"We-ell now, that's a serious subject...." said Orlóff thoughtfully and, after a pause, he exclaimed with the pathos of hope, as he slapped his wife on the shoulder:—"Ekh, Matrénka,[14] isn't the sun shining on us? Don't get scared now!"

She flushed all over.

"If you'd only stop drinking...."

"As to that—hold your tongue! Suit your awl to your leather, your phiz to your life.... With a different life, my conduct will be different."

"Oh Lord, if that might only happen!"—sighed his wife profoundly.

"Well now, hush up!"

"Grishenka!"[15]

They parted with certain novel feelings toward each other, inspired by hope, ready to work until their strength gave out, alert and cheerful.

Two or three days passed, and Orlóff had already won several flattering mentions as a sagacious, smart young fellow, and along with this he observed that Prónin and the other orderlies in the barracks bore themselves toward him with envy, and a desire to make things unpleasant for him. He was on his guard, and he also imbibed wrath against fat-faced Prónin, with whom he had been inclined to strike up a friendship and to chat, "according to his soul." At the same time, he was embittered by the plain desire of his fellow-workers to do him some injury.—"Ekh, the rascals!" he exclaimed to himself, and quietly gritted his teeth, endeavoring not to let slip some convenient opportunity to pay his friends off "with as good as they gave." And, involuntarily, his thought halted at his wife:—with her he could talk about everything, she would not be envious of his successes, and would not burn his boots with carbolic acid, as Prónin had done.

All the working-days were as stormy and seething with activity as the first had been, but Grigóry no longer became so fatigued, for he expended his strength with more discernment with every day that passed. He learned to distinguish the smell of the medicaments, and, picking out from among them the odor of sulphate of ether, he inhaled it with delight on the sly, when opportunity offered, finding that the inhalation of ether had almost as agreeable an action as a good glass of vódka. Catching the meaning of the medical staff at half a word, always amiable and talkative, understanding how to entertain the patients, he became more and more of a favorite with the doctors and the medical students, and thus, under the combined influence of all the impressions of his new mode of existence, a strange, exalted mood was formed within him. He felt himself to be a man of special qualities. In him beat the desire to do something which should attract to him the attention of everyone, should astonish everyone, and force them to the conviction that he had a right to the ambition which had elevated him to such a pitch in his own eyes. This was the singular ambition of the man who had suddenly realized that he was a man, and who, as it were, still not quite firmly assured of the fact, wished to confirm it, in some way, to himself and to others; this was ambition, gradually transformed into a thirst for some disinterested exploit.

As the result of this incentive, Orlóff performed various risky feats, such as straining himself by carrying a heavily-built patient from his cot to the bath-tub single-handed, without waiting for assistance from his fellow-orderlies, nursing the very dirtiest of the patients, behaving in a daring sort of way in regard to the possibility of contagion, and handling the dead with a simplicity which sometimes passed over into cynicism. But all this did not satisfy him; he longed for something on a greater scale, and this longing burned incessantly within him, tortured him, and, at last, drove him to anguish.

Then he poured out his soul to his wife, because he had no one else.

One evening, when he and his wife were relieved from duty, they went out into the fields, after they had drunk tea. The barracks stood far away from the town, in the middle of a long, green plain, bounded on one side by a dark strip of forest, on the other by the line of buildings in the town; on the north the plain extended into the far distance, and there its verdure became merged with the dull-blue horizon; on the south it was intersected by a precipitous descent to the river, and along the verge of this precipice ran the highway, along which, at equal distances one from another, stood aged, wide-spreading trees. The sun was setting, and the crosses on the churches of the town, rising above the dark-green of the gardens, flamed in the sky, reflecting sheaves of golden rays, and on the window-panes of the houses which lay on the edge of the town the red glow of the sunset was reflected also. A band of music was playing somewhere or other; from the ravine, thickly overgrown with a fir-grove, a resinous fragrance was wafted aloft; the forest, also, shed abroad on the air its complicated, succulent perfume; light, fragrant waves of warm wind floated caressingly toward the town, and in the wide, deserted plain everything was very delightful, quiet and sweetly-melancholy.

