And anxious to prove to herself that she was still a good wife and mother, and that corruption had not yet touched that “sanctity of marriage” of which she had spoken to Ilyin, Sofya Petrovna ran to the kitchen and abused the cook for not having yet laid the table for Andrey Ilyitch.  She tried to picture her husband’s hungry and exhausted appearance, commiserated him aloud, and laid the table for him with her own hands, which she had never done before.  Then she found her daughter Varya, picked her up in her arms and hugged her warmly; the child seemed to her cold and heavy, but she was unwilling to acknowledge this to herself, and she began explaining to the child how good, kind, and honourable her papa was.

But when Andrey Ilyitch arrived soon afterwards she hardly greeted him.  The rush of false feeling had already passed off without proving anything to her, only irritating and exasperating her by its falsity.  She was sitting by the window, feeling miserable and cross.  It is only by being in trouble that people can understand how far from easy it is to be the master of one’s feelings and thoughts.  Sofya Petrovna said afterwards that there was a tangle within her which it was as difficult to unravel as to count a flock of sparrows rapidly flying by.  From the fact that she was not overjoyed to see her husband, that she did not like his manner at dinner, she concluded all of a sudden that she was beginning to hate her husband.

Andrey Ilyitch, languid with hunger and exhaustion, fell upon the sausage while waiting for the soup to be brought in, and ate it greedily, munching noisily and moving his temples.

“My goodness!” thought Sofya Petrovna.  “I love and respect him, but . . . why does he munch so repulsively?”

The disorder in her thoughts was no less than the disorder in her feelings.  Like all persons inexperienced in combating unpleasant ideas, Madame Lubyantsev did her utmost not to think of her trouble, and the harder she tried the more vividly Ilyin, the sand on his knees, the fluffy clouds, the train, stood out in her imagination.

“And why did I go there this afternoon like a fool?” she thought, tormenting herself.  “And am I really so weak that I cannot depend upon myself?”

Fear magnifies danger.  By the time Andrey Ilyitch was finishing the last course, she had firmly made up her mind to tell her husband everything and to flee from danger!

“I’ve something serious to say to you, Andrey,” she began after dinner while her husband was taking off his coat and boots to lie down for a nap.

“Well?”

“Let us leave this place!”

“H’m! . . .  Where shall we go?  It’s too soon to go back to town.”

“No; for a tour or something of that sort.

“For a tour . . .” repeated the notary, stretching.  “I dream of that myself, but where are we to get the money, and to whom am I to leave the office?”

And thinking a little he added: