XIX.
He suddenly got up and sat down near the window.
"Pardon me," he said, and, staring through the window, sat thus for about three minutes in silence. Then he drew a deep breath and again seated himself opposite me. His face was quite changed, his eyes looked wretched, and what might be taken for a strange smile wrinkled his lips. "I am a little tired, but I will continue. There is much time yet,—day has not broken yet. Yes, sir," he began, after lighting a cigarette, "she grew plump as soon as she stopped having children, and her disease,—her eternal suffering on account of the children, began to pass away; it did not pass away exactly; rather, she seemed to awaken as if from an intoxication, she came to her senses, and saw that there was a whole God's world with its joys, which she had forgotten, but in which she did not know how to live,—a God's world, which she did not at all understand. 'I must not miss the chance! Time will pass, and it will never return!' Thus, I imagine, she reasoned, or rather felt, nor could she help reasoning and feeling like this: she had been educated to consider nothing more worthy of attention in the world than love. She had married, had tasted a little of that love, but nowhere near that which she had promised herself, which she had expected, and there had been so many disenchantments, so much suffering, and that unexpected torment,—so many children! This torment had worn her out. And now, thanks to obliging doctors, she had discovered that it was possible to get along without children.
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