ome as hard as
he could.

IV

I may mention that Anna Prohorovna knew nothing of the resolutions
that had been taken at the meeting the day before. On returning home
overwhelmed and exhausted, Virginsky had not ventured to tell her of the
decision that had been taken, yet he could not refrain from telling her
half--that is, all that Verhovensky had told them of the certainty of
Shatov's intention to betray them; but he added at the same time that
he did not quite believe it. Arina Prohorovna was terribly alarmed. This
was why she decided at once to go when Shatov came to fetch her, though
she was tired out, as she had been hard at work at a confinement all the
night before. She had always been convinced that "a wretched creature
like Shatov was capable of any political baseness," but the arrival of
Marya Ignatyevna put things in a different light. Shatov's alarm, the
despairing tone of his entreaties, the way he begged for help, clearly
showed a complete change of feeling in the traitor: a man who was ready
to betray himself merely for the sake of ruining others would, she
thought, have had a different air and tone. In short, Arina Prohorovna
resolved to look into the matter for herself, with her own eyes.
Virginsky was very glad of her decision, he felt as though a
hundredweight had been lifted off him! He even began to feel
hopeful: Shatov's appearance seemed to him utterly incompatible with
Verhovensky's supposition.

Shatov was not mistaken: on getting home he found Arina Prohorovna
already with Marie. She had just arrived, had contemptuously dismissed
Kirillov, whom she found hanging about the foot of the stairs, had
hastily introduced herself to Marie, who had not recognised her as
her former acquaintance, found her in "a very bad way," that is
ill-tempered, irritable and in "a state of cowardly despair," and within
five minutes had completely silenced all her protests.

"Why do you keep on that you don't want an expensive midwife?" she was
saying at the moment when Shatov came in. "That's perfect nonsense,
it's a false idea arising from the abnormality of your condition. In the
hands of some ordinary old woman, some peasant midwife, you'd have fifty
chances of going wrong and then you'd have more bother and expense than
with a regular midwife. How do you know I am an expensive midwife? You
can pay afterwards; I won't charge you much and I answer for my success;
you won't die in my hands, I've seen worse case