The Orlóffs walked across the grass in silence, with pleasure inhaling the pure air in place of the hospital odors.

"Where's that band playing, in the town, or in the camp?" inquired Matréna softly, of her pensive husband.

She did not like to see him thoughtful—he seemed a stranger to her, and far away from her at such moments. Of late, they had chanced to be together so very little, and she prized these moments all the more.

"The band?"—Grigóry replied with another question, as though freeing himself from a dream.—"Well, the devil take that band! You just ought to hear the music in my soul ... that's something like!"

"What is it?" she asked tremulously, looking into his eyes.

"I don't know.... That is, I can't tell you ... and even if I could would you be able to understand? My soul burns.... It pines for space ... so that I might develop myself to my full strength.... Ekhma! I feel within myself invincible strength! That is to say, if this cholera, for instance, could be transformed into a man ... into an epic hero ... even Ilyá of Muróm himself;[16]—I'd grapple with it; 'Come on, I'll fight thee to the death! Thou art a power, and I, Gríshka Orlóff, am a power also,—now, let's see who'll get the best of the other?' And I'd strangle it, even if it killed me too.... There'd be a cross over me in the field, with the inscription: 'Grigóry Andréeff Orlóff.... He freed Russia from the cholera.' Nothing more would be necessary."

As he spoke, his face burned, and his eyes flashed.

"You're my strong man!" whispered Matréna, nestling close to his side.

"Do you understand ... I'd hurl myself on a hundred knives, if only it would be of any use! If life could be lightened in that way. Because I see people: Doctor Váshtchenko, student Khokhryakóff,—it's wonderful how they work! They ought to have died long ago of fatigue.... Do you think they do it for money? A man can't work like that for money! The doctors, thank the Lord! have something of their own, and get a little in addition.... Why, an old man fell ill lately, and so Doctor Váshtchenko hammered away at him for four days, and never went home once the whole time.... Money doesn't count in such a case; pity is the cause. He's sorry for people—well, and so he doesn't spare himself ... for whose sake, you ask? For everybody's sake ... for the sake of Míshka Úsoff,... Míshka's proper place is in jail, for everybody knows that Míshka is a thief, and, perhaps, even worse.... They're curing Míshka.... And they were glad when he got up from his cot, they laughed.... So I want to feel that same joy, also ... and to have a great deal of it.... I'd like to choke with it! Because it gives me the heart-ache to see how they laugh over their work. I ache all over, and catch fire. I will do something!... But how? Oh ... the devil!"

Orlóff waved his hand hopelessly, and again fell into thought.

Matréna said nothing, but her heart beat anxiously—this excitement of her husband alarmed her, and in his words she plainly felt the great passion of his longing, which she did not understand, because she did not try to understand it. It was her husband, not a hero, who was dear and necessary to her.

They reached the verge of the precipice, and sat down, side by side.... The tufted crests of the young birch-trees looked down upon them, and in the bottom of the ravine there already lay a bluish mist, which sent forth an odor of dampness, rotting leaves and pine-needles. From time to time a puff of wind swept along the ravine, the branches of the birch-trees, the little fir-trees, rocked, rocked to and fro,—the whole ravine became filled with anxious, timorous whispering, and it seemed as though someone who was tenderly beloved and guarded by the trees had fallen asleep in the ravine, beneath their canopy, and they were whispering together about him very, very softly, in order not to awaken him. And in the town, lights shone forth, and stood out like reddish flowers against the dark background of its gardens. And in the sky the stars began to kindle their fires. The Orlóffs sat on in silence,—he thoughtfully drummed on his knee with his fingers, she gazed at him and sighed softly.

And suddenly clasping her arms about his neck, she laid her head on his breast, and said in a whisper:

"My darling Gríshka! My dear one! How good you have become to me once more, my brave man! You see, it seems as though it were the good time ... after our wedding,... you and I were living along ... you never utter an unkind word to me, you are always talking with me, you open your soul to me ... you don't bawl at me."

"And have you been fretting over that? I'll give you a thrashing, if you want it,"—jested Grigóry affectionately, feeling in his soul an influx of tenderness and pity for his wife.

