and that her new
life of agony had lasted longer than her childhood, her school-days,
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 lunch and afterwards to dinner; she saw
Pyotr Dmitritch 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 any one closed
the drawers and the chest. Olga Mihalovna saw the light change in
the room and in the windows: at one time it was twilight, then thick
like fog, then bright daylight as it had been at dinner-time the
day before, then again twilight . . . and each of these changes
lasted as long as her childhood, her school-days, her life at the
University. . . .

In the evening two doctors--one bony, bald, with a big red beard;
the other with a swarthy Jewish face and cheap spectacles--performed
some sort of operation on Olga Mihalovna. To these unknown men
touching her body she felt utterly indifferent. By now she had no
feeling of shame, no will, and any one might do what he would with
her. If any one had rushed at her with a knife, or had insulted
Pyotr Dmitritch, or had robbed her of her right to the little
creature, she would not have said a word.

They gave her chloroform during the operation. When she came to
again, the pain was still there and insufferable. It was night. And
Olga Mihalovna remembered that there had been just such a night
with the stillness, the lamp, with the midwife sitting motionless
by the bed, with the drawers of the chest pulled out, with Pyotr
Dmitritch standing by the window, but some time very, very long
ago. . . .

V

"I am not dead . . ." thought Olga Mihalovna when she began to
understand her surroundings again, and when the pain was over.

A bright summer day looked in at the widely open windows; in the
garden below the windows, the sparrows and the magpies never ceased
chattering for one instant.

The drawers were shut now, her husband's bed had been made. There
was no sign of the midwife or of the maid, or of Varvara in the
room, only Pyotr Dmitritch was standing, as before, motionless by
the window looking into the garden. There was no sound of a child's
crying, no one was congratulating her or rejoicing, it was evident
that the little creature h