Fifty-Two Stories

She fell on the bed, and her short, hysterical sobs, which hindered her breathing and caused cramps in her arms and legs, filled the bedroom. Remembering that three or four rooms away a guest was spending the night, she hid her head under the pillow to stifle her sobs, but the pillow fell on the floor, and she herself nearly fell leaning over to pick it up; she pulled the blanket towards her face, but her hands did not obey her and tore convulsively at everything she took hold of.

It seemed to her that all was already lost, that the lie she had told to insult her husband had broken her whole life to smithereens. Her husband would not forgive her. The insult she had inflicted on him was of the sort that cannot be smoothed over by any caresses or oaths…How would she persuade her husband that she herself did not believe what she had said?

“It’s all over, all over!” she cried, not noticing that the pillow had fallen on the floor again. “For God’s sake, for God’s sake!”

The guest and the servants must already have been awakened by her cries; tomorrow the whole district would know that she had had hysterics, and everyone would blame Pyotr Dmitrich. She made efforts to restrain herself, but her sobs grew louder and louder every minute.

“For God’s sake!” she cried in a voice not her own, not understanding why she cried it. “For God’s sake!”

It seemed to her that the bed collapsed under her and her feet got entangled in the blanket. Pyotr Dmitrich came into the bedroom in a dressing gown and with a candle in his hand.

“Come now, Olya!” he said.

She rose and, kneeling on the bed, squinting at the candle, managed to say through her sobs:

“Understand…understand…”

She wanted to say that she was worn out from the guests, from his lying, her lying, that it was seething inside her, but all she could produce was:

“Understand…understand!”

“Here, drink!” he said, offering her water.

She obediently took the glass and started to drink, but spilled the water on her hands, breast, knees…“I must be terribly ugly now!” she thought. Pyotr Dmitrich silently laid her back in bed and covered her with the blanket, then took the candle and went out.

“For God’s sake!” Olga Mikhailovna cried again. “Pyotr, understand, understand!”

Suddenly something pressed her below the stomach and in the back with such force that her weeping broke off and she bit the pillow from pain. But the pain soon left her and she started sobbing again.

A maid came in and, straightening her blanket, asked in alarm:

“Mistress, dearest, what’s the matter?”

“Get out of here!” Pyotr Dmitrich said sternly, going to the bed.

“Understand, understand…,” Olga Mikhailovna began.

“Olya, I beg you, calm down!” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I wouldn’t have left the bedroom if I knew it would affect you like this. It was simply hard for me. I’m telling you as an honest man…”

“Understand…You lied, I lied…”

“I understand…Well, well, come now! I understand…,” Pyotr Dmitrich said tenderly, sitting down on her bed. “You said it in a fit of temper, it’s understandable…I swear to God I love you more than anything in the world, and when I married you, I never once gave a thought to your being rich. I loved you boundlessly—that’s all…I assure you. I was never poor and never knew the value of money, and so I never felt any difference between your fortune and mine. It always seemed to me that we were equally rich. But it’s true, of course, that I was false in small things. My life so far has been organized so frivolously that it was somehow impossible to do without petty lies. I myself find it hard now. Let’s drop this conversation, for God’s sake!…”

Olga Mikhailovna again felt intense pain and seized her husband by the sleeve.

“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” she said quickly. “Oh, it hurts!”

“Devil take these guests!” Pyotr Dmitrich muttered, getting up. “You shouldn’t have gone to the island today!” he cried. “And how is it I didn’t stop you, fool that I am? Lord God!”

He scratched his head in vexation, waved his hand, and left the bedroom.

Afterwards he came back a few times, sat by her on the bed, and talked a lot, now very tenderly, now angrily, but she hardly heard him. Her sobbing alternated with terrible pain, and each new pain was stronger and lasted longer. At first during the pain she held her breath and bit the pillow, but then she started to scream in an indecent, rending voice. Once, seeing her husband by her, she remembered that she had insulted him and, without considering whether it was delirium or the real Pyotr Dmitrich, she seized his hand in both of hers and started kissing it.

“You lied, I lied…,” she began to justify herself. “Understand, understand…I was exhausted, driven out of all patience…”

“Olya, we’re not alone here!” said Pyotr Dmitrich.