Behind the lowered blind a bumblebee was bump- ing against the window-pane and buzzing. Sofya Pe- trovna looked at the threads on the socks, listened to the bee and pictured herself traveling . . . Ilyin sits op- posite day and night, never taking his eyes off her, angered by his o^ weakness and pale with mental agony. He calls himself a dissolute schoolboy, abuses her, tears his hair, but when darkness comes and the passengers are asleep or get out at the station, he seizes the opportunity to kneel before her and press her knees as he had done at the bench. . . .
She stopped short, suddenly aware that she was day- dreaming.
"Listen. I won't go alone," she said to her husband. "You must come with me."
"Ridiculous, Sofochka!" said Lubyantzev. "One must be sensible and only wish for what is possible."
"You will come when you find out," thought Sofya Petrovna.
Having decided to leave at all costs, she felt herself out of danger. Little by little, order came into her thoughts, she grew more cheerful and she even allowed herself to dwell upon it all, since no matter what she
thought about, no matter what she dreamed of, she
would leave anyway.
While her husband was sleeping, evening gradually advanced. She sat in the drawing-room playing the pi- ano. The stir out-of-doors that comes at dusk, the strains of music, and above all, the thought that she had used her head, that she had solved her problem, completely restored her spirits. Other women in her position, her now serene conscience told her, would probably have been carried away and lost their balance, while she had almost died of shame, had been unhappy and was now fleeing from a danger which, indeed, might be non- existent! She was soon so impressed by her own virtuous and resolute conduct that she even looked at herself in the mirror two or three times.
When it got dark, company arrived. The men sat down in the dining room to play cards; the ladies oc- cupied the drawing-room and the porch. The last to arrive was Ilyin. He was gloomy, morose, and looked il. He sat down in the corner of the couch and did not budge all evening. Usually high-spirited and talkative, this time he was silent and kept frowning and rubbing his eyes. When someone asked him a question, he gave a forced smile with his upper lip only and answered curtly and with irritation. He cracked several jokes, but his witticisms were harsh and impertinent. It seemed to Sofya Petrovna that he was on the verge of hysteria. Only now, sitting at the piano, she realized fully for the first time that this unhappy man was in no mood for jokes, that his soul was sick and that he was in torment. It was on her account that he was wasting the best days of his youth, ruining his career, spending the last of his money on a summer cottage; it was because of her that he had left his mother and sisters to the mercy of Fate, and, worst of all, was enduring a martyr- dom in a struggle with himself that was undoing him. Out of mere common humanity, he ought to be taken seriously. . . .
She was so keenly aware of all this that it made her heart ache, and if at that moment she had gone up to him and said, "No," there would have been a force in her voice that would have commanded obedience. But she did not go up to him and did not speak, indeed, she did not consider doing so. She had never, perhaps, exhibited more clearly the pettiness and selfishness of youth than that evening. She realized that Ilyin was miserable and that he was sitting on the couch as on hot coals; she was sorry for him but, at the same time, the presence of a man who loved her so passionately filled her with triumph, with a sense of her own power. She was conscious of her youth, her beauty, and her inviolable virtue, and since she had decided to leave she gave herself full liberty for that evening. She flirted, laughed incessantly, sang with peculiar animation and feeling. Everything entertained and amused her. She was amused by the recollection of what had happened at the bench in the woods, by the memory of the sentry who had looked on. She was amused by her guests, by Ilyin's impertinent witticisms, by the- pin in his cravat which she had never noticed before. The pin was in the shape of a red snake with diamond eyes. This snake struck her as so amusing that she could have covered it with kisses.
Sofya Petrovna sang nervously with a kind of half- intoxicated bravado, and as though in mockery of an- other's sorrow she chose sad, melancholy songs about blasted hopes, the past, old age. "Old age comes closer and closer . . ." she sang. But what was old age to her?
"I am behaving oddly," flashed through her mind ar she laughed and sang.
The party broke up at midnight. Ilyin was the last to leave. Sofya Petrovna was still giddy enough to see him off to the bottom step of the porch. She wanted to teU him that she was going away with her husband, and to watch the effect this news would have on him.
The moon was hidden behind the clouds, but it was light enough for Sofya Petrovna to see how the wind flipped the skirts of Ilyin's overcoat and the blinds of the porch. She could also see how pale he was and how he twisted his upper lip in an effort to smile.
"Sonya, Sonichka, dearest!" he muttered, not letting her speak. "My dear, my darling!"
In a fit of tenderness, with tears in his voice, he showered her with caressing words, one more tender than the other, and even addressed her in the intimate second person singular, as though she were his wife or mistress. He surprised her by suddenly putting one arm around her waist and grasping her elbow with the other.
"My precious, my darling," he whispered, kissing the nape of her neck; "be sincere, come to me at once!"
She slipped out of his embrace and raised her head to vent her indignation and resentment, but the indig- nation did not come off, and all her vaunted virtue and purity was only sufficient to enable her to say the phrase which all ordinary women use under such circum- stances:
"You're mad."
"Really, let's go," Ilyin continued. "I realized just now, as I did at the bench in the woods, that you are as helpless as I am, Sonya. You, too, will bark your shins! You love me and are bargaining with your con- science to no purpose."
Seeing that she was moving away, he caught her by her lace cuff and rapidly finished what he had started to say:
"If not today, then tomorrow, but you will have to give in! Why this delay then? My precious, my darling, Sonya, the sentence has been passed, why put off the execution? Why deceive ourselves?"
Sofya Petrovna tore herself away and darted through the door. Returning to the drawing-room, she shut the piano automatically, stared for a long time at the vi- gnette on a sheet of music, and sat down. She could not stand up, nor could she think. All that was left of her excitement and bravado was a fearful exhaustion, apathy, and ennui. Her conscience whispered to her that she had behaved badly, foolishly that evening, like a giddy girl, that she had just been making love on the porch and still had an odd feeling about her waist and her elbow.
The drawing-room was deserted; there was only one candle burning. Madam Lubyantzeva sat on the round stool before the piano motionless, waiting for something. And as though taking advantage of the darkness and of her extreme lassitude, desire, oppressive, irresistible, be- gan to take possession of her. Like a boa constrictor, it tightened about her limbs and her soul, grew stronger every moment and no longer menaced her, as it had be- fore, but stood plainly before her in all its nakedness.
She sat without stirring for half an hour, permitting herself to think freely of Ilyin. Then she got up lan- guidly and dragged herself to her bedroom. Andrey Ilyich was already in bed. She sat down by the open window and gave herself up to desire. There was now no confusion in her mind. All her thoughts and feelings were directed with one accord toward a single object. She tried to struggle against it, but at once gave up the effort. It was clear to her that she was dealing with a strange and implacable enemy. To fight it she needed strength and courage, yet her family background, her education, and her experience in life had given her nothing to lean upon.