‘What nonsense!… It is impossible,’ said Eugène to himself, frowning and waving his hand as though to get rid of a fly, displeased at having noticed her. He was vexed that he had noticed her and yet he could not take his eyes from her strong body, swayed by her agile strides, from her bare feet, or from her arms and shoulders, and the pleasing folds of her shirt and the handsome skirt tucked up high above her white calves.
‘But why am I looking?’ said he to himself, lowering his eyes so as not to see her. ‘And anyhow I must go in to get some other boots.’ And he turned back to go into his own room, but had not gone five steps before he again glanced round to have another look at her without knowing why or wherefore. She was just going round the corner and also glanced at him.
‘Ah, what am I doing!’ said he to himself. ‘She may think … It is even certain that she already does think …’
He entered his damp room. Another woman, an old and skinny one, was there, and was still washing it. Eugène passed on tiptoe across the floor, wet with dirty water, to the wall where his boots stood, and he was about to leave the room when the woman herself went out.
‘This one has gone and the other, Stepanída, will come here alone,’ someone within him began to reflect.
‘My God, what am I thinking of and what am I doing!’ He seized his boots and ran out with them into the hall, put them on there, brushed himself, and went out onto the veranda where both the mammas were already drinking coffee. Liza had evidently been expecting him and came onto the veranda through another door at the same time.
‘My God! If she, who considers me so honourable, pure, and innocent – if she only knew!’ – thought he.
Liza as usual met him with shining face. But to-day somehow she seemed to him particularly pale, yellow, long, and weak.
X
DURING coffee, as often happened, a peculiarly feminine kind of conversation went on which had no logical sequence but which evidently was connected in some way for it went on uninterruptedly.
The two old ladies were pin-pricking one another, and Liza was skilfully manœuvring between them.
‘I am so vexed that we had not finished washing your room before you got back,’ she said to her husband. ‘But I do so want to get everything arranged.’
‘Well, did you sleep well after I got up?’
‘Yes, I slept well and I feel well.’
‘How can a woman be well in her condition during this intolerable heat, when her windows face the sun,’ said Varvára Alexéevna, her mother. ‘And they have no venetian-blinds or awnings. I always had awnings.’
‘But you know we are in the shade after ten o’clock,’ said Mary Pávlovna.
‘That’s what causes fever; it comes of dampness,’ said Varvára Alexéevna, not noticing that what she was saying did not agree with what she had just said. ‘My doctor always says that it is impossible to diagnose an illness unless one knows the patient. And he certainly knows, for he is the leading physician and we pay him a hundred rubles a visit. My late husband did not believe in doctors, but he did not grudge me anything.’
‘How can a man grudge anything to a woman when perhaps her life and the child’s depend …’
‘Yes, when she has means a wife need not depend on her husband. A good wife submits to her husband,’ said Varvára Alexéevna – ‘only Liza is too weak after her illness.’
‘Oh no, mamma, I feel quite well. But why have they not brought you any boiled cream?’
‘I don’t want any. I can do with raw cream.’
‘I offered some to Varvára Alexéevna, but she declined,’ said Mary Pávlovna, as if justifying herself.
‘No, I don’t want any to-day.’ And as if to terminate an unpleasant conversation and yield magnanimously, Varvára Alexéevna turned to Eugène and said: ‘Well, and have you sprinkled the phosphates?’
Liza ran to fetch the cream.
‘But I don’t want it. I don’t want it.’
‘Liza, Liza, go gently,’ said Mary Pávlovna. ‘Such rapid movements do her harm.’
‘Nothing does harm if one’s mind is at peace,’ said Varvára Alexéevna as if referring to something, though she knew that there was nothing her words could refer to.
Liza returned with the cream and Eugène drank his coffee and listened morosely. He was accustomed to these conversations, but to-day he was particularly annoyed by its lack of sense. He wanted to think over what had happened to him but this chatter disturbed him. Having finished her coffee Varvára Alexéevna went away in a bad humour. Liza, Eugène, and Mary Pávlovna stayed behind, and their conversation was simple and pleasant. But Liza, being sensitive, at once noticed that something was tormenting Eugène, and she asked him whether anything unpleasant had happened. He was not prepared for this question and hesitated a little before replying that there had been nothing. This reply made Liza think all the more. That something was tormenting him, and greatly tormenting, was as evident to her as that a fly had fallen into the milk, yet he would not speak of it. What could it be?
XI
