“This is the end! This is the end!” he kept repeating to himself. Senseless though the words seemed to him, they struck him like an arrow in the heart.
“No, no! What nonsense! My whole life lies before me. I’m only twenty- four years old! It’s not that. Then, what is it?”
He suddenly thought of Sina, and how impossible it would be to meet her after that outrageous scene in the wood. Yet how could he possibly help meeting her? The shame of it overwhelmed him. It would be better to die.
The cat arched its back and purred with pleasure, the sound was like a bubbling samovar. Yourii watched it attentively, and then began to walk up and down.
“My life’s so wearisome, so horribly dreary…. Besides, I can’t say if… No, no, I’d rather die than see her again!”
Sina had gone out of his life for ever. The future, cold, grey, void, lay before him, a long chain of loveless, hopeless days.
“No, I’d rather die!”
Just then, with heavy tread, the coachman passed, carrying a pail of water, and in it there floated leaves, dead, yellow leaves. The maid- servant appeared in the doorway, and called out to Yourii. For a long while he could not understand what she said.
“Yes, yes, all right!” he replied when at last he realized that she was telling him lunch was ready.
“Lunch?” he said to himself in horror. “To go into lunch! Everything just as before; to go on living and worrying as to what I ought to do about Sina, about my own life, and my own acts? So I’d better be quick, or else, if I go to lunch, there won’t be time afterwards.”