She thought that everything was lost, that the lie she had told to wound her husband had shattered her life into fragments. Her husband would not forgive her. The insult she had hurled at him was not one that could be effaced by any caresses, by any vows. . . . How could she convince her husband that she did not believe what she had said?
"It's finished, it's finished!" she cried, not noticing that the pillow had slipped onto the floor again. "For God's sake, for God's sake!"
Probably roused by her cries, the guest and the serv- ants were now awake; next day all the neighborhood would know that she had been in hysterics and would blame Pyotr Dmitrich. She made an effort to restrain herself, but her sobs grew louder and louder every minute.
"For God's sake," she cried in a voice not like her o^, and not knowing why she cried it. "For God's sake!"
She felt as though the bed were heaving under her and her feet were entangled in the bedclothes. Pyotr Dmitrich, in his dressing-go^, with a candle in his hand, came into the bedroom.
"Olya, hush!" he said.
She raised herself, and kneeling in bed, screwing up her eyes at the light, articulated through her sobs:
"Understand . . . understand! . . ."
She wanted to tell him that she was worn out by the guests, by his lying, by her own lying, and that it had aU come to a head, but she could only articulate:
"Understand . . . understand!"
"Come, drink!" he said, handing her some water.
She took the glass obediently and began drinking, but
the water splashed over and was spilt on her arms, her
throat and knees.
"I must look a sight," she thought.
Pyotr Dmitrich put her back into bed without a word, and covered her with the quilt, then he took the can- dle and went out.
"For God's sake!" Olga Mihailovna cried again. "Pyotr, understand, understand!"
Suddenly something gripped her in the lower part of her abdomen and her back with such violence that her wailing was cut short, and she bit the pillow from the pain. But the pain let her go at once, and she began sobbing again.
The maid came in, and arranging the quilt over her, asked in alarm:
"Mistress, darling, what is the matter?"
"Get out of here," said Pyotr Dmitrich sternly, going up to the bed.
"Understand . • • understand! . . ." Olga Mihailovna began.
"Olya, I entreat you, calm yourself," he said. "I did not mean to hurt you. I would not have gone out of the room if I had kno^ it would have hurt you so much; I simply felt depressed. I tell you, on my honor—"
"Understand! . . . You were lying, I was lying. . . ."
"I understand. . . . Come, come, that's enough! I understand," said Pyotr Dmitri^ tenderly, sitting do^ on her bed. "You said that in anger; I quite understand. I swear to God I love you beyond anything on earth, and when I married you I never once thought of your being rich. I loved you immensely, and that's all . . . I assure you. I have never been in want of money or felt the value of it, and so I cannot feel the difference be- tween your fortune and mine. It always seemed to me we were equally well off. And that I have been deceitful in little things, that . . . of course, is true. My life has hitherto been arranged so frivolously that it has some- how been impossible to get on without paltry lying. It weighs on me, too, now. . . . Let us leave off talking about it, for goodness' sake!"
Olga Mihailovna again felt an acute pain, and clutched her husband by the sleeve.
"I am in _ pain, in pain, in pain . . ," she said rapidly. "Oh, what pain!"
"Damnation take those visitors!" muttered Pyotr Dmi- trich, getting up. "You ought not to have gone to the island today!" he cried. "What an idiot I was not to prevent you! Oh, my God!"
He scratched his head in vexation, and, with a wave of his hand, walked out of the room.
Then he came into the room several times, sat down on the bed beside her, and talked a great deal, some- times tenderly, sometimes angrily, but she hardly heard him. Her sobs were continually interrupted by fearful attacks of pain, and each time the pain was more acute and prolonged. At first she held her breath and bit the pillow during the pain, but then she began screaming in an unseemly piercing voice. Once, seeing her husband near her, she remembered that she had insulted him, and without pausing to think whether it were really Pyotr Dmitrich or whether she were in delirium, clutched his hand in both of hers and began kissing it.
