Prev | Current Page 391 | Next

Artzybashev, Mikhail Petrovich, 1878-1927

"Sanine"

"
"There you go!" exclaimed Ivanoff irritably, as he shrugged his
shoulders.
"If you come to think of it, duelling is absurd!" said Yourii.
"Of course it is!" chimed in Sina.
To his surprise, Yourii noticed that Sina seemed pleased to take
Sanine's part.
"At any rate, it's...." The right phrase failed him wherewith to
disparage Sanine.
"A brutal thing," suggested Riasantzeff.
Though Yourii thought Riasantzeff was little better than a brute to
himself, he was glad to hear the latter abuse Sanine to Sina when she
defended him. However, as she noticed Yourii's look of annoyance, she
said no more. Secretly, she was much pleased by Sanine's strength and
pluck, and was quite unwilling to accept Riasantzeff's denouncement of
duelling as just. Like Yourii, she did not consider that he was
qualified to lay down the law like that.
"Wonderfully civilized, certainly," sneered Ivanoff, "to shoot a man's
nose off, or run him through the body."
"Is a blow in the face any better?"
"I certainly think that it is. What harm can a fist do? A bruise is
soon healed.


Pages:
379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403