"Come to my place, and we will hold a memorial service for thedeparted," said Ivanoff to Sanine. The latter nodded his acceptance. Onthe way, they bought vodka and hors d'oeuvres, and overtook YouriiSvarogitsch, who was walking slowly along the boulevard, looking muchdepressed.
Semenoff's death had made a confused and painful impression upon himwhich he found it necessary, yet almost impossible, to analyse.
"After all, it is simple enough!" said Yourii to himself, endeavouringto draw a straight, short line in his mind. "Man never existed beforehe was born; that does not seem to be terrible nor incomprehensible.Man's existence ends when he dies. That is equally simple and easy tocomprehend. Death, the complete stoppage of the machine that createsvital force, is perfectly comprehensible; there is nothing terribleabout it. There was once a boy named Youra who went to college andfought with his comrades, who amused himself by chopping off the headsof thistles and lived his own special and interesting life in his ownspecial way. This Youra died, and in his place quite another man walksand thinks, the student, Yourii Svarogitsch. If they were to meet,Youra would not understand Yourii, and might even hate him as apossible tutor ready to cause him no end of annoyance. Therefore,between them there is a gulf, and therefore, if the boy Youra is dead,I am dead myself, though till now I never noticed it. That is how itis. Quite natural and simple, after all! If one reflects, what do welose by dying? Life, at any rate, contains more sadness than happiness.True it has its pleasures and it is hard to lose them, but death ridsus of so many ills, that in the end we gain by it. That's simple, andnot so terrible, is it?" said Yourii, aloud, with a sigh of relief; butsuddenly he started, as another thought seemed to sting him. "No, awhole world, full of life and extraordinarily complicated, suddenlytransformed into nothing? No, that is not the transformation of the boyYoura into Yourii Svarogitsch! That is absurd and revolting, andtherefore terrible and incomprehensible!"
With all his might Yourii strove to form a conception of this statewhich no man finds it possible to support, yet which every mansupports, just as Semenoff had done.
"He did not die of fear, either," thought Yourii, smiling at thestrangeness of such a reflection. "No, he was laughing at us all, withour priest, and our chanting, and tears. How was it that Semenoff couldlaugh, knowing that in a few moments all would be at an end? Was he ahero? No; it was not a question of heroism. Then death is not asterrible as I thought."
While he was musing thus Ivanoff suddenly hailed him in a loud voice.
"Ah! it's you! Where are you going?" asked Yourii, shuddering.
"To say a mass for our departed friend," replied Ivanoff, with brutaljocularity. "You had better come with us. What's the good of beingalways alone?"
Feeling sad and dispirited, Yourii did not find Sanine and Ivanoff asdistasteful to him as usual.
"Very well, I will," he replied, but suddenly recollecting hissuperiority, he thought to himself, "what have I really in common withsuch fellows? Am I to drink their vodka, and talk commonplaces?"
He was on the point of turning back, but he felt such an utter horrorof solitude that he went along with them. Ivanoff and Sanine profferedno remarks, and thus in silence they reached the former's lodging. Itwas already quite dark. At the door, the figure of a man could be dimlyseen. He had a thick stick with a crooked handle.
"Oh! it's Uncle Peter Ilitsch!" exclaimed Ivanoff gleefully.
"Yes! that's he!" replied the figure, in a deep, resonant voice. Youriiremembered that Ivanoff's uncle was an old, drunken church chorister.He had a grey moustache like one of the soldiers at the time ofNicholas the First, and his shabby black coat had a most unpleasantsmell.
"Boum! Boum!" His voice seemed to come out of a barrel, when Ivanoffintroduced him to Yourii, who awkwardly shook hands with him, hardlyknowing what to say to such a person. He recollected, however, that forhim all men should be equal, so he politely gave precedence to the oldsinger as they went in.
Ivanoff's lodging was more like an old lumber-room than a place forhuman habitation, being very dusty and untidy. But when his host hadlighted the lamp, Yourii perceived that the walls were covered withengravings of pictures by Vasnetzoff, and that what had seemed rubbishwere books piled up in heaps. He still felt somewhat ill at ease, and,to hide this, he began to examine the engravings attentively.
"Do you like Vasnetzoff?" asked Ivanoff as, without waiting for ananswer, he left the room to fetch a plate. Sanine told Peter Ilitschthat Semenoff was dead. "God rest his soul!" droned the latter. "Ah!well, it's all over for him now."
Yourii glanced wistfully at him, and felt a sudden sympathy for the oldman.
Ivanoff now brought in bread, salted cucumbers, and glasses, which heplaced on the table that was covered with a newspaper. Then, with aswift, scarcely perceptible movement, he uncorked the bottle, not adrop of its contents being spilt.
