Notwithstanding urgent requests to remain, he went home. In his hotel room he drank two glasses of seltzer water, and sat down at the table to make up his accounts. In the morning he had to go out on business—to borrow money. His brother had refused to lend him any, and so he had got it from a moneylender. He sat there making his calculations, and all the while his thoughts returned to Anna, and he felt annoyed that he had refused her, though be felt proud that he had done so.
He took out Marie’s photograph. She was a strong, well-developed, slender Russian beauty. He looked at the picture with admiration, then put it in front of him and went on with his work.
Suddenly in the corridor he heard the voices of Anna and Souschov. He was leading her straight to his door.
“Alexis, how could you?”
She entered his room.
Next morning Lutkovsky vent to breakfast with Souschov, who reproached him.
“You must know how terribly this would grieve her.”
“Of course I do. Don’t worry. I am as dumb as a fish. May I—Alexis has returned from Moscow, the same clear, childlike soul. I see he is unhappy because he is not rich, for my sake—only for my sake. Last night the conversation turned on children, on our future children. I cannot believe I shall have children, or even one child. It is impossible. I shall die of happiness. Oh, but if I had them, how could I love them and him? The two things do not go together. Well, what is to be will be.”
A month later the wedding took place. In the autumn Lutkovsky got a post in the Civil Service, and they went to St. Petersburg. In September they discovered that she was going to be a mother, and in March her first son was born.