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Read Ebook: Sanine by Artsybashev M Mikhail Cannan Gilbert Author Of Introduction Etc Pinkerton Percy Translator
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Ebook has 3020 lines and 96949 words, and 61 pages
"Do you suppose things will go on like this, later on?" she said, with lips compressed, and feigning intense interest in the boiling jam.
"What do you mean by 'later on'?" asked Sanine, and then sneezed.
Maria Ivanovna thought that he had sneezed on purpose to annoy her, and, absurd though such a notion was, looked cross.
"How nice it is to be here, with you!" said Sanine, dreamily.
"Yes, it's not so bad," she answered, drily. She was secretly pleased at her son's praise of the house and garden that to her were as lifelong kinsfolk.
Sanine looked at her, and then said, thoughtfully:
"If you didn't bother me with all sorts of silly things, it would be nicer still."
The bland tone in which these words were spoken seemed at variance with their meaning, so that Maria Ivanovna did not know whether to be vexed or amused.
"To look at you, and then to think that, as a child, you were always rather odd," said she, sadly, "and now--"
"And now?" exclaimed Sanine, gleefully, as if he expected to hear something specially pleasant and interesting.
"Now you are more crazy than ever!" said Maria Ivanovna sharply, shaking her spoon.
"Well, all the better!" said Sanine, laughing. After a pause, he added, "Ah! here's Novikoff!"
Out of the house came a tall, fair, good-looking man. His red silk shirt, fitting tight to his well-proportioned frame, looked brilliant in the sun; his pale blue eyes had a lazy, good-natured expression.
"There you go! Always quarrelling!" said he, in a languid, friendly tone. "And in Heaven's name, what about?"
"Well, the fact is, mother thinks that a Grecian nose would suit me better, while I am quite satisfied with the one that I have got."
Sanine looked down his nose and, laughing, grasped the other's big, soft hand.
"So, I should say!" exclaimed Maria Ivanovna, pettishly.
Novikoff laughed merrily; and from the green thicket, came a gentle echo in reply, as if some one yonder heartily; shared his mirth.
"Ah! I know what it is! Worrying about your future."
"What, you, too?" exclaimed Sanine, in comic alarm.
"It just serves you right."
"Ah!" cried Sanine. "If it's a case of two to one, I had better clear out."
"No, it is I that will soon have to clear out," said Maria Ivanovna with sudden irritation at which she herself was vexed. Hastily removing her saucepan of jam, she hurried into the house, without looking back. The terrier jumped up, and with ears erect watched her go. Then it rubbed its nose with its front paw, gave another questioning glance at the house and ran off into the garden.
"Have you got any cigarettes?" asked Sanine, delighted at his mother's departure.
Novikoff with a lazy movement of his large body produced a cigarette- case.
"You ought not to tease her so," said he, in a voice of gentle reproof. "She's an old lady."
"How have I teased her?"
"Well, you see--"
"What do you mean by 'well, you see?' It is she who is always after me. I have never asked anything of anybody, and therefore people ought to leave me alone."
Both remained silent.
"Well, how goes it, doctor?" asked Sanine, as he watched the tobacco- smoke rising in fantastic curves above his head.
Novikoff, who was thinking of something else, did not answer at once.
"Badly."
"In what way?"
"Oh! in every way. Everything is so dull and this little town bores me to death. There's nothing to do."
"Nothing to do? Why it was you that complained of not having time to breathe!"
"That is not what I mean. One can't be always seeing patients, seeing patients. There is another life besides that."
"And who prevents you from living that other life?"
"That is rather a complicated question."
"In what way is it complicated? You are a young, good-looking, healthy man; what more do you want?"
"In my opinion that is not enough," replied Novikoff, with mild irony.
"Really!" laughed Sanine. "Well, I think it is a very great deal."
"But not enough for me," said Novikoff, laughing in his turn. It was plain that Sanine's remark about his health and good looks had pleased him, and yet it had made him feel shy as a girl.
"There's one thing that you want," said Sanine, pensively.
"And what is that?"
"A just conception of life. The monotony of your existence oppresses you; and yet, if some one advised you to give it all up, and go straight away into the wide world, you would be afraid to do so."
"And as what should I go? As a beggar? H .. m!"
"Yes, as a beggar, even! When I look at you, I think: there is a man who in order to give the Russian Empire a constitution would let himself be shut up in Schlusselburg for the rest of his life, losing all his rights, and his liberty as well. After all, what is a constitution to him? But when it is a question of altering his own tedious mode of life, and of going elsewhere to find new interests, he at once asks, 'how should I get a living? Strong and healthy as I am, should I not come to grief if I had not got my fixed salary, and consequently cream in my tea, my silk shirts, stand-up collars, and all the rest of it?' It's funny, upon my word it is!"
"I cannot see anything funny in it at all. In the first case, it is the question of a cause, an idea, whereas in the other--"
"Well?"
"Oh! I don't know how to express myself!" And Novikoff snapped his fingers.
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