At supper he drank some wine, and, from time to time, with an abrupt sigh rubbed his side as though to suggest that he still felt the pain. And no one, except Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, believed him, and he saw that.
After nine o’clock they went for a walk on the boulevard. Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, afraid that Kirilin would speak to her, did her best to keep all the time beside Marya Konstantinovna and the children. She felt weak with fear and misery, and felt she was going to be feverish; she was exhausted and her legs would hardly move, but she did not go home, because she felt sure that she would be followed by Kirilin or Atchmianov or both at once. Kirilin walked behind her with Nikodim Alexandritch, and kept humming in an undertone:
“I don’t al-low people to play with me! I don’t al-low it.”
From the boulevard they went back to the pavilion and walked along the beach, and looked for a long time at the phosphorescence on the water. Von Koren began telling them why it looked phosphorescent.
XIV
“It’s time I went to my vint. . . . They will be waiting for me,” said Laevsky. “Good-bye, my friends.”
“I’ll come with you; wait a minute,” said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and she took his arm.
They said good-bye to the company and went away. Kirilin took leave too, and saying that he was going the same way, went along beside them.
“What will be, will be,” thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. “So be it. . . .”
And it seemed to her that all the evil memories in her head had taken shape and were walking beside her in the darkness, breathing heavily, while she, like a fly that had fallen into the inkpot, was crawling painfully along the pavement and smirching Laevsky’s side and arm with blackness.