Eugène shouted to Varvára Alexéevna not to hurry, and that he would carry Liza home. Varvára Alexéevna stopped and began to shout still louder.
“You will drop her, you’ll be sure to drop her. You want to destroy her. You have no conscience!”
“But I am carrying her excellently.”
“I do not want to watch you killing my daughter, and I can’t.” And she ran round the bend in the alley.
“Never mind, it will pass,” said Liza, smiling.
“Yes, if only it does not have consequences like last time.”
“No. I am not speaking of that. That is all right. I mean mamma. You are tired. Rest a bit.”
But though he found it heavy, Eugène carried his burden proudly and gladly to the house and did not hand her over to the housemaid and the man-cook whom Varvára Alexéevna had found and sent to meet them. He carried her to the bedroom and put her on the bed.
“Now go away,” she said, and drawing his hand to her she kissed it. “Ánnushka and I will manage all right.”
Mary Pávlovna also ran in from her rooms in the wing. They undressed Liza and laid her on the bed. Eugène sat in the drawing room with a book in his hand, waiting. Varvára Alexéevna went past him with such a reproachfully gloomy air that he felt alarmed.
“Well, how is it?” he asked.
“How is it? What’s the good of asking? It is probably what you wanted when you made your wife jump over the ditch.”