“I know it is hard for you to forgive me,” he began, but stopped. His tears were choking him. “But though I can’t undo the past, I shall now do what is in my power. Tell me—”
“How have you managed to find me?” she said, without answering his question, neither looking away from him nor quite at him, with her squinting eyes.
“O God, help me! Teach me what to do,” Nekhludoff thought, looking at her changed face. “I was on the jury the day before yesterday,” he said. “You did not recognise me?”
“No, I did not; there was not time for recognitions. I did not even look,” she said.
“There was a child, was there not?” he asked.
“Thank God! he died at once,” she answered, abruptly and viciously.
“What do you mean? Why?”
“I was so ill myself, I nearly died,” she said, in the same quiet voice, which Nekhludoff had not expected and could not understand.
“How could my aunts have let you go?”
“Who keeps a servant that has a baby? They sent me off as soon as they noticed. But why speak of this? I remember nothing. That’s all finished.”