While they were getting the medicine some five minutes elapsed, and then, going away with the medicine, he hesitated to go direct to the shed, lest he should be seen from the house, but as soon as he was out of sight he promptly turned and made his way to it. He already saw her in imagination, inside the shed, smiling gaily. But she was not there, and there was nothing in the shed to show that she had been there.
He was already thinking that she had not come, had not heard or understood his words—he had muttered them through his nose as if afraid of her hearing them—or perhaps she had not wanted to come. "And why did I imagine that she would rush to me? She has her own husband; it is only I who am such a wretch as to have a wife, and a good one, and to run after another." Thus he thought sitting in the shed, the thatch of which had a leak and dripped from its straw. "But how delightful it would be if she did come,—alone here in this rain. If only I could embrace her once again; then let happen what may. But yes," he recollected, "one could tell if she has been here by her footprints." He looked at the trodden ground near the shed and at the path overgrown by grass; and the fresh print of bare feet, and even of one that had slipped, was visible. "Yes, she has been here. Well now it is settled. Wherever I may see her I shall go straight to her. I will go to her at night." He sat for a long time in the shed, and left it exhausted and crushed. He delivered the medicine, returned home, and lay down in his room to wait for dinner.
XVII
Before dinner Liza came to him and, still wondering what could be the cause of his discontent, began to say that she was afraid that he did not like the idea of her going to Moscow for her confinement, and that she had decided that she would remain at home and would on no account go to Moscow. He knew how she feared both her confinement itself and the risk of not having a healthy child, and therefore he could not help being touched at seeing how ready she was to sacrifice everything for his sake. All was so nice, so pleasant, so clean, in the house; and in his soul it was so dirty, despicable, and horrid. The whole evening Eugene was tormented by knowing that notwithstanding his sincere repulsion at his own weakness, notwithstanding his firm intention to break off,—the same thing would happen again to-morrow.
"No, this is impossible," he said to himself, walking up and down in his room. "There must be some remedy for it. My God! What am I to do?"
Someone knocked at the door as foreigners do. He knew this must be his uncle. "Come in," he said.
The uncle had come as a self-appointed ambassador from Liza.
"Do you know, I really do notice that there is a change in you," he said,—"and Liza—I understand how it troubles her. I understand that it must be hard for you to leave all the business you have so excellently started, but que veux-tu?[3] I should advise you to go away. It will be more satisfactory both for you and for her. And do you know, I should advise you to go to the Crimea. The climate is beautiful and there is an excellent accoucheur there, and you would be just in time for the best of the grape season."
"Uncle," Eugene suddenly exclaimed. "Can you keep a secret? A secret that is terrible to me, a shameful secret."
"Oh, come—do you really feel any doubt of me?"