The market-place lay white and bare in the moonlight. All was silent in the town.
Never more shall singer’s lute
Tidings of him tell.
Yourii hummed this softly to himself. Then he said, aloud: “How tedious, sad, and dreadful it all is!” as if complaining to some one. The sound of his own voice alarmed him, and he turned round to see if he had been overheard. “I am drunk,” he thought.
Silent and serene, the night looked down.
CHAPTER XIII.
While Sina Karsavina and Dubova were absent on a visit, Yourii’s life seemed uneventful and monotonous. His father was engaged, either at the club or with household matters, and Lialia and Riasantzeff found the presence of a third person embarrassing, so that Yourii avoided their society. It thus became his habit to go to bed early and not to rise till the midday meal. All day long, when in his room, or in the garden, he brooded over matters, waiting for a supreme access of energy that should spur him on to do some great work.
This “great work” each day assumed a different form. Now it was a picture, or, again, it was a series of articles that should show the world what a huge mistake the social democrats had made in not giving Yourii a leading role in their party. Or else it was an article in favour of adherence to the people and of strenuous co-operation with it—a very broad, imposing treatment of the subject. Each day, however, as it passed, brought nothing but boredom. Once or twice Novikoff and Schafroff came to see him. Yourii also attended lectures and paid visits, yet all this seemed to him empty and aimless. It was not what he sought, or fancied that he sought.
One day he went to see Riasantzeff. The doctor had large, airy rooms filled with all such things as an athletic, healthy man needs for his amusement; Indian clubs, dumb-bells, rapiers, fishing-rods, nets, tobacco-pipes, and much else that savoured of wholesome, manly recreation.
Riasantzeff received him with frank cordiality, chatted pleasantly, offered him cigarettes, and finally asked him to go out shooting with him.
“I have not got a gun,” said Yourii.