.

"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said
slowly. "Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor."

Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused
it, and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had
said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were
hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all.

After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart,
expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in
the hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat
down to the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of
varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform
conjuring tricks.

"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay
at home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere."

They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's
club to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go
with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and
because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean
that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their
light-hearted youthful company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling,
was so intense that he almost shed tears. He was positively glad
that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he
was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that
he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him
that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge
it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He was jealous on her account
of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of Yartsev, even
of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for
her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to find her in another
man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. Fyodor was
drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go.

"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his
fur coat. "His sight has become very poor."

Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother
part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's.

"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This
is love!"

His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy
or something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a
comic singer in th