A footman, leaning on the arms of his seat, was dozing on the box. The mail-coach driver, shouting lustily, urged on his four big sweating horses, occasionally turning to the other driver who called to him from the calèche behind. The broad parallel tracks of the tyres spread themselves evenly and fast on the muddy, chalky surface of the road. The sky was grey and cold and a damp mist was settling on the fields and road. It was stuffy in the coach and there was a smell of Eau-de-Cologne and dust. The invalid drew back her head and slowly opened her beautiful dark eyes, which were large and brilliant.
‘Again,’ she said, nervously pushing away with her beautiful thin hand an end of her maid’s cloak which had lightly touched her foot, and her mouth twitched painfully. Matrësha gathered up her cloak with both hands, rose on her strong legs, and seated herself farther away, while her fresh face grew scarlet. The lady, leaning with both hands on the seat, also tried to raise herself so as to sit up higher, but her strength failed her. Her mouth twisted, and her whole face became distorted by a look of impotent malevolence and irony. ‘You might at least help me! … No, don’t bother! I can do it myself, only don’t put your bags or anything behind me, for goodness’ sake! … No, better not touch me since you don’t know how to!’ The lady closed her eyes and then, again quickly raising her eyelids, glared at the maid. Matrësha, looking at her, bit her red nether lip. A deep sigh rose from the invalid’s chest and turned into a cough before it was completed. She turned away, puckered her face, and clutched her chest with both hands. When the coughing fit was over she once more closed her eyes and continued to sit motionless. The carriage and calèche entered a village. Matrësha stretched out her thick hand from under her shawl and crossed herself.
‘What is it?’ asked her mistress.
‘A post-station, madam.’
‘I am asking why you crossed yourself.’
‘There’s a church, madam.’
The invalid turned to the window and began slowly to cross herself, looking with large wide-open eyes at the big village church her carriage was passing.
The carriage and calèche both stopped at the post-station and the invalid’s husband and doctor stepped out of the calèche and went up to the coach.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked the doctor, taking her pulse.
‘Well, my dear, how are you – not tired?’ asked the husband in French. ‘Wouldn’t you like to get out?’
Matrësha, gathering up the bundles, squeezed herself into a corner so as not to interfere with their conversation.
‘Nothing much, just the same,’ replied the invalid. ‘I won’t get out.’
Her husband after standing there a while went into the station-house, and Matrësha, too, jumped out of the carriage and ran on tiptoe across the mud and in at the gate.
‘If I feel ill, it’s no reason for you not to have lunch,’ said the sick woman with a slight smile to the doctor, who was standing at her window.
‘None of them has any thought for me,’ she added to herself as soon as the doctor, having slowly walked away from her, ran quickly up the steps to the station-house. ‘They are well, so they don’t care. Oh, my God!’
‘Well, Edward Ivánovich?’ said the husband, rubbing his hands as he met the doctor with a merry smile. ‘I have ordered the lunch-basket to be brought in. What do you think about it?’
‘A capital idea,’ replied the doctor.
‘Well, how is she?’ asked the husband with a sigh, lowering his voice and lifting his eyebrows.
‘As I told you: it is impossible for her to reach Italy – God grant that she gets even as far as Moscow, especially in this weather.’
‘But what are we to do? Oh, my God, my God!’ and the husband hid his eyes with his hand. ‘Bring it here!’ he said to the man who had brought in the lunch-basket.
‘She ought to have stayed at home,’ said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders.
‘But what could I do?’ rejoined the husband. ‘You know I used every possible means to get her to stay. I spoke of the expense, of our children whom we had to leave behind, and of my business affairs, but she would not listen to anything. She is making plans for life abroad as if she were in good health. To tell her of her condition would be to kill her.’
‘But she is killed already – you must know that, Vasíli Dmítrich. A person can’t live without lungs, and new lungs won’t grow. It is sad and hard, but what is to be done? My business and yours is to see that her end is made as peaceful as possible. It’s a priest who is needed for that.’
‘Oh, my God! Think of my condition, having to remind her about her will. Come what may I can’t tell her that, you know how good she is …’
‘Still, try to persuade her to wait till the roads are fit for sledging,’ said the doctor, shaking his head significantly, ‘or something bad may happen on the journey.’
‘Aksyúsha, hello Aksyúsha!’ yelled the station-master’s daughter, throwing her jacket over her head and stamping her feet on the muddy back porch. ‘Come and let’s have a look at the Shírkin lady: they say she is being taken abroad for a chest trouble, and I’ve never seen what consumptive people look like!’
She jumped onto the threshold, and seizing one another by the hand the two girls ran out of the gate. Checking their pace, they passed by the coach and looked in at the open window. The invalid turned her head towards them but, noticing their curiosity, frowned and turned away.
‘De-arie me!’ said the station-master’s daughter, quickly turning her head away. ‘What a wonderful beauty she must have been, and see what she’s like now! It’s dreadful. Did you see, did you, Aksyúsha?’
‘Yes, how thin!’ Aksyúsha agreed. ‘Let’s go and look again, as if we were going to the well. See, she has turned away, and I hadn’t seen her yet. What a pity, Másha!’
‘Yes, and what mud!’ said Másha, and they both ran through the gate.
‘Evidently I look frightful,’ thought the invalid. ‘If only I could get abroad quicker, quicker. I should soon recover there.’
‘Well, my dear, how are you?’ said her husband, approaching her and still chewing.
‘Always the same question,’ thought the invalid, ‘and he himself is eating.’
‘So-so,’ she murmured through her closed teeth.
‘You know, my dear, I’m afraid you’ll get worse travelling in this weather, and Edward Ivánovich says so too. Don’t you think we’d better turn back?’
She remained angrily silent.
‘The weather will perhaps improve and the roads be fit for sledging; you will get better meanwhile, and we will all go together.’
‘Excuse me. If I had not listened to you for so long, I should now at least have reached Berlin, and have been quite well.’
‘What could be done, my angel? You know it was impossible. But now if you stayed another month you would get nicely better, I should have finished my business, and we could take the children with us.’
‘The children are well, but I am not.’
‘But do understand, my dear, that if in this weather you should get worse on the road.… At least you would be at home.’
‘What of being at home?… To die at home?’ answered the invalid, flaring up. But the word ‘die’ evidently frightened her, and she looked imploringly and questioningly at her husband. He hung his head and was silent. The invalid’s mouth suddenly widened like a child’s, and tears rolled down her cheeks. Her husband hid his face in his handkerchief and stepped silently away from the carriage.
‘No, I will go on,’ said the invalid, and lifting her eyes to the sky she folded her hands and began whispering incoherent words: ‘Oh, my God, what is it for?’ she said, and her tears flowed faster. She prayed long and fervently, but her chest ached and felt as tight as before; the sky, the fields, and the road were just as grey and gloomy, and the autumnal mist fell, neither thickening nor lifting, and settled on the muddy road, the roofs, the carriage, and the sheepskin coats of the drivers, who talking in their strong merry voices were greasing the wheels and harnessing the horses.