Mary Pavlovna also ran in from her rooms in the wing. They undressed Liza and laid her on the bed. Eugene sat in the drawing-room with a book in his hand, waiting. Varvara Alexeevna went past him with such a reproachfully gloomy air that he felt alarmed.
"Well, how is it?" he asked.
"How? What's the good of asking? It is probably what you wanted when you made your wife jump over the ditch."
"Varvara Alexeevna!" he cried. "This is impossible. If you want to torment people and to poison their life,"—he wanted to say, "then go elsewhere to do it," but he restrained himself. "How is it that it does not hurt you?"
"It is too late now." And shaking her cap in a triumphant manner she passed out by the door.
The fall had really been a bad one, Liza's foot had twisted awkwardly and there was danger of her having another miscarriage. Everyone knew that there was nothing to be done, but that she must just lie quietly, yet all the same they decided to send for a doctor.
"Dear Nikolay Semënich," wrote Eugene to the doctor, "you have always been so kind to us, that I hope you will not refuse to come to my wife's assistance. She . . ." and so on. Having written the letter he went to the stables to arrange about the horses and the carriage. Horses had to be got ready to bring the doctor, and others to take him back. When an estate is not run on a large scale, such things cannot be quickly decided but have to be considered. Having arranged it all and dispatched the coachman, it was past nine before he got back to the house. His wife was lying down, and said that she felt perfectly well and had no pain. But Varvara Alexeevna was sitting with a lamp screened from Liza by some sheets of music and knitting a large red coverlet, with a mien that said that after what had happened peace was impossible; but that no matter what anyone else did, she at any rate would do her duty.
Eugene noticed this but, to appear as if he had not seen it, he tried to assume a cheerful and tranquil air and told how he had chosen the horses and how the mare, Kabushka, had galloped capitally as left trace-horse in the troika.
"Yes, of course, it is just the time to exercise the horses when help is needed. Probably the doctor will also be thrown into the ditch," remarked Varvara Alexeevna, examining her knitting from under her pince-nez and moving it close up to the lamp.
"But you know we had to send one way or other, and I made the best arrangement I could."