"There now," said she merrily. "I bet he goes on the spree there. Why shouldn't I?"
Evidently she was putting on an air of sauciness and assurance. And this seemed charming to Eugene. But all the same he did not himself fix a rendezvous with her. Even when she proposed that they should meet without the aid of Daniel, to whom she seemed not very well-disposed, Eugene did not consent. He hoped that this meeting would be the last. He liked her. He thought such intercourse was necessary for him and that there was nothing bad about it, but in the depth of his soul there was a stricter judge, who did not approve of it and hoped that this would be the last time, or if he did not hope that, at any rate did not wish to participate in arrangements to repeat it another time.
So the whole summer passed, during which they met a dozen times and always by Daniel's help. It happened once that she could not be there because her husband had come home, and Daniel proposed another woman, but Eugene refused with disgust. Then the husband went away, and the meetings continued as before, at first through Daniel, but afterwards he simply fixed the time and she came with another woman, Prokhorova—as it would not do for a peasant-woman to go about alone.
Once at the very time fixed for the rendezvous a family came to call on Mary Pavlovna, with the very girl she wished Eugene to marry, and it was impossible for Eugene to get away. As soon as he could do so, he went out as though to the thrashing-floor, and round by the path to their meeting-place in the wood. She was not there, but at the accustomed spot everything within reach of one's hand had been broken—the black alder, the hazel-twigs, and even a young maple the thickness of a stake. She had waited, had become excited and angry, and had skittishly left him a remembrance. He waited, waited, and went to Daniel to ask him to call her for to-morrow. She came, and was just as usual.
So the summer passed. The meetings were always arranged in the wood, and only once, when it grew towards autumn, in the shed that stood in her back-yard.
It did not enter Eugene's head that these relations of his had any importance for him. About her he did not even think. He gave her money and nothing more. At first he did not know and did not think that the affair was known and she was envied throughout the village, or that her relations took money from her and encouraged her, and that her conception of any sin in the matter had been quite obliterated by the influence of the money and her family's approval. It seemed to her that if people envied her, then what she was doing was good.
"It is simply necessary for one's health," thought Eugene. "I grant it is not right, and though no one says anything, everybody, or many people, know of it. The woman who comes with her knows. And once she knows, she is sure to have told others. But what's to be done? I am acting badly," thought Eugene, "but what's one to do? Anyhow it is not for long."
What chiefly disturbed Eugene was the thought of the husband. At first, for some reason, it seemed to him that the husband must be a poor sort, and this, as it were, partly justified his conduct. But he saw the husband and was struck: he was a fine fellow and smartly dressed, in no way a worse man, but surely better, than himself. At their next meeting he told her he had seen her husband and had been surprised to see that he was such a fine fellow.
"There's not such another in the village," said she proudly.
This surprised Eugene. The thought of the husband tormented him still more after that. He happened to be at Daniel's one day and Daniel, having begun chatting, plainly said to him: