“Life is an incurable malady.” It was Schafroff who spoke.
“And you are an incurable fool!” shouted Ivanoff, in reply, “Can’t you stop your eternal phrase-making?”
On entering, Yourii received a boisterous welcome. Schafroff jumped up, nearly dragging the cloth off the table as he seized Yourii’s hand, and murmured effusively:
“How awfully good of you to come! I am so glad! Really, it’s most kind of you! Thank you ever so much!”
Yourii as he took a seat between Sanine and Peter Ilitsch, proceeded to look about him. The balcony was brightly lighted by two lamps and a lantern, and outside this circle of light there seemed to be a black, impenetrable wall. Yet Yourii could still perceive the greenish lights in the sky, the silhouette of the mountain, the tops of the nearest trees, and, far below, the glimmering surface of the river. From the wood moths and chafers flew to the lamp, and, fluttering round it, fell on to the table, slowly dying there a fiery death. Yourii, as he pitied their fate, thought to himself:
“We, too, like insects, rush to the flame, and flutter round every luminous idea only to perish miserably at the last. We imagine that the idea is the expression of the world’s will, whereas it is nothing but the consuming fire within our brain.”
“Now then, drink up!” said Sanine, as in friendly fashion he passed the bottle to Yourii.
“With pleasure,” replied the latter, dejectedly, and it immediately occurred to him that this was about the best thing, in fact the only thing that remained to be done.
So they all drank and touched glasses. To Yourii vodka tasted horrible. It was burning and bitter as poison. He helped himself to the hors d’œuvres, but these, too, had a disagreeable flavour, and he could not swallow them.
“No!” he thought. “It doesn’t matter if it’s death, or Siberia, but get away from here I must! Yet, where shall I go? Everywhere it’s the same thing, and there’s no escaping from one’s self. When once a man sets himself above life, then life in any form can never satisfy him, whether he lives in a hole like this, or in St. Petersburg.”