have been!

"My God!" moaned Ryabovsky. "Will the sun ever come out? I can't go on
with a sunny landscape without the sun...."

"But you have a sketch with a cloudy sky," said Olga Ivanovna, coming
from behind the screen. "Do you remember, in the right foreground forest
trees, on the left a herd of cows and geese? You might finish it now."

"Aie!" the artist scowled. "Finish it! Can you imagine I am such a fool
that I don't know what I want to do?"

"How you have changed to me!" sighed Olga Ivanovna.

"Well, a good thing too!"

Olga Ivanovna's face quivered; she moved away to the stove and began to
cry.

"Well, that's the last straw--crying! Give over! I have a thousand
reasons for tears, but I am not crying."

"A thousand reasons!" cried Olga Ivanovna. "The chief one is that you
are weary of me. Yes!" she said, and broke into sobs. "If one is to tell
the truth, you are ashamed of our love. You keep trying to prevent the
artists from noticing it, though it is impossible to conceal it, and
they have known all about it for ever so long."

"Olga, one thing I beg you," said the artist in an imploring voice,
laying his hand on his heart--"one thing; don't worry me! I want nothing
else from you!"

"But swear that you love me still!"

"This is agony!" the artist hissed through his teeth, and he jumped up.
"It will end by my throwing myself in the Volga or going out of my mind!
Let me alone!"

"Come, kill me, kill me!" cried Olga Ivanovna. "Kill me!"

She sobbed again, and went behind the screen. There was a swish of rain
on the straw thatch of the hut. Ryabovsky clutched his head and strode
up and down the hut; then with a resolute face, as though bent on
proving something to somebody, put on his cap, slung his gun over his
shoulder, and went out of the hut.

After he had gone, Olga Ivanovna lay a long time on the bed, crying. At
first she thought it would be a good thing to poison herself, so that
when Ryabovsky came back he would find her dead; then her imagination
carried her to her drawing-room, to her husband's study, and she
imagined herself sitting motionless beside Dymov and enjoying the
physical peace and cleanliness, and in the evening sitting in the
theatre, listening to Mazini. And a yearning for civilization, for the
noise and bustle of the town, for celebrated people sent a pang to her
heart. A peasant woman came into the hut and began in a leisurely way
lighting the stove to get the dinner. Th