“I don’t care if I do,” she answered. “Don’t nag me, Pashenka, pray.”
“But the thing is becoming an idée fixe in your mind, upon my word it is. Can’t you try and get back to your senses? What is death after all? Absolute freedom from suffering, that’s all. There is nothing to go crazy over anyhow. There is nothing but a dear, a glorious, a beautiful memory of them, and that will live as long as there is such a thing as history in the world.”
She made no reply. She tried to picture Sophia free from suffering, but this only sharpened her pain. Sophia not existing? The formula was even more terrible than death. In reality, however, her atheism was powerless to obliterate her visions. Sophia existed somewhere, only she was solemnly remote, as though estranged from her. Clara could have almost cried to her, imploring for recognition.
But this mood of hers could not last forever. Sooner or later she would awaken to the full extent of the riots and to the fact that they were raging in the vicinity of Miroslav, threatening the safety of her nearest relatives. How would she take it then? The question intruded upon Pavel’s peace of mind again and again.
For the present, however, she was taken up with her thoughts of Sophia, Zachar or Hessia. Poor Hessia! They had robbed her of her baby, the thugs, even as they had that woman of the “gay bard’s” poem. “To lead a married life under conditions such as ours is pure madness,” she said to herself.
One afternoon, as she and her lover sat on the lounge, embracing and kissing deliriously, she suddenly sprang to her feet, her cheeks burning, kissed Pavel on his forehead and crossed over to the window.
He shrugged his shoulders resentfully.