the room where
she was lying I heard a low, plaintive moan, and, as though it had
been wafted me by the wind from Russia, I thought of Orlov, his
irony, Polya, the Neva, the drifting snow, then the cab without an
apron, the prediction I had read in the cold morning sky, and the
despairing cry "Nina! Nina!"

"Go in to her," said the lady.

I went in to see Zinaida Fyodorovna, feeling as though I were the
father of the child. She was lying with her eyes closed, looking
thin and pale, wearing a white cap edged with lace. I remember there
were two expressions on her face: one--cold, indifferent, apathetic;
the other--a look of childish helplessness given her by the white
cap. She did not hear me come in, or heard, perhaps, but did not
pay attention. I stood, looked at her, and waited.

But her face was contorted with pain; she opened her eyes and gazed
at the ceiling, as though wondering what was happening to her. . . .
There was a look of loathing on her face.

"It's horrible . . ." she whispered.

"Zinaida Fyodorovna." I spoke her name softly. She looked at me
indifferently, listlessly, and closed her eyes. I stood there a
little while, then went away.

At night, Darya Mihailovna informed me that the child, a girl, was
born, but that the mother was in a dangerous condition. Then I heard
noise and bustle in the passage. Darya Mihailovna came to me again
and with a face of despair, wringing her hands, said:

"Oh, this is awful! The doctor suspects that she has taken poison!
Oh, how badly Russians do behave here!"

And at twelve o'clock the next day Zinaida Fyodorovna died.

XVIII

Two years had passed. Circumstances had changed; I had come to
Petersburg again and could live here openly. I was no longer afraid
of being and seeming sentimental, and gave myself up entirely to
the fatherly, or rather idolatrous feeling roused in me by Sonya,
Zinaida Fyodorovna's child. I fed her with my own hands, gave her
her bath, put her to bed, never took my eyes off her for nights
together, and screamed when it seemed to me that the nurse was just
going to drop her. My thirst for normal ordinary life became stronger
and more acute as time went on, but wider visions stopped short at
Sonya, as though I had found in her at last just what I needed. I
loved the child madly. In her I saw the continuation of my life,
and it was not exactly that I fancied, but I felt, I almost believed,
that when I had cast off at last my long, bony,