Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/196

 Warsaw and told us that he had been discharged for ill-health. He was invalided. But by that time I had driven my madness out of my head, and, what's more, I was thinking of making a good match, and was only waiting an excuse to get rid of my lovebird. Every day I resolved to speak to Mashenka, but I never knew how to begin, and I can't abide a woman's howl. The letter gave me ray chance. As Mashenka read it aloud to me she turned white as snow, and I said to her, ‘Glory be to God,’ I said. ‘Thou wilt again be an honest woman.’ She answered, ‘I will not live with him.’ ‘But he is your husband.’ ‘That is nothing to me,’ she answered. ‘I never loved him, and I married him against my will. My mother forced me to.’ “But that doesn't get round the question, fool,” I said. ‘Were you married to him in church or not?’ ‘I was marrted in church,’ she answered tne, ‘but I love only thee, and I will be thy wife till thy very death. Let people jeer at me! I care nothing for them!’ ‘You are a believing woman,’ I said to her. ‘You read the Bible; what is there written there?’”

“Once given to her husband with her husband she must live,” said Diudya.

“Husband and wife are of one flesh and blood,” resumed Matvei Savvitch. “‘Thou and I have sinned,’ I said. ‘We must listen to our consciences and have the fear of God. We will ask forgiveness of