He began softly to stroke her head with his hand, and this caress pleased him,—it was so paternal—the caress of a father for a grown-up child. Matréna did in fact resemble a child: she now climbed up on his knees, and seated herself in his lap, in a soft, warm little ball.

"My dear one!"—she whispered.

He heaved a profound sigh, and words which were new both to his wife and to himself flowed of themselves from his tongue.

"Eh, you poor little kitten! You're affectionate ... you see, anyway, and there is no friend nearer than a husband. But you have kept waiting your chance on one side.... You know, if I did hurt you sometimes, it was because I was sad, Mótrya. We lived in a pit.... We did not see the light, we hardly knew people at all. I've got out of the pit, and have recovered my sight. I was like a blind man as regards life. And now I understand that a wife, anyhow, is a man's closest friend in life. Because people are snakes and reptiles, to tell the truth.... They're always trying to deal wounds to other people.... For instance—Prónin, Vasiukóff.... Well, they may go to the.... Hold your peace, Mótrya! We shall get straightened out, all right, never fear.... We shall make our way, and live with understanding.... Well? What do you think of it, my little goose?"

She shed sweet tears of happiness, and replied to his question with kisses.

"You are my only one!" he whispered, and kissed her in return.

They wiped away each other's tears with kisses, and both were conscious of their briny taste. And for a long time Orlóff continued to talk in words which were new for him.

It was completely dark now. The sky, magnificently adorned with countless swarms of stars, looked down upon the earth with triumphant sadness, and in the plain reigned silence like that of the sky.

*

They had got into the habit of drinking tea together. On the morning after their talk in the fields, Orlóff presented himself in his wife's room confused and surly over something. Felitzáta was not feeling well, Matréna was alone in the room, and greeted her husband with a beaming face, which immediately clouded over, and she asked him anxiously:

"What makes you like that? Are you ill?"

"No, never mind,"—he replied curtly, as he seated himself on a chair, and drew toward him the tea which she had already poured out.

"But what is it?" persisted Matréna.

"I didn't sleep. I kept thinking.... You and I cackled together pretty hard last night, and got silly-soft ... and now I'm ashamed of myself.... There's no use in that. You women always try to get a man into your hands, on such occasions ... so you do.... Only, don't you dream of such a thing—you won't succeed..... You can't get around me, and I won't yield to you.... So now you know it!"

He said all this very impressively, but did not look at his wife. Matréna never took her eyes from his face all the time, and her lips writhed strangely.

"Are you sorry that you came so near to me last night—is that it?"—she asked quietly.—"Are you sorry that you kissed and caressed me? What does this mean? It insults me to hear it ... it is very bitter, you're breaking my heart with such speeches. What do you want? Do you find me tiresome, am not I dear to you, or what?"

She gazed at him suspiciously, but in her tone resounded pain and a challenge to her husband.

"N—no...." said Grigóry abashed, "I was only talking in general ... You and I used to live in a hole, you know yourself what sort of a life it was! It makes me sick even to think of it. And now that we've got out of it—I feel afraid of something. Everything changed so suddenly.... I'm like a stranger to myself, and you seem to be a different person too. What is the meaning of this! And what will come next?"

"What God sends, Grísha!"—said Matréna gravely.—"Only don't feel sorry that you were kind last night."

"All right, drop it...." Grigóry stopped her as abashed as ever, and still sighing.—"You see, I'm thinking that we shan't come to anything, after all. And our former life was not flowery, and my present life is not to my taste. And although I don't drink, don't beat you, and don't swear...."

Matréna laughed convulsively.

"You have no time to worry about that now."

"I could always find time to get drunk,"—smiled Orlóff. "I don't feel tempted to—: that's the wonder. And besides, in general, I feel ... not exactly ashamed of it, and yet not exactly afraid of it.. he shook his head, and began to meditate.

"The Lord only knows what is the matter with you," said Matréna, with a heavy sigh.—"It's a pleasant life, though there's a lot of work; all the doctors are fond of you, and you are behaving well ... really, I don't know what to make of it. You're very uneasy."

