f her, wrathful at his own weakness and pale with spiritual
agony. He would call himself an immoral schoolboy, would abuse her,
tear his hair, but when darkness came on and the passengers were
asleep or got out at a station, he would seize the opportunity to
kneel before her and embrace her knees as he had at the seat in the
wood. . . .

She caught herself indulging in this day-dream.

"Listen. I won't go alone," she said. "You must come with me."

"Nonsense, Sofotchka!" sighed Lubyantsev. "One must be sensible and
not want the impossible."

"You will come when you know all about it," thought Sofya Petrovna.

Making up her mind to go at all costs, she felt that she was out
of danger. Little by little her ideas grew clearer; her spirits
rose and she allowed herself to think about it all, feeling that
however much she thought, however much she dreamed, she would go
away. While her husband was asleep, the evening gradually came on.
She sat in the drawing-room and played the piano. The greater
liveliness out of doors, the sound of music, but above all the
thought that she was a sensible person, that she had surmounted her
difficulties, completely restored her spirits. Other women, her
appeased conscience told her, would probably have been carried off
their feet in her position, and would have lost their balance, while
she had almost died of shame, had been miserable, and was now running
out of the danger which perhaps did not exist! She was so touched
by her own virtue and determination that she even looked at herself
two or three times in the looking-glass.

When it got dark, visitors arrived. The men sat down in the dining-room
to play cards; the ladies remained in the drawing-room and the
verandah. The last to arrive was Ilyin. He was gloomy, morose, and
looked ill. He sat down in the corner of the sofa and did not move
the whole evening. Usually good-humoured and talkative, this time
he remained silent, frowned, and rubbed his eyebrows. When he had
to answer some question, he gave a forced smile with his upper lip
only, and answered jerkily and irritably. Four or five times he
made some jest, but his jests sounded harsh and cutting. It seemed
to Sofya Petrovna that he was on the verge of hysterics. Only now,
sitting at the piano, she recognized fully for the first time that
this unhappy man was in deadly earnest, that his soul was sick, and
that he could find no rest. For her sake he was wasting the best
days of