She rose and lighted a candle. She approached the wall, the little grey book still in her hand, and paused in her wavering agitation.
“Yes, it is important to get to the bottom of this,” she resolved, and began to reproduce the shadows from the first to the last.
She persisted most patiently with her hands and her fingers, until she succeeded in reproducing the figure she desired. A confused, apprehensive feelings stirred within her. She tried to conquer it. But her fear fascinated her as it grew stronger. Her hands trembled, while her thought, cowed by life’s twilight, ran on to meet the approaching sorrows.
She suddenly heard her son’s footsteps. She trembled, hid the little book, and blew out the candle.
Volodya entered and stopped in the doorway, confused by the stern look of his mother as she stood by the wall in a strange, uneasy attitude.
“What do you want?” asked his mother in a harsh, uneven voice.
A vague conjecture ran across Volodya’s mind, but he quickly repelled it and began to talk to his mother.
XII
Then Volodya left her.
She paced up and down the room a number of times. She noticed that her shadow followed her on the floor, and, strange to say, it was the first time in her life that her own shadow had made her uneasy. The thought that there was a shadow assailed her mind unceasingly—and Eugenia Stepanovna, for some reason, was afraid of this thought, and even tried not to look at her shadow.