separate flat for her, that's all."

"That's easy to say."

There was a brief silence.

"But she is charming," said Kukushkin. "She is exquisite. Such women
imagine that they will be in love for ever, and abandon themselves
with tragic intensity."

"But one must keep a head on one's shoulders," said Orlov; "one
must be reasonable. All experience gained from everyday life and
handed down in innumerable novels and plays, uniformly confirms the
fact that adultery and cohabitation of any sort between decent
people never lasts longer than two or at most three years, however
great the love may have been at the beginning. That she ought to
know. And so all this business of moving, of saucepans, hopes of
eternal love and harmony, are nothing but a desire to delude herself
and me. She is charming and exquisite--who denies it? But she has
turned my life upside down; what I have regarded as trivial and
nonsensical till now she has forced me to raise to the level of a
serious problem; I serve an idol whom I have never looked upon as
God. She is charming--exquisite, but for some reason now when I
am going home, I feel uneasy, as though I expected to meet with
something inconvenient at home, such as workmen pulling the stove
to pieces and blocking up the place with heaps of bricks. In fact,
I am no longer giving up to love a _sous_, but part of my peace of
mind and my nerves. And that's bad."

"And she doesn't hear this villain!" sighed Kukushkin. "My dear
sir," he said theatrically, "I will relieve you from the burdensome
obligation to love that adorable creature! I will wrest Zinaida
Fyodorovna from you!"

"You may . . ." said Orlov carelessly.

For half a minute Kukushkin laughed a shrill little laugh, shaking
all over, then he said:

"Look out; I am in earnest! Don't you play the Othello afterwards!"

They all began talking of Kukushkin's indefatigable energy in love
affairs, how irresistible he was to women, and what a danger he was
to husbands; and how the devil would roast him in the other world
for his immorality in this. He screwed up his eyes and remained
silent, and when the names of ladies of their acquaintance were
mentioned, he held up his little finger--as though to say they
mustn't give away other people's secrets.

Orlov suddenly looked at his watch.

His friends understood, and began to take their leave. I remember
that Gruzin, who was a little drunk, was wearisomely long in getting
off. He put on h