IV

I may mention that Anna Prohorovna knew nothing of the resolutions that had been taken at the meeting the day before. On returning home overwhelmed and exhausted, Virginsky had not ventured to tell her of the decision that had been taken, yet he could not refrain from telling her half—that is, all that Verhovensky had told them of the certainty of Shatov’s intention to betray them; but he added at the same time that he did not quite believe it. Arina Prohorovna was terribly alarmed. This was why she decided at once to go when Shatov came to fetch her, though she was tired out, as she had been hard at work at a confinement all the night before. She had always been convinced that “a wretched creature like Shatov was capable of any political baseness,” but the arrival of Marya Ignatyevna put things in a different light. Shatov’s alarm, the despairing tone of his entreaties, the way he begged for help, clearly showed a complete change of feeling in the traitor: a man who was ready to betray himself merely for the sake of ruining others would, she thought, have had a different air and tone. In short, Arina Prohorovna resolved to look into the matter for herself, with her own eyes. Virginsky was very glad of her decision, he felt as though a hundredweight had been lifted off him! He even began to feel hopeful: Shatov’s appearance seemed to him utterly incompatible with Verhovensky’s supposition.

Shatov was not mistaken: on getting home he found Arina Prohorovna already with Marie. She had just arrived, had contemptuously dismissed Kirillov, whom she found hanging about the foot of the stairs, had hastily introduced herself to Marie, who had not recognised her as her former acquaintance, found her in “a very bad way,” that is ill-tempered, irritable and in “a state of cowardly despair,” and within five minutes had completely silenced all her protests.

“Why do you keep on that you don’t want an expensive midwife?” she was saying at the moment when Shatov came in. “That’s perfect nonsense, it’s a false idea arising from the abnormality of your condition. In the hands of some ordinary old woman, some peasant midwife, you’d have fifty chances of going wrong and then you’d have more bother and expense than with a regular midwife. How do you know I am an expensive midwife? You can pay afterwards; I won’t charge you much and I answer for my success; you won’t die in my hands, I’ve seen worse cases than yours. And I can send the baby to a foundling asylum to-morrow, if you like, and then to be brought up in the country, and that’s all it will mean. And meantime you’ll grow strong again, take up some rational work, and in a very short time you’ll repay Shatov for sheltering you and for the expense, which will not be so great.”

“It’s not that … I’ve no right to be a burden.…”

“Rational feelings and worthy of a citizen, but you can take my word for it, Shatov will spend scarcely anything, if he is willing to become ever so little a man of sound ideas instead of the fantastic person he is. He has only not to do anything stupid, not to raise an alarm, not to run about the town with his tongue out. If we don’t restrain him he will be knocking up all the doctors of the town before the morning; he waked all the dogs in my street. There’s no need of doctors I’ve said already. I’ll answer for everything. You can hire an old woman if you like to wait on you, that won’t cost much. Though he too can do something besides the silly things he’s been doing. He’s got hands and feet, he can run to the chemist’s without offending your feelings by being too benevolent. As though it were a case of benevolence! Hasn’t he brought you into this position? Didn’t he make you break with the family in which you were a governess, with the egoistic object of marrying you? We heard of it, you know … though he did run for me like one possessed and yell so all the street could hear. I won’t force myself upon anyone and have come only for your sake, on the principle that all of us are bound to hold together! And I told him so before I left the house. If you think I am in the way, good-bye, I only hope you won’t have trouble which might so easily be averted.”

And she positively got up from the chair. Marie was so helpless, in such pain, and—the truth must be confessed—so frightened of what was before her that she dared not let her go. But this woman was suddenly hateful to her, what she said was not what she wanted, there was something quite different in Marie’s soul. Yet the prediction that she might possibly die in the hands of an inexperienced peasant woman overcame her aversion. But she made up for it by being more exacting and more ruthless than ever with Shatov. She ended by forbidding him not only to look at her but even to stand facing her. Her pains became more violent. Her curses, her abuse became more and more frantic.

“Ech, we’ll send him away,” Arina Prohorovna rapped out. “I don’t know what he looks like, he is simply frightening you; he is as white as a corpse! What is it to you, tell me please, you absurd fellow? What a farce!”

Shatov made no reply, he made up his mind to say nothing. “I’ve seen many a foolish father, half crazy in such cases. But they, at any rate …”

“Be quiet or leave me to die! Don’t say another word! I won’t have it, I won’t have it!” screamed Marie.

“It’s impossible not to say another word, if you are not out of your mind, as I think you are in your condition. We must talk of what we want, anyway: tell me, have you anything ready? You answer, Shatov, she is incapable.”

“Tell me what’s needed?”

“That means you’ve nothing ready.” She reckoned up all that was quite necessary, and one must do her the justice to say she only asked for what was absolutely indispensable, the barest necessaries. Some things Shatov had. Marie took out her key and held it out to him, for him to look in her bag. As his hands shook he was longer than he should have been opening the unfamiliar lock. Marie flew into a rage, but when Arina Prohorovna rushed up to take the key from him, she would not allow her on any account to look into her bag and with peevish cries and tears insisted that no one should open the bag but Shatov.

Some things he had to fetch from Kirillov’s. No sooner had Shatov turned to go for them than she began frantically calling him back and was only quieted when Shatov had rushed impetuously back from the stairs, and explained that he should only be gone a minute to fetch something indispensable and would be back at once.

“Well, my lady, it’s hard to please you,” laughed Arina Prohorovna, “one minute he must stand with his face to the wall and not dare to look at you, and the next he mustn’t be gone for a minute, or you begin crying. He may begin to imagine something. Come, come, don’t be silly, don’t blubber, I was laughing, you know.”

“He won’t dare to imagine anything.”

“Tut, tut, tut, if he didn’t love you like a sheep he wouldn’t run about the streets with his tongue out and wouldn’t have roused all the dogs in the town. He broke my window-frame.”