The catastrophe came sooner than he expected. On the second day after Petenka's departure Arina Petrovna left for Pogorelka, and never again visited Golovliovo. She spent a month in total solitude, keeping to her room and scarcely exchanging a word with her servants. From force of habit she rose early in the morning, sat down at her desk, and began to play patience, but hardly ever brought the game to an end, and sat in frozen rigidity--with her glazed eyes fixed on the window. What she thought about or whether she thought at all, even the keenest judge of the deep-lying mysteries of the human soul could not have divined. She seemed to be trying to recollect something, perhaps how she came to be within those walls, and could not. Alarmed by her mistress's silence, Afimyushka would appear in the room, arrange the pillows lining her easy-chair, and try to open a conversation on this or that, but received only impatient monosyllabic replies. Once or twice Porfiry Vladimirych came to Pogorelka, invited mother dear to Golovliovo, tried to kindle her imagination with the prospect of mushrooms, German carp, and the other allurements of Golovliovo, but his overtures evoked nothing but an enigmatic smile. One morning she tried to leave her bed as usual, but could not, though she felt no particular pain, and complained of nothing. She took it, apparently, as a matter of course, without any sign of alarm. The very day before she had been sitting at the table and even walked, though with difficulty, and now she was in bed "feeling indisposed." It was even more comfortable. But Afimyushka became thoroughly frightened and without the mistress's knowledge sent a messenger to Porfiry Vladimirych. Yudushka came early the next morning. Arina Petrovna was considerably worse. He put the servants through a cross-examination as to what mother had eaten and whether she had not overeaten. But Arina Petrovna had eaten almost nothing for a whole month, and had refused all food the previous day. Yudushka expressed his grief, waved his hands, and like a good son, warmed himself at the oven in the maids' room so that he would not bring the cold into the patient's room. At the same time he began to give orders and make arrangements. He had an extraordinary keenness for scenting death. He made inquiries as to whether the priest was home and arranged that in case of emergency he should be sent for at once. He informed himself where mother's chest with her papers was, whether it was locked, and having satisfied himself concerning the state of things, he called in the cook and ordered dinner for himself. "I need but little," he said. "Have you got a chicken? Well, prepare some chicken soup. If you have some cured beef, get a bit of cured beef ready. Then something fried, and I'll have enough."