high-principled
woman, had allowed a man, not her husband, to hug her knees--she
had only one thought now: to get home as quickly as possible to her
villa, to her family. The lawyer could hardly keep pace with her.
Turning from the clearing into a narrow path, she turned round and
glanced at him so quickly that she saw nothing but the sand on his
knees, and waved to him to drop behind.

Reaching home, Sofya Petrovna stood in the middle of her room for
five minutes without moving, and looked first at the window and
then at her writing-table.

"You low creature!" she said, upbraiding herself. "You low creature!"

To spite herself, she recalled in precise detail, keeping nothing
back--she recalled that though all this time she had been opposed
to Ilyin's lovemaking, something had impelled her to seek an interview
with him; and what was more, when he was at her feet she had enjoyed
it enormously. She recalled it all without sparing herself, and
now, breathless with shame, she would have liked to slap herself
in the face.

"Poor Andrey!" she said to herself, trying as she thought of her
husband to put into her face as tender an expression as she could.
"Varya, my poor little girl, doesn't know what a mother she has!
Forgive me, my dear ones! I love you so much . . . so much!"

And anxious to prove to herself that she was still a good wife and
mother, and that corruption had not yet touched that "sanctity of
marriage" of which she had spoken to Ilyin, Sofya Petrovna ran to
the kitchen and abused the cook for not having yet laid the table
for Andrey Ilyitch. She tried to picture her husband's hungry and
exhausted appearance, commiserated him aloud, and laid the table
for him with her own hands, which she had never done before. Then
she found her daughter Varya, picked her up in her arms and hugged
her warmly; the child seemed to her cold and heavy, but she was
unwilling to acknowledge this to herself, and she began explaining
to the child how good, kind, and honourable her papa was.

But when Andrey Ilyitch arrived soon afterwards she hardly greeted
him. The rush of false feeling had already passed off without proving
anything to her, only irritating and exasperating her by its falsity.
She was sitting by the window, feeling miserable and cross. It is
only by being in trouble that people can understand how far from
easy it is to be the master of one's feelings and thoughts. Sofya
Petrovna said afterwards that there was