Chapter 19

Posdnicheff's face had become transformed; his eyes were pitiable; their
expression seemed strange, like that of another being than himself; his
moustache and beard turned up toward the top of his face; his nose was
diminished, and his mouth enlarged, immense, frightful.

"Yes," he resumed "she had grown stouter since ceasing to conceive,
and her anxieties about her children began to disappear. Not even
to disappear. One would have said that she was waking from a long
intoxication, that on coming to herself she had perceived the entire
universe with its joys, a whole world in which she had not learned to
live, and which she did not understand.

"'If only this world shall not vanish! When time is past, when old age
comes, one cannot recover it.' Thus, I believe, she thought, or rather
felt. Moreover, she could neither think nor feel otherwise. She had been
brought up in this idea that there is in the world but one thing worthy
of attention,--love. In marrying, she had known something of this love,
but very far from everything that she had understood as promised her,
everything that she expected. How many disillusions! How much suffering!
And an unexpected torture,--the children! This torture had told upon
her, and then, thanks to the obliging doctor, she had learned that it
is possible to avoid having children. That had made her glad. She had
tried, and she was now revived for the only thing that she knew,--for
love. But love with a husband polluted by jealousy and ill-nature was no
longer her ideal. She began to think of some other tenderness; at least,
that is what I thought. She looked about her as if expecting some event
or some being. I noticed it, and I could not help being anxious.

"Always, now, it happened that, in talking with me through a third party
(that is, in talking with others, but with the intention that I should
hear), she boldly expressed,--not thinking that an hour before she had
said the opposite,--half joking, half seriously, this idea that maternal
anxieties are a delusion; that it is not worth while to sacrifice one's
life to children. When one is young, it is necessary to enjoy life. So
she occupied herself less with the children, not with the same intensity
as formerly, and paid more and more attention to herself, to her
face,--although she concealed it,--to her pleasures, and even to her
perfection from the worldly point of view. She began to devote herself
passionately to the piano, which had formerly stood forgotten in the
corner. There, at the piano, began the adventure.

"The MAN appeared."

Posdnicheff seemed embarrassed, and twice again there escaped him that
nasal sound of which I spoke above. I thought that it gave him pain to