Chapter IX - Page 2

that's because you've nothing to do," said Dubova.

"Have you so much to do, then?"

"At any rate, I have not the time to weep." "I am not weeping, am I?"

"Well," said Dubova, teasing him, "you're in the sulks."

"My life," replied Yourii, "has caused me to forget what laughing is."

This was said in such a bitter tone that there was a sudden silence.

"A friend of mine told me that my life is most instructive," said Yourii after a pause, though no one had ever made such a statement to him.

"In what way?" asked Sina cautiously.

"As an example of how not to live."

"Oh! do tell us all about it. Perhaps we might profit by the lesson," said Dubova.

Yourii considered that his life was an absolute failure, and that he himself was the most luckless and wretched of men. In such a belief there lay a certain mournful solace, and it was pleasant to him to complain about his own life and mankind in general. To men he never spoke of such things, feeling instinctively that they would not believe him, but to women, especially if they were young and pretty, he was ever ready to talk at length about himself. He was good-looking, and talked well, so women always felt for him affectionate pity. On this occasion also, if jocular at the outset, Yourii relapsed into his usual tone; discoursing at great length about his own life. From his own description he appeared to be a man of extraordinary powers, cramped and crushed by the force of circumstances, misunderstood by his party, and one who by unlucky chance and human folly was doomed to be just a mere student in exile instead of a leader of the people! Like all extremely self-satisfied persons Yourii entirely failed to perceive that all this in no way proved his extraordinary powers, and that men of genius were surrounded by just such associates, and hampered by just such misfortunes. It seemed to him that he alone was the victim of an inexorable destiny. As he talked well and with great vivacity and point, what he said sounded true enough, so that girls believed him, pitied him, and sympathized with him in his misfortunes. The band was still playing its sad, discordant tunes, the evening was gloomy and depressing, and they all three felt in a melancholy mood. When Yourii ceased talking, Dubova, meditating on her own dull, monotonous existence and vanishing youth without joy or love, asked him in a low voice,

"Tell me, Yourii, has the thought of suicide never crossed your mind?"

"Why do you ask me that?"

"Oh! well, I don't know ..."

They said no more.

"You are on the committee, aren't you?" asked Sina eagerly.

"Yes," replied Yourii curtly, as if unwilling to admit the fact, but in