Having reached the gate she pauses, and again looks for some moments down the road, in the direction of the station.
A cart rumbles by noisily over the travelled road. The muzhik barely holds the reins and rocks from side to side sleepily. The harnessed horse swings its tail and its head. A white-haired urchin, in broad blue breeches, lets his brown feet hang over the edge of the cart and stares with his bright hazel eyes at a gaunt, evil-looking dog which runs after, barking hoarsely.
Elena Kirillovna gives a sigh—there is as yet no Borya—and enters the garden.
Glasha’s light-coloured blouse glimmers on the terrace. There is a rattle of dishes. The grumbling chatter of Borya’s old nurse is also audible.
XXIII
The last to awake, with the sun quite high and scorching, is Borya’s mother, Sofia Alexandrovna. Through the thin bright curtains, drawn for the night across the windows, the light fills her bedroom.
Sofia Alexandrovna awakes with a start, as though some one had touched her suddenly or had called to her. With her right hand she impetuously throws aside her light white bed-cover. Quickly she sits up in bed, holding her hands over her bent knees. For a moment she looks before her at a bare place in the simple pattern of the bright green hangings.
Sofia Alexandrovna’s eyes are dark, wide open, with black, fiery pupils which seem lost in the abysmal, depths of their own sorrowful gaze. Her face is long, its skin smooth and colourless, though quite fresh and almost free of wrinkles. The lips are a vivid red.
Sofia Alexandrovna’s expression is like that of one faced suddenly with a tragic apparition. She rocks herself back and forward.
Then, abruptly, she jumps out of bed with a single spring. She runs to the washing-basin of marble mounted on a red stand. She washes herself quickly, as though in haste to go somewhere. Now she is at the window. The curtains are flung violently aside. She peers anxiously to see what the outlook is—whether there are any clouds in the sky that might bring rain and make the road muddy, the road upon which Borya would return home.