Sanine quotes

Sanine was neither surprised nor annoyed: he hardly seemed to understand what she said, but looked amiably indifferent, and was silent.

Yet at the question, “How do you propose to live?” he answered, smiling, “Oh! somehow or other.”

His calm, firm voice, and open glance made one feel that those words, which meant nothing to his mother, had for him a deep and precise significance.

“It is not my fault, but my misfortune,” replied Yourii, in a slightly arrogant tone.

He thought it showed superior intelligence to be bored rather than amused.

“Your misfortune, indeed!” cried Lialia, mockingly. “Ha! Ha!” She pretended to slap him. “Ha! Ha!”

Semenoff irritably flourished his stick, which had a crooked handle. His shadow similarly waved a long black arm which made Yourii think of the black wings of some infuriated bird of prey.

“What do I say?” he blurted out. “I say that I am going to die.”

And again he waved his stick and again the sinister shadow imitated his gesture. This time Semenoff also noticed it.

“First-rate stuff!” said Ivanoff, smacking his lips.

“I have often wondered why people are so dead against alcohol,” he said jestingly. “In my opinion only a drunken man lives his life as it ought to be lived.”

“That is, like a brute!” replied Novikoff from the bank.

“I’m sorry for them, that’s all,” replied Sanine.

“Besides, what others are like does not interest me in the least.”

“One can hardly say that,” observed Novikoff.

Sanine calmly watched her. The shawl and her chemise had slipped when she leant on the windowsill, and partly disclosed her tender bosom, white in the moonlight.

“Men always build up a Wall of China between themselves and happiness,” he said in a low, trembling voice.

Lida was terrified.

“How should I know?” replied Sanine, “and, besides, what do I care?

My life means my sensations, pleasant or unpleasant; what is outside those limits; well, to the deuce with it all!

Whatever hypothesis we may like to invent, it will always remain an hypothesis upon which it would be folly to construct life. Let him who likes worry about it; as for me, I mean to live!”

“But his desires may be evil?”

“Then⁠ ⁠… they must just be evil,” replied Sanine blandly, as he looked Yourii full in the face with his clear, blue eyes.

Ivanoff raised his eyebrows incredulously and said nothing. Yourii was silent also. For some reason or other he felt embarrassed by those clear, blue eyes, though he tried to keep looking at them.

They will not be slow to punish you for your offence, so, of what good are they to you? They are stupid, cruel, brainless people.

Why should you die because of stupid, cruel, brainless people?

”

Yes, a horrible deed, even though the mother’s life, and, what is more, her happiness, depends upon it! Why must it be so? Nobody knows, but everybody loudly maintains that view, crying, ‘Bravo!’ ” Sanine laughed sarcastically. “Oh! you men, you men!

Men create for themselves phantoms, shadows, illusions, and are the first to suffer by them.

But they all exclaim, ‘Oh! Man is a masterpiece, noblest of all; man is the crown, the King of creation;’ but a king that has never yet reigned, a suffering king that quakes at his own shadow.”

I suffer, I strive, I surmount obstacles! Well, what then? Where’s the end of it? Not in my lifetime, at any rate! Prometheus wished to give fire to mankind, and he did so. That was a triumph, if you like! But what about us?

The most we do is to throw faggots on a fire that we have never kindled, and which by us will never be put out.

”

“Very well. That’s so. All the same, a good many things have to be considered. For instance, what is my position with regard to Sina Karsavina?

Whether I love her or not it doesn’t much matter.

The question is, what will come of it all? Suppose I marry her, or become closely attached to her. Will that make me happy?

I was listening to your discussion just now, and the offensive spirit prompted every word you said. It is merely a question of form. I say what I think, but you don’t say what you think; and that is not in the least interesting.

If we were all more sincere, it would be far more amusing for everybody.

”

“

Sheer vanity and vexation of spirit!

” said Ivanoff, who had been waiting for a fitting moment to drag in this favourite phrase of his.

“Then you are wrong,” said Sanine. “If this were really so, one could mould the whole of humanity according to one type by giving people works to read of one tendency.

A conception of life is only obtained from life itself, in its entirety, of which literature and human thought are but an infinitesimal part.

No theory of life can help one to such a conception, for this depends upon the mood or frame of mind of each individual, which is consequently apt to vary so long as man lives.

“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.

”

and a false notion, too. Moral victory does not consist in offering one’s cheek to the smiter, but in being right before one’s own conscience. How this is achieved is a matter of chance, of circumstances. There is nothing so horrible as slavery.

Yet most horrible of all is it when a man whose inmost soul rebels against coercion and force yet submits thereto in the name of some power that is mightier than he.

”

“Why should you know?

Live as the bird flies. If it wants to move its right wing, it moves it. If it wants to fly round a tree, it does so.

”

“That’s very true. Nobody can tell you that.

The art of living implies a talent; and he who does not possess that talent perishes or makes shipwreck of his life.

”

Thus, if there should ever be a golden age, the men of that period will not perceive any difference between their lives and those of their ancestors.

Man moves along an endless road, and to wish to level the road to happiness would be like adding new units to a number that is infinite.

”

“Why should life be ennobled? Tell me that, first of all. And, secondly, one doesn’t want disciples. Men like Lande are born so.

Christ was splendid; Christians, however, are but a sorry crew.

The idea of his doctrine was a beautiful one, but they have made of it a lifeless dogma.”

Before them lay a meadow where walking barefoot in the long lush grass was an agreeable relief.

“Life’s worth living today,”

rejoined his companion. Ivanoff glanced at Sanine; he thought those words must surely remind him of Sarudine and the recent tragedy. Yet seemingly it was far from Sanine’s thoughts, which surprised Ivanoff somewhat, yet did not displease him.

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 forevermore.

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?’