"Where are you going to?"
Étienne, in surprise, instead of replying, stammered:
"What! you've not set out yet!"
Then he confessed he was going back to the pit. No doubt he had sworn; only it could not be called life to wait with folded arms for things which would perhaps happen in a hundred years; and, besides, reasons of his own had decided him.
Souvarine had listened to him, shuddering. He seized him by the shoulder, and pushed him towards the settlement.
"Go home again; I want you to. Do you understand?"
But Catherine having approached, he recognized her also. Étienne protested, declaring that he allowed no one to judge his conduct. And the engine-man's eyes went from the young girl to her companion, while he stepped back with a sudden, relinquishing movement. When there was a woman in a man's heart, that man was done for; he might die. Perhaps he saw again in a rapid vision his mistress hanging over there at Moscow, that last link cut from his flesh, which had rendered him free of the lives of others and of his own life. He said simply:
"Go."
Étienne, feeling awkward, was delaying, and trying to find some friendly word, so as not to separate in this manner.
"Then you're still going?"