"That's true, I'm uneasy.... Now, I was thinking in the night: Piótr Ivánovitch says: all men are equals, and ain't I a man like the rest? Yet Doctor Véshtchenko is better than I am, and Piótr Ivánovitch is better, and so are many others.... That means, that they are not my equals ... and I'm not on a level with them, I feel that.... They cured Míshka Úsoff, and rejoiced at it.... And I don't understand that. On the whole, why feel glad that a man has recovered? His life was worse than the cholera convulsions, if you speak the truth. They understand that, but they are glad.... And I would have liked to rejoice too, like them, only I can't.... Because—as I said before ... what is there to be glad about?"

"But they pity the people,"—returned Matréna,—"okh, how they pity them! It's the same thing in our section ... a sick woman begins to mend, and, oh, Lord, what goings on! And when a poor woman gets her discharge, they give her advice, and money and medicines.... It even makes me shed tears ... the kind people, the compassionate people!"

"Now you say—tears.... But I'm seized with amazement ... Nothing less...." Orlóff shrugged his shoulders, and rubbed his head, and stared in wonder at his wife.

Eloquence made its appearance in her, from somewhere, and she began zealously to demonstrate to her husband, that people are entirely worthy of compassion. Bending toward him, and gazing into his face with affectionate eyes, she talked long to him about people, and the burden of life, and he stared at her and thought:

"Eh, how she talks! Where does she get the words?"

"For you are compassionate yourself—you say, you would strangle the cholera, if you had the power. But what for? Whom does it annoy? People, not you: you have even begun to live better because it made its appearance."

Orlóff suddenly burst out laughing.

"Why, that's so, certainly!—I am better off, that's true, isn't it? Akh, you shrewd creature,—make the most of it! People die, and I live better in consequence, hey?—That's what life is like! Pshaw!"

He rose, and went away, laughing, to his duty. As he was walking along the corridor, he suddenly felt regret that no one except himself had heard Matréna's speech. "She spoke cleverly! A woman, a woman, and yet she understands something, too." And absorbed in an agreeable sort of sensation, he entered his ward, greeted by the hoarse rattling and the moans of the sick men.

With every passing day, the world of his feelings grew wider and wider, and, along with this, his necessity for speech waxed greater. He could not, of course, narrate as a whole what was taking place within him, for the greater part of his sensations and thought were beyond his grasp. An angry envy blazed up within him, because he could not rejoice over people.

It was after this that the desire was kindled within him to perform some wonderful deed, and astonish everyone thereby. He felt conscious that his position in the barracks placed him between people, as it were: the doctors and students were higher than he, the servitors were lower,—what was he himself? And a sense of loneliness laid its grasp upon him; then it seemed to him that Fate was playing with him, had blown him out of his place, and was now carrying him through the air like a feather. He began to feel sorry for himself, and went to his wife. Sometimes he did not wish to do this, considering that frankness toward her would lower him in her eyes, but he went, nevertheless. He arrived gloomy, and now in a vicious, again in a sceptical mood, he went away, almost always, petted and composed. His wife had words of her own; they were not many, they were simple, but there was always a great deal of feeling in them, and he observed, with astonishment, that Matréna was coming to occupy a larger and larger place in his life, that he had to think of her and talk with her "according to the soul," more and more frequently.

She in her turn understood this very well, indeed, and endeavored, in every way, to broaden her growing significance in his life. Her toilsome and energetic life in the barracks had increased her sense of her own value greatly,—it came to pass unnoticed by Matréna. She did not think, she did not reason, but when she recalled her former life, in the cellar, in the narrow circle of cares for her husband and her housekeeping, she involuntarily compared the past with the present, and the gloomy picture of the cellar-existence gradually retreated further and further from her. The authorities at the barracks liked her; because of her intelligence, and knowledge of how to work, they all treated her graciously, they all saw in her an individual; and this was new for her, it gave her animation.

One day when she was on night-duty, the fat woman-doctor began to question her about her life, and Matréna, as she was willingly and frankly telling her about her life, suddenly paused and smiled.

"What are you laughing at?" asked the doctor.

