hem lift her up and lead her
away. I saw Anyuta Blagovo come up to me; I had not seen her in the
room before, and she seemed to have sprung out of the earth. She
was wearing her hat and veil, and, as always, had an air of having
come only for a moment.

"I told her not to take a part," she said angrily, jerking out each
word abruptly and turning crimson. "It's insanity! You ought to
have prevented her!"

Madame Azhogin, in a short jacket with short sleeves, with cigarette
ash on her breast, looking thin and flat, came rapidly towards me.

"My dear, this is terrible," she brought out, wringing her hands,
and, as her habit was, looking intently into my face. "This is
terrible! Your sister is in a condition. . . . She is with child.
Take her away, I implore you. . . ."

She was breathless with agitation, while on one side stood her three
daughters, exactly like her, thin and flat, huddling together in a
scared way. They were alarmed, overwhelmed, as though a convict had
been caught in their house. What a disgrace, how dreadful! And yet
this estimable family had spent its life waging war on superstition;
evidently they imagined that all the superstition and error of
humanity was limited to the three candles, the thirteenth of the
month, and to the unluckiness of Monday!

"I beg you. . . I beg," repeated Madame Azhogin, pursing up her
lips in the shape of a heart on the syllable "you." "I beg you to
take her home."

XVIII

A little later my sister and I were walking along the street. I
covered her with the skirts of my coat; we hastened, choosing back
streets where there were no street lamps, avoiding passers-by; it
was as though we were running away. She was no longer crying, but
looked at me with dry eyes. To Karpovna's, where I took her, it was
only twenty minutes' walk, and, strange to say, in that short time
we succeeded in thinking of our whole life; we talked over everything,
considered our position, reflected. . . .

We decided we could not go on living in this town, and that when I
had earned a little money we would move to some other place. In
some houses everyone was asleep, in others they were playing cards;
we hated these houses; we were afraid of them. We talked of the
fanaticism, the coarseness of feeling, the insignificance of these
respectable families, these amateurs of dramatic art whom we had
so alarmed, and I kept asking in what way these stupid, cruel, lazy,
and dishonest people were superio