“What’s the matter, now? You behave as if I had trodden on your foot,” laughed Sanine. Taking hold of her round, soft shoulders, which quivered at his touch, he tenderly drew her back to her former place by the hedge, and she obediently submitted.
“Come now, what is it that distresses you so?” he said. “Is it because I know all? Or do you think your misconduct with Sarudine so dreadful that you are afraid to acknowledge it? I really don’t understand you. But, if Sarudine won’t marry you, well—that is a thing to be thankful for. You know now, and you must have known before, what a base, common fellow he really is, in spite of his good looks and his fitness for amours. All that he has is beauty, and you have now had your fill of that.”
“He of mine, not I of his!” she faltered. “Ah! well yes, perhaps I had! Oh! my God, what shall I do?”
“And now you are pregnant….”
Lida shut her eyes and bowed her head.
“Of course, it’s a bad business,” continued Sanine, gently. “In the first place, giving birth to children is a nasty, painful affair; in the second place, and what really matters, people would persecute you incessantly. After all, Lidotschka, my Lidotschka,” he said with a sudden access of affection, “you’ve not done harm to anybody; and, if you were to bring a dozen babies into the world, the only person to suffer thereby would be yourself.”
Sanine paused to reflect, as he folded his arms across his chest and bit the ends of his moustache.
“I could tell you what you ought to do, but you are too weak and too foolish to follow my advice. You are not plucky enough. Anyhow, it is not worth while to commit suicide. Look at the sun shining, at the calm, flowing stream. Once dead, remember, every one would know what your condition had been. Of what good, then, would that be to you? It is not because you are pregnant that you want to die, but because you are afraid of what other folk will say. The terrible part of your trouble lies, not in the actual trouble itself, but because you put it between yourself and your life which, as you think, ought to end. But, in reality, that will not alter life a jot. You do not fear folk who are remote, but those who are close to you, especially those who love you and who regard your surrender as utterly shocking because it was made in a wood, or a meadow, instead of in a lawful marriage-bed. They will not be slow to punish you for your offence, so, of what good are they to you? They are stupid, cruel, brainless people. Why should you die because of stupid, cruel, brainless people?”
Lida looked up at him with her great questioning eyes in which Sanine could detect a spark of comprehension.
“But what am I to do? Tell me, what … what …” she murmured huskily.