Sanine is a thoroughly uncomfortable book, but it has a fierce energy which has carried it in a very short space of time into almost every country in Europe and at last into this country, where books,...

That important period in his life when character is influenced and formed by its first contact with the world and with men, was not spent by Vladimir Sanine at home, with his parents. There had been n...

It was about six o’clock. The sun still shone brightly, but in the garden there were already faint green shadows. The air was full of light and warmth and peace. Maria Ivanovna was making jam, and und...

It was already quite dark when the others returned from their walk. Their clear, merry voices rang out through the soft dusk that veiled the garden. Lida ran, flushed and laughing, to her mother. She ...

Colonel Nicolai Yegorovitch Svarogitsch who lived in the little town awaited the arrival of his son, a student at the Moscow Polytechnic. The latter was under the surveillance of the police and had be...

When Lida Sanine received Lialia’s invitation, she showed it to her brother. She thought that he would refuse; in fact, she hoped as much. She felt that on the moonlit river she would again be drawn t...

After waiting a while at the entrance, and making sundry jokes at the expense of Sina and Yourii, the others wandered along the riverbank. The men lit cigarettes and threw the matches into the water, ...

Three days afterwards, late in the evening, Lida came home sad, tired, and heavyhearted. On reaching her room, she stood still, with hands clasped, and stared at the floor. She suddenly realized, to h...

For some time past Yourii Svarogitsch had been working at painting, of which he was fond, and to which he devoted all his spare time. It had once been his dream to become an artist, but want of money,...

They walked up and down the boulevard once or twice, meeting no one they knew, and they listened to the band which was playing as usual in the garden. It was a very poor performance; the music being h...

On the following evening Yourii went to the same spot where he had met Sina Karsavina and her companion. Throughout the day he had thought with pleasure of his talk with them on the previous evening, ...

When Semenoff saw the blood, and felt the awful void around him and within him; when they lifted him up, carried him away, laid him down, and did all for him that throughout his life he had been in th...

“Come to my place, and we will hold a memorial service for the departed,” said Ivanoff to Sanine. The latter nodded his acceptance. On the way, they bought vodka and hors d’oeuvres, and overtook Youri...

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...

Having carried the things indoors, Yourii, for want of something else to do, went down the steps leading to the garden. It was dark as the grave, and the sky with it’s vast company of gleaming stars e...

Lialia wept in her room for such a long while that at last, her face buried in the pillows, she fell asleep. She woke next morning with aching head and swollen eyes, her first thought being that she m...

Summer now came on, abounding in light and warmth. Between the luminous blue heaven and the sultry earth there floated a tremulous veil of golden haze. Exhausted with the heat, the trees seemed asleep...

Sideways, on Sarudine’s bed, sat Lida, in despair, convulsively twisting her handkerchief. As he came in he was struck by her altered appearance. Of the proud, high-spirited girl there was not a trace...

All the gamblers except the drunken Malinowsky had lost their interest in the game. They were intensely curious to know who the lady was that had come to see Sarudine. Those who guessed that it was Li...

Lida did not go home, but hurriedly turned her steps in an opposite direction. The streets were empty, the air stifling. Close to the wall and fence lay the short shadows, vanquished by the triumphant...

Novikoff, when he opened the door himself to Sanine, looked far from pleased at the prospect of such a visit. Everything that reminded him of Lida and of his shattered dream of bliss caused him pain. ...

The glow of summer lay on the town. Calm were the nights when the large, lustrous moon shone overhead and the air, heavy with odours from field and garden, pleasurably soothed the languid senses. In t...

On reaching his room, narrow and stuffy as a prison-cell, Yourii found life as dreary as ever, and his little love-episode seemed to him thoroughly commonplace. “I stole a kiss from her! What bliss! H...

Gently, caressingly, the dusk, fragrant with the scent of blossoms, descended. Sanine sat at a table near the window, striving to read in the waning light a favourite tale of his. It described the lon...

The evening was dark and sultry. Above the trees clouds chased each other across the sky, hurrying onward as to some mysterious goal. In pale green spaces overhead faint stars glimmered and then vanis...

Leaving the boulevard behind them, they passed along the dreary streets lying outside the town, though they were better lighted than the boulevard. The wood-pavement stood out clearly against the blac...

Soloveitchik stood at the door for some time, looking up to the starless sky and rubbing his thin fingers. The wind whistled round the gloomy tin-roofed sheds, bending the treetops that were huddled t...

Volochine owned immense works in St. Petersburg upon which the existence of thousands of his employees depended. At the present time, while a strike was in progress, he had turned his back upon the cr...

A letter sent by Sarudine to Lida on the day following their interview fell by chance into Maria Ivanovna’s hands. It contained a request for the permission to see her, and awkwardly suggested that su...

On the following day Dounika, bareheaded and barefooted, came running to Sanine who was gardening. “Vladimir Petrovitch,” she exclaimed, and her silly face had a scared look, “the officers have come, ...

It was one of those strangely beautiful evenings in late summer that descend upon earth from the majestic azure vaults of heaven. The sun had set, but the light was still distinct, and the air pure an...

In a moment Sarudine’s life had undergone a complete change. Careless, easy, and gay as it had been before, so now it seemed to him distorted, dire, and unendurable. The laughing mask had fallen; the ...

On that same evening Sanine went to see Soloveitchik. The little Jew was sitting alone on the steps of his house, gazing at the bare, deserted space in front of it where several disused pathways cross...

The news that two persons had committed suicide on the same night spread rapidly through the little town. It was Ivanoff who told Yourii. The latter had just come back from a lesson, and was at work u...

When to the sound of martial music Sarudine’s remains were borne to the churchyard, Yourii from his window watched the sad, imposing procession. He saw the horses draped in black, and the deceased off...

Early that morning, soon after sunrise, Ivanoff and Sanine walked forth from the town. The dew sparkled in the sunlight, and the damp grass seen in shadow appeared grey. Along the side of the road fla...

The sun shone as brightly as in spring, yet in the calm, clear air the touch of autumn could be felt. Here and there the trees showed brown and yellow leaves in which the wistful voice of a bird occas...

First the horizon grew dark; then the river vanished in a mist, and from the pasture-lands a sound came up of neighing horses, while, here and there, faint lights flickered. As he sat there waiting, Y...

In the large corridor of the hospice there was an odour of samovars, and bread, and incense. A strong, active monk was hurrying along, carrying a huge tea-urn. “Father,” exclaimed Yourii, confused som...

Recovering herself at last, she perceived the bright image of the moon in the dark water, and Sanine’s face bending over her with glittering eyes. She felt that his arms were wound tightly round her, ...

As though stunned by a blow, Sina at once fell asleep, but woke early, feeling utterly broken, and cold as a corpse. Her despair had never slumbered, and for no single moment could she forget that whi...

Next morning Yourii rose late, feeling indisposed. His head ached, and he had a bad taste in his mouth. At first he could only recollect shouts, jingling glasses, and the waning light of lamps at dawn...

Those who knew Yourii Svarogitsch, and those who did not, those who liked, as those who despised him, even those who had never thought about him were sorry, now that he was dead. Nobody could understa...

“Look here,” said Sanine, as they walked down the street in the dusk. “Well, what is it?” “Come to the railway-station with me. I’m going away.” Ivanoff stood still. “Why?” “Because this place bores m...

The lamps burned dimly in the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rail way-carriage, shedding their fitful light on grimy, ragged passengers wedged tightly together, and wreathed in smoke. Sanine sa...

A fortress for political prisoners. ↩ A slang term for St. Petersburg. ↩...