These were the thoughts that passed through Vera’s mind while Tatiana Markovna and Raisky were accompanying their guests and Marfinka as far as the Volga. What was the Wolf doing now? was he enjoying his triumph? She took from her letter case a sealed letter on blue paper which she had received early that morning and looked at it thoughtfully for a minute before she threw it down with its seals unbroken on the table. All her troubles were submerged in the painful question, what would become of her Grandmother. Raisky had already whispered to Vera that he would speak to Tatiana Markovna that evening if she were alone, and that he would take care that none of the servants should have the opportunity of seeing the impression which the news was bound to make on her. Vera shivered with foreboding when he spoke of these precautions; she would have liked to have died before evening came. After her talk of past events with Raisky and Tushin she recovered something of her usual calmness; a part of her burden was gone now that, like a sailor in a storm, she had lightened the ship of some of its ballast, but she felt that the heaviest load of all still lay on her conscience. It is impossible to go on living like this, she told herself, as she made her way to the chapel. There, on her knees, she looked anxiously up at the holy picture as if she expected a sign, but the sign she longed for was not granted, and she passed out of the chapel in despair as one who lay under the ban of God.
CHAPTER XXIX
When Tatiana Markovna returned from the ferry she sat down to work at her accounts, but soon laid them aside, and dismissed the servants. She asked for Raisky, who had gone over to see Koslov because he did not want to be left alone with his aunt. She sent across to ask Vera whether she was coming to dinner. Vera said that she would rather stay in her room and go to bed early.
In the courtyard a scene by no means unusual was being enacted. Savili had nearly broken Marina’s back with a severe beating because he had seen her slipping out at dawn from the room in which Vikentev’s servant was quartered. She hid herself in the fields and the vegetable garden, but at last she emerged, thinking that he would have forgotten. He struck her with the whip while she sought refuge in one corner after another, swearing by all that was sacred that the devil had taken on her figure and had made a fool of him. But when he exchanged the whip for the stick she cried out aloud at the first blow and fell at his feet. “I am guilty,” she cried, begging for mercy. She promised not to transgress again, calling God to witness of her sincerity. Thereupon Savili threw away the stick and wiped his face with his sleeve.
“You may go this time,” he said, “since you have confessed, and since you call God to witness.”
Tatiana Markovna was informed of this proceeding, but she only wrinkled her forehead, and made a sign to Vassilissa not to be too severe with Marina.
There were visitors to dinner who had heard of Vera’s indisposition and had come to inquire. Tatiana Markovna spoke of a chill, suffering all the time from her insincerity, since she did not know what was the truth that lay behind this feigned illness. She had not dared to send for the doctor, who would have immediately seen that it was a moral, not a physical malady.
She ate no supper; Tiet Nikonich politely said that he had no appetite either. Then came Raisky, who also wanted no supper, but sat silently at table pretending not to notice the glances which Tatiana Markovna directed towards him from time to time.