“I mean what I say,” replied Sanine. “Your presence here is utterly unnecessary, and we shall all be delighted to see the last of you.”
Sarudine took a step forward. He looked extremely uncomfortable, and his white teeth gleamed threateningly, like those of a wild beast.
“Aha! That’s it, is it?” he muttered, breathing hard.
“Get out!” said Sanine contemptuously, yet in so terrible a tone that Sarudine glared, and voluntarily drew back.
“I don’t know what the deuce it all means!” said Volochine, under his breath, as with shoulders raised he hurried to the door.
But there, in the door-way, stood Lida. She was dressed in a style quite different from her usual one. Instead of a fashionable coiffure, she wore her hair in a thick plait hanging down her back. Instead of an elegant costume she was wearing a loose gown of diaphanous texture, the simplicity of which alluringly heightened the beauty of her form.
As she smiled, her likeness to Sanine became more remarkable, and, in her sweet, girlish voice she said calmly:
“Here I am. Why are you hurrying away? Victor Sergejevitsch, do put down your cap!”
Sanine was silent, and looked at his sister in amazement. “Whatever does she mean?” he thought to himself.
As soon as she appeared, a mysterious influence, at once irresistible and tender, seemed to make itself felt. Like a lion-tamer in a cage filled with wild beasts, Lida stood there, and the men at once became gentle and submissive.
“Well, do you know, Lidia Petrovna …” stammered Sarudine.
At the sound of his voice, Lida’s face assumed a plaintive, helpless expression, and as she glanced swiftly at him there was great grief at her heart not unmixed with tenderness and hope. Yet in a moment such feelings were effaced by a fierce desire to show Sarudine how much he had lost in losing her; to let him see that she was still beautiful, in spite of all the sorrow and shame that he had caused her to endure.
“I don’t want to know anything,” she replied in an imperious, almost a stagy voice, as for a moment she closed her eyes.
Upon Volochine, her appearance produced an extraordinary effect, as his sharp little tongue darted out from his dry lips, and his eyes grew smaller and his whole frame vibrated from sheer physical excitement.