“Mamma, please be yourself, for God’s sake. Perhaps something can be done.”
“We must go there. Get the things ready, Natasha. Mother and I are returning at once, and we will take the first train out.”
The conversation is at an end.
Natasha is alone. She runs about the deserted house, letting things fall in the poignant silence. She is busy with travelling bags and with pillows.
She stops to look at the time-table. There is a train at half-past twelve. Yes, there is still time to catch it.
Then the bell rings, frightening her even more than the earlier ring. The mother and the grandmother have arrived, pale and distraught.
XLVI
A sleepless, wearisome journey in the train. The wheels roll on with a measured, jarring sound. Stops are made. How slow it all is! How agonizing! If only it would be quicker, quicker!
Or were it better to wish that time should be arrested? That its huge, shaggy wings outspread and flapping above the world should suddenly become motionless? That its owlish glance should be stilled for ever in the instant just before the terrible word is said?
They reach their destination in the morning. At the station, a dirty, dejected place, they are met by a cousin of Natasha’s, an attorney by profession. From his pale, worried face, they guess that everything is over.