There was a mist over everything; only the dirty table-cloth, with its green radish-stalks, empty beer-glasses and cigarette-ends danced before his eyes, as he sat there, huddled-up and forlorn.
Afterwards, he remembered, Ivanoff came back, and with him was Sanine. The latter seemed gay, talkative and perfectly sober. He looked at Yourii in a strange manner, half-friendly and half-derisive. Then his thoughts turned to the scene in the wood with Sina. “It would have been base of me if I had taken advantage of her weakness,” he said to himself. “Yet what shall I do now? Possess her, and then cast her off? No, I could never do that; I’m too kind-hearted. Well, what then? Marry her?”
Marriage! To Yourii the very word sounded appallingly commonplace. How could anyone of his complex temperament endure the idea of a philistine ménage? It was impossible. “And yet I love her,” he thought. “Why should I put her from me, and go? Why should I destroy my own happiness? It’s monstrous! It’s absurd!”
On reaching home, in order to take his thoughts off the one engrossing subject, he sat down at the table and proceeded to read over certain sententious passages written by him recently.
“In this world there is neither good nor bad.”
“Some say: what is natural is good, and that man is right in his desires.”
“But that is false, for all is natural. In darkness and void nothing is born; all has the same origin.”
“Yet others say: All is good which comes from God. Yet that likewise is false; for, if God exists, then all things come from Him, even blasphemy.”
“Again, there are those who say: goodness lies in doing good to others.”
“How can that be? What is good for one, is bad for another.”