No use."
She looked around, and her thoughts flashed up in sparks and expired
in her brain one after the other.
"Leave the valise? Go away?"
But at the same time another spark darted up more glaringly: "How
much will be lost? Drop the son's word in such hands?"
She pressed the valise to herself trembling. "And to go away with
it? Where? To run?"
These thoughts seemed to her those of a stranger, somebody from the
outside, who was pushing them on her by main force. They burned
her, and their burns chopped her brain painfully, lashed her heart
like fiery whipcords. They were an insult to the mother; they
seemed to be driving her away from her own self, from Pavel, and
everything which had grown to her heart. She felt that a stubborn,
hostile force oppressed her, squeezed her shoulder and breast,
lowered her stature, plunging her into a fatal fear. The veins on
her temples began to pulsate vigorously, and the roots of her hair
grew warm.
Then with one great and sharp effort of her heart, which seemed
to shake her entire being, she quenched all these cunning, petty,
feeble little fires, saying sternly to herself: "Enough!"
She at once began to feel better, and she grew strengthened
altogether, adding: "Don't disgrace your son.
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