“Where did he hang himself? Do you know?”
“In the shed next to the dog’s kennel. He let the dog loose, and then hanged himself.”
Sina and Yourii simultaneously seemed to hear a shrill voice exclaim:
“Yes, and he left a note behind,” continued Riasantzeff, unable to conceal the merry twinkle in his eyes. “I made a copy of it. In a way, it’s really a human document.” Taking out his pocket-book he read as follows:
“Why should I live, since I do not know how I ought to live? Men such as I cannot make their fellow-creatures happy.”
He stopped suddenly, as if somewhat embarrassed. Dead silence ensued. A sad spirit seemed to pass noiselessly through the room. Tears rose to Sina’s eyes, and Lialia’s face grew red with emotion. Yourii smiled mournfully as he turned towards the window.
“That’s all,” said Riasantzeff meditatively.
“What more would you have?” asked Sina with quivering lips.
Ivanoff rose and reached across for the matches that were on the table.
“It’s nothing more than tomfoolery,” he muttered.
“For shame!” was Sina’s indignant protest.
Yourii glanced in disgust at Ivanoff’s long, smooth hair and turned away.
“To take the case of Soloveitchik,” resumed Riasantzeff, and again his eyes twinkled. “I always thought him a nincompoop—a silly Jew boy. And now, see what he has shown himself to be! There is no love more sublime than the love which bids one sacrifice one’s life for humanity.”
“But he didn’t sacrifice his life for humanity,” replied Ivanoff, as he looked askance at Riasantzeff’s portly face and figure, and observed how tightly his waistcoat fitted him.
“It’s not the same thing at all,” was Ivanoff’s stubborn retort, and his eyes flashed angrily. “It’s the act of an idiot, that’s what it is!”
His strange hatred of Soloveitchik made a most unpleasant impression upon the others.
Sina Karsavina, as she got up to go, whispered to Yourii, “I am going. He is simply detestable.”
Yourii nodded. “Utterly brutal,” he murmured.
Immediately after Sina’s departure, Lialia and Riasantzeff went out. Ivanoff sat pensively smoking his cigarette for a while, as he stared sulkily at a corner of the room. Then he also departed.
In the street as he walked along, swinging his arms in the usual way, he thought to himself, in his wrath: