"
There was dead silence in the room. Novikoff smiled a strange, sickly
smile and rubbed his hands. From his trembling lips there issued a
faint cry. Sanine stood over him, looking straight into his eyes. The
wrinkled corners of his mouth showed suppressed anger.
"Well, why don't you speak?" he asked.
Novikoff looked up for a moment, but instantly avoided the other's
glance, his features being still distorted by a vacuous smile.
"Lida has just gone through a terrible ordeal," said Sanine in a low
voice, as if soliloquising. If I had not chanced to overtake her, she
would not be living now, and what yesterday was a healthful, handsome
girl would now be lying in the river-mud, a bloated corpse, devoured by
crabs. The question is not one of her death--we must each of us die
some day--yet how sad to think that with her all the brightness and joy
created for others by her personality would also have perished. Of
course, Lida is not the only one in all the world; but, my God! if
there were no girlish loveliness left, it would be as sad and gloomy as
the grave.
"For my part, I am eager to commit murder when I see a poor girl
brought to ruin in this senseless way.
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