Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/150

 Had Riabovsky not promised his brother artists to stay till the twentieth of September, they might have left at once. And how good it would be to leave!

“My God!” groaned Riabovsky. “Will the sun ever come out? I cannot paint a landscape virithout the sun!”

“But your study of a cloudy sky?” said Olga Ivanovna, coming from behind the partition. “You remember, the one with the trees in the foreground to the right, and the cows and geese at the left. You could finish that.”

“What?” The artist frowned. “Finish it? Do you really think I'm so stupid that I don't know what to do?”

“What I do think is that you've changed to me!” sighed Olga Ivanovna.

“Yes; and that's all right.”

Olga Ivanovna's face quivered; she went to the stove and began to cry.

“We only wanted tears to complete the picture! Do stop! I have a thousand reasons for crying, but I don't cry.”

“A thousand reasons!” burst out Olga Ivanovna. “The chief reason is that you are tired of me. Yes!” She began to sob. “I will tell you the truth: you are ashamed of your love. You try to hide it, to prevent the others noticing, but that is useless, because they knew about it long ago.”