“Ah! of what good is it if they bloom here, since there is no one worthy to pluck them?” replied Lida. “Aha!” thought Sanine, suddenly becoming interested, “so that’s what she’s driving at!” This word-play, where sentiment and grossness were so obviously involved, he found extremely diverting. “Is it possible?” “Why, of course! I mean what I say, who is it that plucks our unfortunate blossoms? What men are those whom we set up as heroes?” rejoined Lida bitterly. “Aren’t you rather too hard upon us?” asked Sarudine. “No, Lidia Petrovna is right!” exclaimed Volochine, but, glancing at Sarudine, his eloquence suddenly subsided. Lida laughed outright. Filled with shame and grief and revenge, her burning eyes were set on her seducer, and seemed to pierce him through and through. Volochine again began to babble, while Lida interrupted him with laughter that concealed her tears. “I think that we ought to be going,” said Sarudine, at last, who felt that the situation was becoming intolerable. He could not tell why, but everything, Lida’s laughter, her scornful eyes and trembling hands were all to him as so many secret boxes on the ear. His growing hatred of her, and his jealousy of Volochine as well as the consciousness of all that he had lost, served to exhaust him utterly. “Already?” asked Lida. Volochine smiled sweetly, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue. “It can’t be helped! Victor Sergejevitsch apparently is not quite himself,” he said in a mocking tone, proud of his conquest. So they took their leave; and, as Sarudine bent over Lida’s hand, he whispered: “This is good-bye!” Never had he hated Lida as much as at this moment. In Lida’s heart there arose a vague, fleeting desire to bid tender farewell to all those bygone hours of love which had once been theirs. But this feeling she swiftly repressed, as she said in a loud, harsh voice: “Good-bye! _Bon voyage_! Don’t forget us, Pavel Lvovitsch!” As they were going, Volochine’s remark could be distinctly heard. “How charming she is! She intoxicates one, like champagne!” When they had gone, Lida sat down again in the rocking-chair. Her position was a different one, now, for she bent forward, trembling all over, and her silent tears fell fast. “Come, come! What’s the matter?” said Sanine, as he took hold of her hand. “Oh! don’t! What an awful thing life is!” she exclaimed, as her head sank lower, and she covered her face with her hands, while the soft plait of hair, slipping over her shoulder, hung down in front. “For shame!” said Sanine. “What’s the use of crying about such trifles?” “Are there really no other … better men, then?” murmured Lida. Sanine smiled. “No, certainly not. Man is vile by nature. Expect nothing good from him…. And then the harm that he does to you will not make you grieve.” Lida looked up at him with beautiful tear-stained eyes. “Do you expect nothing good from your fellow-men, either?” “Of course not,” replied Sanine, “I live alone.”