And she pictured to herself what would happen when Azya’s treason and his flight would become known: how they would search for her; how they would find her at last,—blue, frozen, sleeping the eternal sleep under a bush at the river. And all at once she called out,—
“Oh, but poor Michael will be in despair! Ei, ei!”
Then she implored him, saying that it was not her fault.
“Michael,” said she, putting her arms around his neck, mentally, “I did all in my power; but, my dear, it was difficult. The Lord God did not will it.”
And that moment such a heartfelt love for Michael possessed her, such a wish even to die near that dear head, that, summoning every force she had, she rose from the bank and walked on.
At first it was immensely difficult. Her feet had become unaccustomed to walking during the long ride; she felt as if she were going on stilts. Happily she was not cold; she was even warm enough, for the fever had not left her for a moment.
Sinking in the forest, she went forward persistently, remembering to keep the sun on her left hand. It had gone, in fact, to the Moldavian side; for it was the second half of the day,—perhaps four o’clock. Basia cared less now for approaching the Dniester, for it seemed to her always that she was beyond Mohiloff.
“If only I were sure of that; if I knew it!” repeated she, raising her blue, and at the same time inflamed, face to the sky. “If some beast or some tree would speak and say, ‘It is a mile to Hreptyoff, two miles,’—I might go there perhaps.”
But the trees were silent; nay more, they seemed to her unfriendly, and obstructed the road with their roots. Basia stumbled frequently against the knots and curls of those roots covered with snow. After a time she was burdened unendurably; she threw the warm mantle from her shoulders and remained in her single coat. Relieving herself in this way, she walked and walked still more hurriedly,—now stumbling, now falling at times in deeper snow. Her fur-lined morocco boots without soles, excellent for riding in a sleigh or on horseback, did not protect her feet well against clumps or stones; besides, soaked through repeatedly at crossings, and kept damp by the warmth of her feet now inflamed from fever, these boots were torn easily in the forest.
“I will go barefoot to Hreptyoff or to death!” thought Basia.