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Updated: June 5, 2025
"How is it that you are here?" asked Riasantzeff. "Oh! Kousma Prokorovitch and I are old friends," explained Sanine, smiling the more. Kousma laughed, showing the yellow stumps of his decayed teeth as he slapped Sanine's knee good-naturedly with his rough hand. "Yes, yes," he said. "Sit down here, Anatole Pavlovitch, and taste this melon. And you, my young master, what is your name?"
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.
When he got home he spent nearly two hours examining his gun, fingering the lock, and taking aim at the lamp. He then carefully greased his old shooting-boots. On the following day, towards evening, Riasantzeff, fresh, hearty as ever, drove up in a droschky with a smart bay to fetch Yourii. "Are you ready?" he called out to him through the open window.
As she went towards the other room, Lialia, doubting and distressed, felt as if she were frozen. It seemed as though she were wandering in a dark wood. She glanced at a mirror, and saw the reflection of her own rueful countenance. "He shall just see me looking like this!" she thought. Riasantzeff was standing in the dining-room, saying in his remarkably pleasant voice to Nicolai Yegorovitch;
Yet now that her brother had spoken thus, in a tone of censure and contempt, she seemed to stand on the verge of a precipice; that of which they talked was horrible, and indeed irreparable, her happiness was at an end; of her love for Riasantzeff there could be no thought now. Almost in tears himself, Yourii sought to comfort her, as he kissed her and stroked her hair.
Outside the town they overtook another carriage containing Lialia, Yourii, Riasantzeff, Novikoff, Ivanoff and Semenoff. They were cramped and uncomfortable, yet all were merry and in high spirits. Only Yourii, after last night's talk, was puzzled by Semenoff's behaviour. He could not understand how the latter could laugh and joke like the others.
Lialia understood this movement of her father's. She was afraid of scenes, and tried to change the conversation. "How foolish of me," she thought, "not to have remembered to tell Anatole!" But Riasantzeff did not know the real facts, and, replying to Lialia's invitation to have some tea, he again began to question Yourii. "And what do you think of doing now?"
And Riasantzeff would have liked to answer: "Yes, I love your sister deeply; who could do anything else but love her? Look how pure and sweet, and charming she is; how fond she is of me; and what a pretty dimple she's got!" But instead of all this, Yourii said nothing, and Riasantzeff asked: "Have you been expelled for long?" "For five years," was Yourii's answer.
Riasantzeff said to Yourii: "Old Kousma's a philosopher, eh?" Seated behind, Yourii looked at Riasantzeff's Deck, and roused from his own melancholy thoughts, endeavoured to understand what he said. "Oh!... Yes!" he replied hesitatingly. "I didn't know that Sanine was such a gay dog," laughed Riasantzeff.
Yourii watched him with flashing eyes, being hardly able to control himself and ready on the slightest chance to open the quarrel. Lialia was almost in tears. She glanced imploringly from her brother to her father. Riasantzeff at last understood the situation, and he felt so sorry for Lialia, that, clumsily enough, he turned the talk into another channel. Slowly, tediously, the evening passed.
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