"What nonsense! . . . It is impossible," said Eugene to himself, frowning and waving his hand as though to get rid of a fly, displeased at having noticed her. He was vexed that he had noticed her and yet he could not take his eyes from her strong body, swayed by the agile strides of her bare feet, or from her arms, shoulders, and the pleasing folds of her shirt and handsome skirt, tucked up high above her white calves.
"But why am I looking?" said he to himself, lowering his eyes so as not to see her. "But anyhow I must go in to get some other boots." And he turned back to go into his own room, but had not gone five steps before, without knowing why or wherefore, he again glanced round to have another look at her. She was just going round the corner and also glanced at him.
"Ah, what am I doing!" said he to himself. "She may think . . . It is even certain that she already does think . . ."
He entered his damp room. Another woman, an old and skinny one, was there, and was still washing it. Eugene passed on tiptoe across the floor wet with dirty water to the wall where his boots stood, and he was about to leave the room, when the woman herself went out.
"This one has gone and the other, Stepanida, will come here alone," someone within him began to reflect.
"My God, what am I thinking of and what am I doing!" He seized his boots and ran out with them into the hall, put them on there, brushed himself, and went out on to the verandah where both the mammas were already drinking coffee. Liza had evidently been expecting him and came on to the verandah through another door at the same time.
"My God! If she, who considers me so honourable, pure, and innocent,—if she only knew!"—thought he.
Liza, as usual, met him with shining face. But to-day somehow she seemed to him particularly pale, yellow, long, and weak.
X
During coffee, as often happened, a peculiarly feminine kind of conversation went on which had no logical sequence, but which evidently was connected in some way for it went on uninterruptedly.