She fancied she would faU asleep at once and sleep soundly. Her legs and her shoulders ached painfully, her head was heavy from the strain of talking, and she was conscious, as before, of discomfort all over her body. Having drawn the cover over her head, she lay still for three or four minutes, then peeped out from under the bedclothes at the icon lamp, listened to the silence, and smiled.
"It's nice, it's nice," she whispered, curling up her legs, which felt as if they had grown longer from so much walking. "Sleep, sleep. . . ."
Her legs would not get into a comfortable position; she felt uneasy all over, and she turned on the other side. A big fly was buzzing about the bedroom and thumped against the ceiling in distress. She could hear, too, Grigory and Vasily stepping cautiously about the drawing-room, putting the chairs back in their places; it seemed to Olga Mihailovna that she could not go to sleep, nor be comfortable till those sounds were hushed.
And again she turned over on the other side impatiently.
She heard her husband's voice in the drawing-room. Someone must be staying the night, as Pyotr Dmitrich was addressing someone and speaking loudly:
"I don't say that Count Alexey Petrovich is a fraud. But he can't help seeming to be one, because all of you gentlemen attempt to see in him something different from what he really is. His craziness is looked upon as originality, his familiar manners as good-nature, and his complete absence of opinions as conservatism. Even granted that he is a Conservative 84 proof, what after all is conservatism?"
Pyotr Dmitrich, angry with Count Alexey Petrovich, his visitors, and himself, was relieving his heart. He abused both the Count and his visitors, and in his vex- ation with himself was ready to say and champion any- thing. After seeing his guest to his quarters, he paced up and down the drawing-room, walked through the din- ing-room, down the corridor, then into his study, then again went into the drawing-room, and came into the bedroom. Olga Mihailovna was lying on her back, with the bedclothes only to her waist (by now she felt hot), and with an angry face watched the fly that was thump- ing against the ceiling.
"Is someone staying the night?" she asked.
"Yegorov."
Pyotr Dmitrich undressed and got into his bed. With- out speaking, he lighted a cigarette, and he, too, fell to watching the fly. There was an uneasy and forbidding look in his eyes. Olga Mihailovna looked at his hand- some profile for five minutes in silence. It seemed to her for some reason that if her husband were suddenly to turn facing her and to say, "Olga, I am unhappy," she would cry or laugh, and she would be at ease. She
fancied that her legs were aching and her body was
uncomfortable all over because of her mental strain.
"Pyotr, what are you thinking of?" she said.
"Oh, nothing . . ." her husband answered.
"You have taken to having secrets from me of late: that's not right."
"Why is it not right?" answered Pyotr Dmitrich dryly and not at once. "We all have our personal life, every one of us, and we are bound to have our secrets."
"Personal life, our secrets . . . that's all words! Just realize that you are insulting me!" said Olga Mihailovna, sitting up in bed. "If you have a load on your heart, why do you hide it from me? And why do you find it more suitable to open your heart to women who are nothing to you, instead of to your wife? I overheard your out- pourings to Lubochka by the hives today."
"Well, I congratulate you. I am glad you did overhear it."
This meant "Leave me alone and let me think." Olga Mihailovna was indignant. Vexation, hatred, and wrath, which had been accumulating within her during the whole day, suddenly boiled over; she wanted at once to speak out, to hurt her husband without putting it off till tomorrow, to wound him, to punish him. . . . Making an effort to control herself and not to scream, she said:
"Let me tell you, then, that it's all vile, vile, vile! I've been hating you all day; you see what you've done."
Pyotr Dmitrich, too, sat up in bed.
"It's vile, vile, vile," Olga Mihailovna went on, be- ginning to tremble all over. "There's no need to con- gratulate me; you had better congratulate yourself! It's a shame, a disgrace. You're so full of lies that you are ashamed to be alone in the room with your wife! You are a deceitful man! I see through you and understand every step you take!"
"Olya, I wish you would please warn me when you are out of humor. Then I will sleep in the study."
Saying this, Pyotr Dmitrich picked up his pillow and walked out of the bedroom. Olga Mihailovna had not foreseen this. For some minutes she remained silent, her mouth open, trembling all over and looking at the door by which her husband had gone out, and trying to un- derstand what it meant. Was this one of the devices to which deceitful people have recourse when they are in the wrong, or was it a deliberate insult aimed at her pride? How was she to take it? Olga Mihailovna remem- bered her cousin, a lively young officer, who often used to tell her, laughing, that when "his spouse started nagging at him" at night, he usually picked up his pil- low and went whistling to spend the night in his study, leaving his wife in a foolish and ridiculous position. This officer was married to a rich, capricious, and foolish woman whom he did not respect but simply put up with.
Olga Mihailovna jumped out of bed. To her mind there was only one thing left for her to do now; to dress with all possible haste and to leave the house forever. The house was her own, but so much the worse for Pyotr Dmitrich. Without pausing to consider whether this was necessary or not, she went quickly to the study to inform her husband of her intention ("Feminine logic!" flashed through her mind), and to say something wounding and sarcastic at parting. • • .
Pyotr Dmitrich was lying on the sofa and pretending to read a newspaper. There was a candle burning on a chair near him. His face could not be seen behind the newspaper.
"Be so kind as to tell me what this means? I am ask- ing you."
"Be so kind • • Pyotr Dmitrich mimicked her, not showing his face. "It's sickening, Olga! Upon my honor, I am exhausted and not up to it. . . . Let us do our quarreling tomorrow."
"No, I understand you perfectly!" Olga Mihailovna went on. "You hate mel Yes, yes! You hate me because I am richer than you! You will never forgive me that, and will always be lying to mel" ("Feminine logic!'' flashed through her mind again.) "You are laughing at me now. ... I am convinced, in fact, that you only married me in order to have property qualifications and those vile horses. . . . Oh, I am miserable!"
Pyotr Dmitrich dropped the newspaper and got up. The unexpected insult overwhelmed him. With a child- ishly helpless smile he looked desperately at his wife, and holding out his hands to her as though to ward off blows, he said imploringly:
"Olya!"
And expecting her to say something else that was aw- ful, he thrust his shoulders against the back of the sofa, and his huge figure seemed as helplessly childish as his smile.
"Olya, how could you say it?" he whispered.
Olga Mihailovna came to herself. She was suddenly aware of her passionate love for this man, remembered that he was her husband, Pyotr Dmitrich, without whom she could not live for a day, and who loved her passionately, too. She burst into loud sobs that sounded strange and unlike her, and ran back to her bedroom.
She fell on the bed, and short hysterical sobs, choking her and making her arms and legs twitch, resounded in the bedroom. Remembering that there was a visitor sleeping three or four rooms away, she buried her head under her pillow to stifle her sobs, but the pillow dropped to the floor, and she almost fell on the floor her- self when she stooped to pick it up. She pulled the quilt up to her face, but her hands would not obey her and tore convulsively at everything she clutched.