Thus months dragged along, and then something happened which entirely transformed her life.  One day, when she was at work upon a quilt, she suddenly experienced a strange sensation.  No—­it seemed impossible.  Motionless she sat with her work in hand.  Was it possible that this was it.  Forgetting everything, his baseness and deceit, her mother’s querulousness, and her father’s sorrow, she smiled.  She shuddered at the recollection that she was on the point of killing it, together with herself.

She now directed all her thoughts to getting away—­somewhere where she could bear her child—­and become a miserable, pitiful mother, but a mother withal.  Somehow she planned and arranged it all, leaving her home and settling in a distant provincial town, where no one could find her, and where she thought she would be far from her people.  But, unfortunately, her father’s brother received an appointment there, a thing she could not possibly foresee.  For four months she had been living in the house of a midwife—­one Maria Ivanovna; and, on learning that her uncle had come to the town, she was preparing to fly to a still remoter hiding-place.

III

Michael Ivanovich awoke early next morning.  He entered his brother’s study, and handed him the cheque, filled in for a sum which he asked him to pay in monthly instalments to his daughter.  He inquired when the express left for St. Petersburg.  The train left at seven in the evening, giving him time for an early dinner before leaving.  He breakfasted with his sister-in-law, who refrained from mentioning the subject which was so painful to him, but only looked at him timidly; and after breakfast he went out for his regular morning walk.

Alexandra Dmitrievna followed him into the hall.

“Go into the public gardens, Michael—­it is very charming there, and quite near to Everything,” said she, meeting his sombre looks with a pathetic glance.

Michael Ivanovich followed her advice and went to the public gardens, which were so near to Everything, and meditated with annoyance on the stupidity, the obstinacy, and heartlessness of women.

“She is not in the very least sorry for me,” he thought of his sister-in-law.  “She cannot even understand my sorrow.  And what of her?” He was thinking of his daughter.  “She knows what all this means to me—­the torture.  What a blow in one’s old age!  My days will be shortened by it!  But I’d rather have it over than endure this agony.  And all that ’pour les beaux yeux d’un chenapan’—­oh!” he moaned; and a wave of hatred and fury arose in him as he thought of what would be said in the town when every one knew. (And no doubt every one knew already.) Such a feeling of rage possessed him that he would have liked to beat it into her head, and make her understand what she had done.  These women never understand.  “It is quite near Everything,” suddenly came to his mind, and getting out his notebook, he found her address.  Vera Ivanovna Silvestrova, Kukonskaya Street, Abromov’s house.  She was living under this name.  He left the gardens and called a cab.