martyred because he lived peaceably. But the tormentors
live on as their hearts desire, and will live long.