“Yes, I know that,” said the doctor.
“No value whatever,” said Olga Ivanovna, and her voice quivered. “He is everything to me. He is my joy, my happiness, my wealth. And if, as you say, I cease to be a mother, if he . . . dies, there will be nothing left of me but a shadow. I cannot survive it.”
Wringing her hands, Olga Ivanovna walked from one window to the other and went on:
“When he was born, I wanted to send him away to the Foundling Hospital, you remember that, but, my God, how can that time be compared with now? Then I was vulgar, stupid, feather-headed, but now I am a mother, do you understand? I am a mother, and that’s all I care to know. Between the present and the past there is an impassable gulf.”
Silence followed again. The doctor shifted his seat from the chair to the sofa and impatiently playing with his hat, kept his eyes fixed upon Olga Ivanovna. From his face it could be seen that he wanted to speak, and was waiting for a fitting moment.
“You are silent, but still I do not give up hope,” said the lady, turning round. “Why are you silent?”
“I should be as glad of any hope as you, Olga, but there is none,” Tsvyetkov answered, “we must look the hideous truth in the face. The boy has a tumour on the brain, and we must try to prepare ourselves for his death, for such cases never recover.”
“Nikolay, are you certain you are not mistaken?”
“Such questions lead to nothing. I am ready to answer as many as you like, but it will make it no better for us.”
Olga Ivanovna pressed her face into the window curtains, and began weeping bitterly. The doctor got up and walked several times up and down the drawing-room, then went to the weeping woman, and lightly touched her arm. Judging from his uncertain movements, from the expression of his gloomy face, which looked dark in the dusk of the evening, he wanted to say something.