Yourii came near to admitting that life was the realization of freedom, and consequently that it was natural for a man to live for enjoyment. Thus Riasantzeff’s point of view, though inferior, was yet a perfectly logical one in striving to satisfy his sexual needs as much as possible, they being the most urgent. But then he had to admit that the conceptions of debauchery and of purity were merely as withered leaves that cover fresh grown grass, and that girls romantic and chaste as Lialia or Sina Karsavina had the right to plunge into the stream of sensual enjoyment. Such an idea shocked him as being both frivolous and nasty, and he endeavoured to drive it from his brain and heart with his usual vehement, stern phrases.
“Well, yes,” he thought, gazing upwards at the starry sky, “life is emotion, but men are not unreasoning beasts. They must master their passions; their desires must be set upon what is good. Yet, is there a God beyond the stars?”
As he suddenly asked himself this, a confused, painful sense of awe seemed to crush him to the ground. Persistently he gazed at a brilliant star in the tail of the Great Bear and recollected how Kousma the peasant in the melon-field had called this majestic constellation a “wheelbarrow.” He felt annoyed, in a way, that such an irrelevant thought should have crossed his mind. He gazed at the black garden in sharp contrast to the shining sky, pondering, meditating.
“If the world were deprived of feminine purity and grace, that are as the first sweet flowers of spring, what would remain sacred to mankind?”
As he thought thus, he pictured to himself a company of lovely maidens, fair as spring flowers, seated in sunlight on green meadows beneath blossoming boughs. Their youthful breasts, delicately moulded shoulders, and supple limbs moved mysteriously before his eyes, provoking exquisitely voluptuous thrills. As if dazed, he passed his hand across his brow.
“My nerves are overwrought; I must get to bed,” thought he. With sensuous visions such as these before his eyes, depressed and ill at ease, Yourii went hurriedly indoors. When in bed, after vain efforts to sleep, his thoughts reverted to Lialia and Riasantzeff.
“Why am I so indignant because Lialia is not Riasantzeff’s only love?”