Under the stimulating influence of the calm, sultry, unfathomable night, her thoughts again reverted to her recent experiences. It seemed to her impossible that Sanine should not know of these, and it was just this which made her joy the more intense. Unconsciously she longed to make him aware that she was not always so gentle and modest, but that she could also be something vastly different when she threw off the mask. It was this secret longing that made her flushed and elated. “You have known Yourii Nicolaijevitsch for a long while, haven’t you?” she asked in a faltering voice, irresistibly impelled to hover above an abyss. “No,” replied Sanine. “Why do you ask?” “Oh! I merely asked. He’s a clever fellow, don’t you think?” Her tone was one of childish timidity, as if she sought to obtain something from a person far older than herself, who had the right to caress or to punish her. Sanine smiled at her, as he said; “Ye … es!” From his voice Sina knew that he was smiling, and she blushed deeply. “No … but, really he is…. Well, he seems to be very unhappy.” Her lip quivered. “Most likely. Unhappy he certainly is. Are you sorry for him?” “Of course I am,” said Sina with feigned _naïveté_. “It’s only natural,” said Sanine, “but ‘unhappy’ means to you something different from what it really is. You think that a man spiritually discontented, who is for ever analysing his moods and his actions counts, not as a deplorably unhappy person, but as one of extraordinary individuality and power. Such perpetual self-analysis appears to you a fine trait which entitles that man to think himself better than all others, and deserving not merely of compassion, but of love and esteem.” “Well, what else is it, if not that?” asked Sina ingenuously. She had never talked so much to Sanine before. That he was an original, she knew by hearsay; and she now felt agreeably perturbed at encountering so novel and interesting a personality. Sanine laughed. “There was a time when man lived the narrow life of a brute, not holding himself responsible for his actions nor his feelings. This was followed by the period of conscious life, and at its outset man was wont to overestimate his own sentiments and needs and desires. Here, at this stage, stands Svarogitsch. He is the last of the Mohicans, the final representative of an epoch of human evolution which has disappeared for evermore. He has absorbed, as it were, all the essences of that epoch, which have poisoned his very soul. He does not really live his life; each act, each thought is questioned. ‘Have I done right?’ ‘Have I done wrong?’ In his case this becomes almost absurd. In politics he is not sure whether it is not beneath his dignity to rank himself with others, yet, if he retires from politics, he wonders if it is not humiliating to stand aloof. There are many such persons. If Yourii Svarogitsch forms an exception, it is solely on account of his superior intelligence.”