was looking up at the ceiling, listening, while I sat beside
her, not daring to speak to her, feeling as though I were to blame
for their shouting "help" in the yard and for the night's seeming
so long.

We were silent, and I waited impatiently for a gleam of light at
the window, and Masha looked all the time as though she had awakened
from a trance and now was marvelling how she, so clever, and
well-educated, so elegant, had come into this pitiful, provincial,
empty hole among a crew of petty, insignificant people, and how she
could have so far forgotten herself as ever to be attracted by one
of these people, and for more than six months to have been his wife.
It seemed to me that at that moment it did not matter to her whether
it was I, or Moisey, or Tcheprakov; everything for her was merged
in that savage drunken "help"--I and our marriage, and our work
together, and the mud and slush of autumn, and when she sighed or
moved into a more comfortable position I read in her face: "Oh,
that morning would come quickly!"

In the morning she went away. I spent another three days at Dubetchnya
expecting her, then I packed all our things in one room, locked it,
and walked to the town. It was already evening when I rang at the
engineer's, and the street lamps were burning in Great Dvoryansky
Street. Pavel told me there was no one at home; Viktor Ivanitch had
gone to Petersburg, and Mariya Viktorovna was probably at the
rehearsal at the Azhogins'. I remember with what emotion I went on
to the Azhogins', how my heart throbbed and fluttered as I mounted
the stairs, and stood waiting a long while on the landing at the
top, not daring to enter that temple of the muses! In the big room
there were lighted candles everywhere, on a little table, on the
piano, and on the stage, everywhere in threes; and the first
performance was fixed for the thirteenth, and now the first rehearsal
was on a Monday, an unlucky day. All part of the war against
superstition! All the devotees of the scenic art were gathered
together; the eldest, the middle, and the youngest sisters were
walking about the stage, reading their parts in exercise books.
Apart from all the rest stood Radish, motionless, with the side of
his head pressed to the wall as he gazed with adoration at the
stage, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything as it used
to be.

I was making my way to my hostess; I had to pay my respects to her,
but suddenly everyone said "Hush!" an