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Artzybashev, Mikhail Petrovich, 1878-1927

"Sanine"

Then he said, impressively: "Au revoir!"
She held out her hand. He swiftly bent over it and kissed it. Sina
started back, uttering a faint cry: "What are you doing?"
Though his lips had only just touched her soft little hand, his emotion
was so great that he could only smile feebly as she hurried away, and
soon he heard the click of her garden gate. As he walked homewards his
face wore the same silly smile, while he breathed the pure night air,
and felt strong, and glad of heart.


CHAPTER XXII.
On reaching his room, narrow and stuffy as a prison-cell, Yourii found
life as dreary as ever, and his little love-episode seemed to him
thoroughly commonplace.
"I stole a kiss from her! What bliss! How heroic of me! How exquisitely
romantic! In the moonlight the hero beguiles the fair maid with burning
words and kisses! Bah! what rubbish! In such a cursed little hole as
this one insensibly becomes a shallow fool."
When he lived in a city, Yourii imagined that the country was the real
place for him where he could associate with peasants and share in their
rustic toil beneath a burning sun.


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