“But listen,” she began. “If you don’t go with me, you are in danger of losing me. I believe I am…in love already.”

“With whom?” asked Andrey Ilyitch.

“It can’t make any difference to you who it is!” cried Sofya Petrovna.

Andrey Ilyitch sat up with his feet out of bed and looked wonderingly at his wife’s dark figure.

“It’s a fancy!” he yawned.

He did not believe her, but yet he was frightened. After thinking a little and asking his wife several unimportant questions, he delivered himself of his opinions on the family, on infidelity…spoke listlessly for about ten minutes and got into bed again. His moralizing produced no effect. There are a great many opinions in the world, and a good half of them are held by people who have never been in trouble!

In spite of the late hour, summer visitors were still walking outside. Sofya Petrovna put on a light cape, stood a little, thought a little.…She still had resolution enough to say to her sleeping husband:

“Are you asleep? I am going for a walk.…Will you come with me?”

That was her last hope. Receiving no answer, she went out.…It was fresh and windy. She was conscious neither of the wind nor the darkness, but went on and on.…An overmastering force drove her on, and it seemed as though, if she had stopped, it would have pushed her in the back.

“Immoral creature!” she muttered mechanically. “Low wretch!”

She was breathless, hot with shame, did not feel her legs under her, but what drove her on was stronger than shame, reason, or fear.

1886