“I don’t know how to make speeches—but—no matter, I love you very much!”
(“Why, very much?” he thought to himself, “as if I were alluding to ice-cream.”)
Lida played nervously with a little leaf that had fluttered down into her hands. What she had just heard embarrassed her, being both unexpected and futile; besides, it created a novel feeling of disagreeable restraint between herself and Novikoff whom from her childhood she had always looked upon as a relative, and whom she liked.
“I really don’t know what to say! I had never thought about it.”
Novikoff felt a dull pain at his heart, as if it would stop beating. Very pale, he rose and seized his cap.
“Good-bye,” he said, not hearing the sound of his own voice. His quivering lips were twisted into a meaningless smile.
“Are you going? Good-bye!” said Lida, laughing nervously and proffering her hand.
Novikoff grasped it hastily, and without putting on his cap strode out across the grass, into the garden. In the shade he stood still and gripped his head with both hands.
“My God! I am doomed to such luck as this! Shoot myself? No, that’s all nonsense! Shoot myself, eh?” Wild, incoherent thoughts flashed through his brain. He felt that he was the most wretched and humiliated and ridiculous of mortals.
Sanine at first wished to call out to him, but checking the impulse, he merely smiled. To him it was grotesque that Novikoff should tear his hair and almost weep because a woman whose body he desired would not surrender herself to him. At the same time he was rather glad that his pretty sister did not care for Novikoff.