"Very neat!" exclaimed Ilitsch approvingly.
"You can tell in a minute if a man knows what he's about," saidIvanoff, with a self-complacent air, as he filled the glasses with thegreenish liquid.
"Now gentlemen," said he, raising his voice as he took up his glass."To the repose of the departed, &c.!"
With that they began to eat, and more vodka was consumed. They talkedlittle, and drank the more. Soon the atmosphere of the little room grewhot and oppressive. Peter Ilitsch lighted a cigarette, and the air wasfilled with the bluish fumes of bad tobacco. The drink and the smokeand the heat made Yourii feel dizzy. Again he thought of Semenoff.
"There's something dreadful about death," he said.
"Why?" asked Peter Ilitsch. "Death? Ho! ho!! It's absolutely necessary.Death? Suppose one went on living for ever? Ho! ho!! You mustn't talklike that! Eternal life, indeed! What would eternal life be, eh?"
Yourii at once tried to imagine what living for ever would be like. Hesaw an endless grey stripe that stretched aimlessly away into space, asthough swept onward from one wave to another. All conception of colour,sound and emotion was blurred and dimmed, being merged and fused in onegrey turbid stream that flowed on placidly, eternally. This was notlife, but everlasting death. The thought of it horrified him.
"Yes, of course," he murmured.
"It appears to have made a great impression upon you," said Ivanoff.
"Upon whom does it not make an impression?" asked Yourii. Ivanoff shookhis head vaguely, and began to tell Ilitsch about Semenoff's lastmoments. It was now insufferably close in the room. Yourii watchedIvanoff, as his red lips sipped the vodka that shone in the lamplight.Everything seemed to be going round and round.
"A--a--a--a--a!" whispered a voice in his ear, a strange small voice.
"No! death is an awful thing!" he said again, without noticing that hewas replying to the mysterious voice. "You're over-nervous about it,"observed Ivanoff contemptuously.
"Aren't you?" said Yourii.
"I? N--no! Certainly, I don't want to die, as there's not much fun init, and living is far jollier. But, if one has to die, I should like itto be quickly, without any fuss or nonsense."
"You have not tried yet!" laughed Sanine.
"No; that's quite true!" replied the other.
"Ah! well," continued Yourii, "one has heard all that before. Say whatyou will, death is death, horrible in itself, and sufficient to rob aman of all pleasure in life who thinks of such a violent and inevitableend to it. What is the meaning of life?"
"It has no meaning," cried Ivanoff irritably.
"No, that is impossible," replied Yourii, "everything is too wisely andcarefully arranged, and--"
"In my opinion," said Sanine, "there's nothing good anywhere."
"How can you say that? What about Nature?"
"Nature! Ha, ha!" Sanine laughed feebly, and waved his hand inderision. "It is customary, I know, to say that Nature is perfect. Thetruth is, that Nature is just as defective as mankind. Without anygreat effort of imagination any of us could present a world a hundredtimes better than this one. Why should we not have perpetual warmth andlight, and a garden ever verdant and ever gay? As to the meaning oflife, of course it has a meaning of some sort, because the aim impliesthe march of things; without an aim all would be chaos, But this aimlies outside the pale of our existence, in the very basis of theuniverse. That is certain. We cannot be the origin nor the end of theuniverse. Our role is a passive, and auxiliary one. By the mere fact ofliving we fulfil our mission. Our life is necessary; thus our death isnecessary also."
"For what?"
"How should I know?" replied Sanine, "and, besides, what do I care? Mylife means my sensations, pleasant or unpleasant; what is outside thoselimits; well, to the deuce with it all! Whatever hypothesis we may liketo invent, it will always remain an hypothesis upon which it would befolly to construct life. Let him who likes worry about it; as for me, Imean to live!"
"Let us all have a drink on the strength of it!" suggested Ivanoff.
"But you believe in God, don't you?" said Ilitsch, looking at Saninewith bleared eyes. "Nowadays nobody believes in anything--not even inthat which is easy of belief."
Sanine laughed. "Yes, I believe in God. As a child I did that, andthere's no need to dispute or to affirm any reasons for doing so. It'sthe most profitable thing, really, for if there is a God, I offer Himsincere faith, and, if there isn't, well, all the better for me."
"But on belief or on unbelief all life is based?" said Yourii.
Sanine shook his head, and smiled complacently.
"No, my life is not based on such things," he said.
"On what, then?" asked Yourii, languidly. "A--a--a! I mustn't drink anymore," he thought to himself, as he drew his hand across his cold,moist brow. If Sanine made any reply he did not hear it. His head wasin a whirl, and for a moment he felt quite overcome.
