He entered his damp room. Another woman, an old and skinny one, was there, and was still washing it. Eugène passed on tiptoe across the floor, wet with dirty water, to the wall where his boots stood, and he was about to leave the room when the woman herself went out.

“This one has gone and the other, Stepanída, will come here alone,” someone within him began to reflect.

“My God, what am I thinking of and what am I doing!” He seized his boots and ran out with them into the hall, put them on there, brushed himself, and went out onto the veranda where both the mammas were already drinking coffee. Liza had evidently been expecting him and came onto the veranda through another door at the same time.

“My God! If she, who considers me so honourable, pure, and innocent⁠—if she only knew!”⁠—thought he.

Liza as usual met him with shining face. But today somehow she seemed to him particularly pale, yellow, long, and weak.