“You’re absurd, Shatushka, with your reflections. I had, perhaps I had, but what’s the use of my having had one, if it’s just the same as though I hadn’t. There’s an easy riddle for you. Guess it!” she laughed.
“Where did you take your baby?”
“I took it to the pond,” she said with a sigh.
Shatov nudged me again.
“And what if you never had a baby and all this is only a wild dream?”
“You ask me a hard question, Shatushka,” she answered dreamily, without a trace of surprise at such a question. “I can’t tell you anything about that, perhaps I hadn’t; I think that’s only your curiosity. I shan’t leave off crying for him anyway, I couldn’t have dreamt it.” And big tears glittered in her eyes. “Shatushka, Shatushka, is it true that your wife ran away from you?”
She suddenly put both hands on his shoulders, and looked at him pityingly. “Don’t be angry, I feel sick myself. Do you know, Shatushka, I’ve had a dream: he came to me again, he beckoned me, called me. ‘My little puss,’ he cried to me, ‘little puss, come to me!’ And I was more delighted at that ‘little puss’ than anything; he loves me, I thought.”
“Perhaps he will come in reality,” Shatov muttered in an undertone.
“No, Shatushka, that’s a dream.… He can’t come in reality. You know the song:
‘A new fine house I do not crave,
This tiny cell’s enough for me;
There will I dwell my soul to save
And ever pray to God for thee.’