"I believe that God exists," continued Sanine, "though I am notcertain, absolutely certain. But whether He does or not, I do not knowHim, nor can I tell what He requires of me. How could I possibly knowthis, even though I professed the most ardent faith in Him? God is God,and, not being human, cannot be judged by human standards. His createdworld around us contains all; good and evil, life and death, beauty andugliness--everything, in fact, and thus all sense and all exactdefinition are lost to us, for His sense is not human, nor His ideas ofgood and evil human, either. Our conception of God must always be anidolatrous one, and we shall always give to our fetish the physiognomyand the garb suitable to the climatic conditions of the country inwhich we live. Absurd, isn't it."
"Yes, you're right," grunted Ivanoff, "quite right!"
"Then, what is the good of living?" asked Yourii, as he pushed back hisglass in disgust, "or of dying, either?"
"One thing I know," replied Sanine, "and that is, that I don't want mylife to be a miserable one. Thus, before all things, one must satisfyone's natural desires. Desire is everything. When a man's desirescease, his life ceases, too, and if he kills his desires, then he killshimself."
"But his desires may be evil?"
"Possibly."
"Well, what then."
"Then ... they must just be evil," replied Sanine blandly, as he lookedYourii full in the face with his clear, blue eyes.
Ivanoff raised his eyebrows incredulously and said nothing. Yourii wassilent also. For some reason or other he felt embarrassed by thoseclear, blue eyes, though he tried to keep looking at them.
For a few moments there was complete silence, so that one could plainlyhear a night-moth desperately beating against the window-pane. PeterIlitsch shook his head mournfully, and his drink-besotted visagedrooped towards the stained, dirty newspaper. Sanine smiled again. Thisperpetual smile irritated and yet fascinated Yourii.
"What clear eyes he has!" thought he.
Suddenly Sanine rose, opened the window, and let out the moth. A waveof cool, pleasant air, as from soft wings, swept through the room.
"Yes," said Ivanoff, in answer to his own thought, "there are no twomen alike, so, on the strength of that, let's have another drink."
"No." said Yourii, shaking his head, "I won't have any more."
"Eh--why not?"
"I never drink much."
The vodka and the heat had made his head ache. He longed to get outinto the fresh air.
"I must be going," he said, getting up.
"Where? Come on, have another drink!"
"No really, I ought to--" stammered Yourii, looking for his cap.
"Well, good-bye!"
As Yourii shut the door he heard Sanine saying to Ilitsch, "Of courseyou're not like children; they can't distinguish good from bad; theyare simple and natural; and that is why they--" Then the door wasclosed, and all was still.
High in the heavens shone the moon, and the cool night-air touchedYourii's brow. All seemed beautiful and romantic, and as he walkedthrough the quiet moonlit streets the thought to him was dreadful thatin some dark, silent chamber Semenoff lay on a table, yellow and stiff.Yet, somehow, Yourii could not recall those grievous thoughts that hadrecently oppressed him, and had shrouded the whole world in gloom. Hismood was now of one tranquil sadness, and he felt impelled to gaze atthe moon. As he crossed a white deserted square he suddenly thought ofSanine.
"What sort of man is that?" he asked himself.
Annoyed to think that there was a man whom he, Yourii, could notinstantly define, he felt a certain malicious pleasure in disparaginghim.
"A phrase-maker, that's all he is! Formerly the fellow posed as apessimist, disgusted with life and bent upon airing impossible views ofhis own; now, he's trifling with animalism."
From Sanine Yourii's thoughts reverted to himself. He came to theconclusion that he trifled with nothing but that his thoughts, hissufferings, his whole personality, were original, and quite differentfrom those of other men.
This was most agreeable; yet something seemed to be missing. Once morehe thought of Semenoff. It was grievous to know that he should neverset eyes upon him again, and though he had never felt any affection forSemenoff, he now had become near and dear to him. Tears rose to hiseyes. He pictured the dead student lying in the grave, a mass ofcorruption, and he remembered these words of his:
"You'll be living, and breathing this air, and enjoying this moonlight,and you'll go past my grave where I lie."
"Here, under my feet, like human beings, too," thought Yourii, lookingdown at the dust. "I am trampling on brains, and hearts, and humaneyes! Oh!... And I shall die, too, and others will walk over me,thinking just as I think now. Ah! before it is too late, one must live,one must live! Yes; but live in the right way, so that not a moment ofone's life be lost. Yet how is one to do that?"
The market-place lay white and bare in the moonlight. All was silent inthe town.
Never more shall singer's lute Tidings of him tell.
Yourii hummed this softly to himself. Then he said, aloud: "Howtedious, sad, and dreadful it all is!" as if complaining to some one.The sound of his own voice alarmed him, and he turned round to see ifhe had been overheard. "I am drunk," he thought.
Silent and serene, the night looked down.