Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/165

 served his turn, remained in the house, wandering about like a' shadow. The maid-servant was kept busy serving the doctors with tea, and running to the apothecary's, and no one tidied the rooms. All was still and sad.

Olga Ivanovna sat in her room, and reflected that God was punishing her for deceiving her husband. That silent, uncomplaining, inexplicable man — impersonified, it seemed, by kindness and mildness, weak from excessive goodness — lay on his sofa and suffered alone, uttering no groan. And if he did complain in his delirium, the doctors would guess that the diphtheria was not the only culprit. They would question KorostelefF, who knew all, and not without cause looked viciously at his friend's wife as if she were chief and real offender, and disease only her accomplice. She no longer thought of the moon-light Volga night, the love avowal, the romance of life in the peasant's hut; she remembered only that from caprice and selfishness she had smeared herself from head to feet with something vile and sticky which no washing would wash away.

“Ahh, how I lied to him!” she said, remembering her restless love of Riabovsky. “May it be accursed!”

At four o'clock she - dined with Korosteleff, who ate nothing, but drank red wine, and frowned. She too ate nothing. But she prayed silently, and vowed