s in search of Ryabovsky,
and they all understood it.

One day she said to Ryabovsky of her husband:

"That man crushes me with his magnanimity."

This phrase pleased her so much that when she met the artists who knew
of her affair with Ryabovsky she said every time of her husband, with a
vigorous movement of her arm:

"That man crushes me with his magnanimity."

Their manner of life was the same as it had been the year before. On
Wednesdays they were "At Home"; an actor recited, the artists sketched.
The violoncellist played, a singer sang, and invariably at half-past
eleven the door leading to the dining-room opened and Dymov, smiling,
said:

"Come to supper, gentlemen."

As before, Olga Ivanovna hunted celebrities, found them, was not
satisfied, and went in pursuit of fresh ones. As before, she came back
late every night; but now Dymov was not, as last year, asleep, but
sitting in his study at work of some sort. He went to bed at three
o'clock and got up at eight.

One evening when she was getting ready to go to the theatre and
standing before the pier glass, Dymov came into her bedroom, wearing his
dress-coat and a white tie. He was smiling gently and looked into his
wife's face joyfully, as in old days; his face was radiant.

"I have just been defending my thesis," he said, sitting down and
smoothing his knees.

"Defending?" asked Olga Ivanovna.

"Oh, oh!" he laughed, and he craned his neck to see his wife's face in
the mirror, for she was still standing with her back to him, doing up
her hair. "Oh, oh," he repeated, "do you know it's very possible they
may offer me the Readership in General Pathology? It seems like it."

It was evident from his beaming, blissful face that if Olga Ivanovna
had shared with him his joy and triumph he would have forgiven her
everything, both the present and the future, and would have forgotten
everything, but she did not understand what was meant by a "readership"
or by "general pathology"; besides, she was afraid of being late for the
theatre, and she said nothing.

He sat there another two minutes, and with a guilty smile went away.

VII

It had been a very troubled day.

Dymov had a very bad headache; he had no breakfast, and did not go to
the hospital, but spent the whole time lying on his sofa in the study.
Olga Ivanovna went as usual at midday to see Ryabovsky, to show him her
still-life sketch, and to ask him why he had not been to see her the
evening befo