eir scandal-mongering, their
frequent visits, their flattery of her husband, whom they all hated.
Now, when they were drinking, were replete with food and showed no
signs of going away, she felt their presence an agonizing weariness;
but not to appear impolite, she smiled cordially to the Magistrate,
and shook her finger at him. She walked across the dining-room and
drawing-room smiling, and looking as though she had gone to give
some order and make some arrangement. "God grant no one stops me,"
she thought, but she forced herself to stop in the drawing-room to
listen from politeness to a young man who was sitting at the piano
playing: after standing for a minute, she cried, "Bravo, bravo, M.
Georges!" and clapping her hands twice, she went on.

She found her husband in his study. He was sitting at the table,
thinking of something. His face looked stern, thoughtful, and guilty.
This was not the same Pyotr Dmitritch who had been arguing at dinner
and whom his guests knew, but a different man--wearied, feeling
guilty and dissatisfied with himself, whom nobody knew but his wife.
He must have come to the study to get cigarettes. Before him lay
an open cigarette-case full of cigarettes, and one of his hands was
in the table drawer; he had paused and sunk into thought as he was
taking the cigarettes.

Olga Mihalovna felt sorry for him. It was as clear as day that this
man was harassed, could find no rest, and was perhaps struggling
with himself. Olga Mihalovna went up to the table in silence: wanting
to show that she had forgotten the argument at dinner and was not
cross, she shut the cigarette-case and put it in her husband's coat
pocket.

"What should I say to him?" she wondered; "I shall say that lying
is like a forest--the further one goes into it the more difficult
it is to get out of it. I will say to him, 'You have been carried
away by the false part you are playing; you have insulted people
who were attached to you and have done you no harm. Go and apologize
to them, laugh at yourself, and you will feel better. And if you
want peace and solitude, let us go away together.'"

Meeting his wife's gaze, Pyotr Dmitritch's face immediately assumed
the expression it had worn at dinner and in the garden--indifferent
and slightly ironical. He yawned and got up.

"It's past five," he said, looking at his watch. "If our visitors
are merciful and leave us at eleven, even then we have another six
hours of it. It's a cheerful