suddenly boiled over; she wanted
at once to speak out, to hurt her husband without putting it off
till to-morrow, 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 loathsome, loathsome, loathsome!
I've been hating you all day; you see what you've done."

Pyotr Dmitritch, too, got up and sat on the bed.

"It's loathsome, loathsome, loathsome," Olga Mihalovna went on,
beginning to tremble all over. "There's no need to congratulate me;
you had better congratulate yourself! It's a shame, a disgrace. You
have wrapped yourself in lies till 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 humour.
Then I will sleep in the study."

Saying this, Pyotr Dmitritch picked up his pillow and walked out
of the bedroom. Olga Mihalovna had not foreseen this. For some
minutes she remained silent with her mouth open, trembling all over
and looking at the door by which her husband had gone out, and
trying to understand 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 Mihalovna remembered her cousin, a lively young
officer, who often used to tell her, laughing, that when "his spouse
nagged at him" at night, he usually picked up his pillow 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 Mihalovna 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 Dmitritch. 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 Dmitritch 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 asking you."

"Be so kind . . .