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Artzybashev, Mikhail Petrovich, 1878-1927

"Sanine"

... And then the harm that he does to you will not make you
grieve."
Lida looked up at him with beautiful tear-stained eyes.
"Do you expect nothing good from your fellow-men, either?"
"Of course not," replied Sanine, "I live alone."


CHAPTER XXIX.
On the following day Dounika, bare-headed and barefooted, came running
to Sanine who was gardening.
"Vladimir Petrovitch," she exclaimed, and her silly face had a scared
look, "the officers have come, and they wish to speak to you." She
repeated the words like a lesson that she had learnt by heart.
Sanine was not surprised. He had been expecting a challenge from
Sarudine.
"Are they very anxious to see me?" he asked in a jocular tone.
Dounika, however, must have had an inkling of something dreadful, for
instead of hiding her face she gazed at Sanine in sympathetic
bewilderment.
Sanine propped his spade against a tree, tightened his belt and walked
towards the house with his usual jaunty step.
'What fools they are! What absolute idiots!' he said to himself, as he
thought of Sarudine and his seconds.


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