me tell you," said Olga Ivanovna, taking his arm, "how it was
it all came to pass so suddenly. Listen, listen!... I must tell you that
my father was on the same staff at the hospital as Dymov. When my poor
father was taken ill, Dymov watched for days and nights together at his
bedside. Such self-sacrifice! Listen, Ryabovsky! You, my writer, listen;
it is very interesting! Come nearer. Such self-sacrifice, such genuine
sympathy! I sat up with my father, and did not sleep for nights, either.
And all at once--the princess had won the hero's heart--my Dymov fell
head over ears in love. Really, fate is so strange at times! Well, after
my father's death he came to see me sometimes, met me in the street, and
one fine evening, all at once he made me an offer... like snow upon
my head.... I lay awake all night, crying, and fell hellishly in love
myself. And here, as you see, I am his wife. There really is something
strong, powerful, bearlike about him, isn't there? Now his face is
turned three-quarters towards us in a bad light, but when he turns
round look at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what do you say to that forehead?
Dymov, we are talking about you!" she called to her husband. "Come here;
hold out your honest hand to Ryabovsky.... That's right, be friends."

Dymov, with a naive and good-natured smile, held out his hand to
Ryabovsky, and said:

"Very glad to meet you. There was a Ryabovsky in my year at the medical
school. Was he a relation of yours?"

II

Olga Ivanovna was twenty-two, Dymov was thirty-one. They got on
splendidly together when they were married. Olga Ivanovna hung all her
drawing-room walls with her own and other people's sketches, in
frames and without frames, and near the piano and furniture arranged
picturesque corners with Japanese parasols, easels, daggers, busts,
photographs, and rags of many colours.... In the dining-room she
papered the walls with peasant woodcuts, hung up bark shoes and sickles,
stood in a corner a scythe and a rake, and so achieved a dining-room in
the Russian style. In her bedroom she draped the ceiling and the walls
with dark cloths to make it like a cavern, hung a Venetian lantern over
the beds, and at the door set a figure with a halberd. And every one
thought that the young people had a very charming little home.

When she got up at eleven o'clock every morning, Olga Ivanovna played
the piano or, if it were sunny, painted something in oils. Then between
twelve and one sh