"You were lying, I was lying . . ." she began justify- ing herself. "Understand, understand. . . . They have exhausted me, driven me out of all patience."
"Olya, we are not alone," said Pyotr Dmitrich.
Olga Mihailovna raised her head and saw Varvara, who was kneeling by the chest of drawers and pulling out the bottom drawer. The top drawers were already open. Then Varvara got up, red from the strain, and
with a cold, solemn face began trying to unlock a box.
"Marya, I can't unlock it!" she said in a whisper. "You unlock it, won't you?"
Marya, the maid, was digging a candle end out of the candlestick with a pair of scissors, so as to put in a new candle; she went up to Varvara and helped her to unlock the box.
"There should be nothing locked . . ." whispered Varvara. "Unlock this casket, too, my good girl. Mas- ter," she said, "you should send word to Father Mihail to unlock the holy gates! You mustl"
"Do what you like," said Pyotr Dmitrich, breathing hard, "only, for God's sake, make haste and fetch the doctor or the midwife! Has Vasily gone? Send someone else. Send your husband!"
'Tm in labor," Olga Mihailovna thought. "Varvara," she moaned, "but he won't be born alivel"
"It's all right, it's all right, mistress," whispered Var- vara. "Please God, he will be alive! He will be alive!"
When Olga Mihailovna came to herself again after a pain she was no longer sobbing nor tossing from side to side, but moaning. She could not refrain from moan- ing even in the intervals between the pains. The can- dles were still burning, but the morning light was com- ing through the blinds. It was probably about five o'clock in the morning. At the round table there was sitting some unknown woman with a very discreet air, wearing a white apron. From her whole appearance it was evident she had been sitting there a long time. Olga Mihailovna guessed that she was the midwife.
"Will it soon be over?" she asked, and in her voice she heard a peculiar and unfamiliar note which had never been there before. "I must be dying in childbirth," she thought.
Pyotr Dmitrich came cautiously into the bedroom, dressed for the day, and stood at the window with his back to his wife. He lifted the blind and looked out the window.
"What rain!" he said.
"What time is it?" asked Olga Mihailovna, in order to hear the unfamiliar note in her voice again.
"A quarter to six," answered the midwife.
"And what if I really am dying?" thought Olga Mi- hailovna, looking at her husband's head and the win- dowpanes on which the rain was beating. "How will he live without me? With whom will he have tea and din- ner, talk in the evening, sleep?"
He looked little to her and orphaned; she felt sorry for him and wanted to say something nice, caressing and consolatory. She remembered how in the spring he had meant to buy himself some hounds, and she, think- ing it a cruel and dangerous sport, had prevented him from doing it.
"Pyotr, buy yourself hounds," she moaned.
He lowered the blind and went up to the bed, and would have said something; but at that moment the pain came back, and Olga Mihailovna uttered an un- seemly, piercing scream.
The pain and the constant screaming and moaning stupefied her. She heard, saw, and sometimes spoke, but hardly understood anything, and was only conscious that she was in pain or was just going to be in pain. It seemed to her that the name-day party had been long, long ago—not yesterday, but a year ago perhaps; and that her new life of agony had lasted longer than her childhood, her schooldays, her time at the university, and her marriage, and would go on for a long, long time, endlessly. She saw them bring tea to the midwife and summon her at midday to lnnch and afterwards to dinner; she saw Pyotr Dmitrich grow used to coming in, standing for long intervals by the window, and going out again; saw strange men, the maid, Varvara, come in as though they were at home. . . . Varvara said nothing but, "He will, he will," and was angry when anyone closed the drawers of the bureau. Olga Mihail- ovna saw the light change in the room and in the win- dows: at one time it was pale as at dusk, then thick like fog, then bright as it had been at dinnertime the day before, then pale again . . . and each of these changes lasted as long as her childhood, her schooldays, her years at the university. . . .