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Rh slept soundly, and she did not dream of the "visitor," and she woke up late, and after she woke up she felt renewed strength.

" best distraction for thoughts is work," said Viéra Pavlovna to herself, and she was entirely right. "I shall spend every day in the shop until I am cured, and this will help me." She began to spend the whole day in the shop. The first day she really succeeded in greatly distracting her thoughts; the second day she only tired herself out, but she could not entirely escape from them; on the third she could not get rid of them at all. Thus passed a week.

The struggle was hard. Viéra Pavlovna's face grew pale, but, by outward appearances, she was entirely calm; she even tried to seem happy, and in this respect she succeeded almost without interruption. But if no one could notice anything, and her paleness were ascribed to some slight ailment, yet Lopukhóf was not deceived; he knew perfectly well how it was; he had no need to look.

"Viérotchka," he began at the end of a week, "as we are living now, we carry out the old proverb that the cobbler has no boots, and the tailor's clothes don't fit him. We are teaching others to live according to our economical principles, but we, ourselves, don't take it into our heads to arrange our own lives in accordance with them. Isn't one large household more advantageous than several small ones? I should like to apply this law to our own housekeeping arrangements. If we had lived with somebody, we, and those who lived with us, would have saved almost half of our expenses. I should be able to give up those execrable lessons, which I detest so; my salary from the factory would be enough, and I should get time for relaxation. I could occupy my time with scientific work, and thus have taken up my career again. It is only necessary to find people such as it would be agreeable to live with. What do you think about this?"

Viéra Pavlovna had been looking at her husband with eyes full of suspicion, and burning with indignation just as Kirsánof had looked at him on the day of their theoretical conversation. After he stopped speaking, her face was on fire.

"I beg of you to cease this conversation; it is not becoming."