"Not a doubt of it," growled Shatov.
Marie suddenly raised her head and cried out painfully:
"Don't dare speak of that to me again, don't dare to, never, never!"
And she fell back in bed again, overcome by the same convulsive agony; it was the third time, but this time her groans were louder, in fact she screamed.
"Oh, you insufferable man!
Oh, you unbearable man," she cried, tossing about recklessly, and pushing away Shatov as he bent over her.
"Marie, I'll do anything you like.... I'll walk about and talk...."
"Surely you must see that it has begun!"
"What's begun, Marie?"
"How can I tell!
Do I know anything about it?... I curse myself!
Oh, curse it all from the beginning!"
"Marie, if you'd tell me what's beginning... or else I... if you don't, what am I to make of it?"
"You are a useless, theoretical babbler.
Oh, curse everything on earth!"
"Marie, Marie!"
He seriously thought that she was beginning to go mad.
"Surely you must see that I am in the agonies of childbirth," she said, sitting up and gazing at him with a terrible, hysterical vindictiveness that distorted her whole face.
"I curse him before he is born, this child!"
"Marie," cried Shatov, realising at last what it meant. "Marie... but why didn't you tell me before." He pulled himself together at once and seized his cap with an air of vigorous determination.
"How could I tell when I came in here?
Should I have come to you if I'd known?
I was told it would be another ten days!
Where are you going?... Where are you going? You mustn't dare!"
"To fetch a midwife! I'll sell the revolver. We must get money before anything else now."
"Don't dare to do anything, don't dare to fetch a midwife! Bring a peasant woman, any old woman, I've eighty kopecks in my purse.... Peasant women have babies without midwives.... And if I die, so much the better...."
"You shall have a midwife and an old woman too.
But how am I to leave you alone, Marie!"
But reflecting that it was better to leave her alone now in spite of her desperate state than to leave her without help later, he paid no attention to her groans, nor her angry exclamations, but rushed downstairs, hurrying all he could.
III
First of all he went to Kirillov.
It was by now about one o'clock in the night.
Kirillov was standing in the middle of the room.
"Kirillov, my wife is in childbirth."
"How do you mean?"
"Childbirth, bearing a child!"
"You... are not mistaken?"
"Oh, no, no, she is in agonies!
I want a woman, any old woman, I must have one at once.... Can you get one now?
You used to have a lot of old women...."
"Very sorry that I am no good at childbearing," Kirillov answered thoughtfully; "that is, not at childbearing, but at doing anything for childbearing... or... no, I don't know how to say it."
"You mean you can't assist at a confinement yourself? But that's not what I've come for. An old woman, I want a woman, a nurse, a servant!"
"You shall have an old woman, but not directly, perhaps...
If you like I'll come instead...."
"Oh, impossible; I am running to Madame Virginsky, the midwife, now."
"A horrid woman!"
"Oh, yes, Kirillov, yes, but she is the best of them all.
Yes, it'll all be without reverence, without gladness, with contempt, with abuse, with blasphemy in the presence of so great a mystery, the coming of a new creature!
Oh, she is cursing it already!"
"If you like I'll..."