on to his
position.

The baby screamed louder than ever, struggling and sobbing. The
nurse, with a gesture of despair, went to it, took it from the
wet-nurse's arms, and began walking up and down, rocking it.

"You must ask the doctor to examine the wet-nurse," said Alexey
Alexandrovitch. The smartly dressed and healthy-looking nurse,
frightened at the idea of losing her place, muttered something to
herself, and covering her bosom, smiled contemptuously at the
idea of doubts being cast on her abundance of milk. In that
smile, too, Alexey Alexandrovitch saw a sneer at his position.

"Luckless child!" said the nurse, hushing the baby, and still
walking up and down with it.

Alexey Alexandrovitch sat down, and with a despondent and
suffering face watched the nurse walking to and fro.

When the child at last was still, and had been put in a deep bed,
and the nurse, after smoothing the little pillow, had left her,
Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, and walking awkwardly on tiptoe,
approached the baby. For a minute he was still, and with the
same despondent face gazed at the baby; but all at once a smile,
that moved his hair and the skin of his forehead, came out on his
face, and he went as softly out of the room.

In the dining room he rang the bell, and told the servant who
came in to send again for the doctor. He felt vexed with his
wife for not being anxious about this exquisite baby, and in this
vexed humor he had no wish to go to her; he had no wish, either,
to see Princess Betsy. But his wife might wonder why he did not
go to her as usual; and so, overcoming his disinclination, he
went towards the bedroom. As he walked over the soft rug towards
the door, he could not help overhearing a conversation he did not
want to hear.

"If he hadn't been going away, I could have understood your
answer and his too. But your husband ought to be above that,"
Betsy was saying.

"It's not for my husband; for myself I don't wish it. Don't say
that!" answered Anna's excited voice.

"Yes, but you must care to say good-bye to a man who has shot
himself on your account...."

"That's just why I don't want to."

With a dismayed and guilty expression, Alexey Alexandrovitch
stopped and would have gone back unobserved. But reflecting that
this would be undignified, he turned back again, and clearing his
throat, he went up to the bedroom. The voices were silent, and
he went in.

Anna, in a gray dressing gown, with a crop