red and repelled by him, that his even,
measured speech lies like a weight on her soul. She dresses and
goes out into the street with him. The air is still but cold, and
the sky is so overcast that the light of the street lamps is hardly
visible. The sloshy snow squelches under their feet. The midwife
looks intently but does not see a cab.

"I suppose it is not far?" she asks.

"No, not far," Kiryakov answers grimly.

They walk down one turning, a second, a third. . . . Kiryakov strides
along, and even in his step his respectability and positiveness is
apparent.

"What awful weather!" the midwife observes to him.

But he preserves a dignified silence, and it is noticeable that he
tries to step on the smooth stones to avoid spoiling his goloshes.
At last after a long walk the midwife steps into the entry; from
which she can see a big decently furnished drawing-room. There is
not a soul in the rooms, even in the bedroom where the woman is
lying in labour. . . . The old women and relations who flock in
crowds to every confinement are not to be seen. The cook rushes
about alone, with a scared and vacant face. There is a sound of
loud groans.

Three hours pass. Marya Petrovna sits by the mother's bedside and
whispers to her. The two women have already had time to make friends,
they have got to know each other, they gossip, they sigh together. . . .

"You mustn't talk," says the midwife anxiously, and at the same
time she showers questions on her.

Then the door opens and Kiryakov himself comes quietly and stolidly
into the room. He sits down in the chair and strokes his whiskers.
Silence reigns. Marya Petrovna looks timidly at his handsome,
passionless, wooden face and waits for him to begin to talk, but
he remains absolutely silent and absorbed in thought. After waiting
in vain, the midwife makes up her mind to begin herself, and utters
a phrase commonly used at confinements.

"Well now, thank God, there is one human being more in the world!"

"Yes, that's agreeable," said Kiryakov, preserving the wooden
expression of his face, "though indeed, on the other hand, to have
more children you must have more money. The baby is not born fed
and clothed."

A guilty expression comes into the mother's face, as though she had
brought a creature into the world without permission or through
idle caprice. Kiryakov gets up with a sigh and walks with solid
dignity out of the room.

"What a man, bless him!" says the midwife