"Why nothing.... I lived very badly ... and, you see, if you will believe it, my dear madam,—I did not understand it ... up to this very moment, I never understood how badly."

After this glance into the past, a strange feeling took form in Mrs. Orlóff's breast toward her husband, she loved him exactly as much as before—with the blind love of the female, but it began to seem to her as though Grigóry were her debtor. At times, when she was talking with him, she assumed a patronizing tone, for he often inspired her with pity by his uneasy speeches. But, nevertheless, she was sometimes seized with doubt as to the possibility of a quiet and peaceful life with her husband, although, on the whole, she still believed that Grigóry would become steady, and that this melancholy would be extinguished in him.

They were fatally bound to grow nearer to each other, and—both were young, fit for work, strong—they might have gone on and lived out their days in the gray life of half-fed poverty, a life of exploiting others, to the end completely absorbed in the pursuit of the kopék, but they had been saved from this end by what Gríshka called his "uneasiness in the heart," and was, in its essence, unable to reconcile itself with every-day things.

On the morning of a gloomy September day a wagon drove into the court-yard of the barracks, and Prónin took out of it a little boy, all streaked with paints, bony, yellow, hardly breathing.

"From the Petúnnikoff house, in Damp street, again," the driver reported, in answer to the query, whence the patient came.

"Tchízhik!" exclaimed Orlóff, in distress,—"akh, oh, Lord! Sénka! Tchizh![16] Do you know me?"

"Y—yes, I know you...." said Tchízhik, with an effort, as he lay on the stretcher, and slowly rolled his eyes up under his brow, in order to see Orlóff, who was walking at his head, and bending over him.

"Akh ... what a merry bird you were! How did you come to give up?"—asked Orlóff. He was, somehow, strangely alarmed at the sight of that dirty little boy, in the throes of the disease.—"Why did it seize on this poor little boy?" he embodied in one question all his sensations, and sadly shook his head.

Tchízhik made no reply, and shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm cold," said he, when they laid him on a cot, and began to remove his rags, streaked all over with every sort of paint-color.

"Now, we're going to put you into hot water immediately ..." promised Orlóff.—"And we'll cure you."

Tchízhik shook his little head, and whispered:

"You can't cure me.... Uncle Grigóry ... bend down your ... ear. I stole the accordeon.... It's in the wood-shed ... Day before yesterday I touched it, for the first time since I stole it. Akh, what an accordeon it is! I hid it ... and then my belly began to ache.... So.... That means, that this is for my sin.... It's hanging on the wall, under the stairs ... and I piled wood up over it.... So.... Uncle Grigóry ... give it.... The accordeon-player had a sister.... She asked about it.... Gi-ive it ... to ... her!..." He began to groan, and to writhe in convulsions.

They did everything they could for him, but the gaunt, exhausted little body would not retain life in it, and in the evening, Orlóff carried him on the stretcher to the dead-house. As he carried him, he felt exactly as though he had been wronged.

In the dead-house, Orlóff tried to straighten out Tchízhik's body, but he did not succeed. Orlóff went away overwhelmed, mournful, bearing with him the image of the merry lad distorted with the disease.

He was seized with a debilitating consciousness of his powerlessness in the face of death, and his ignorance of it. Despite all the pains he had taken over Tchízhik, despite the zealous labors of the doctors,... the boy had died! This was outrageous.... It would seize upon him, Orlóff, one of these days, and twist him up in convulsions.... And that would be the end of him. He grew frightened, and, along with this feeling, he was invaded by a sense of loneliness. He wanted to discuss all this with some clever man. More than once, he tried to strike up a comprehensive conversation with one or another of the students, but no one had any time for philosophy, and Grigóry's attempts were not crowned with success. He was obliged to go to his wife, and talk with her. So he went to her, morose and sad.

She had only just come off duty, and was washing herself self in the corner of the room, but the samovár was already standing on the table, filling the air with steam and hissing.

Grigóry seated himself, in silence, at the table, and began to gaze at his wife's bare, plump shoulders. The samovár bubbled away, splashing water over; Matréna snorted; orderlies ran swiftly back and forth along the corridor, and Grigóry tried to determine, from the walk, who was passing.

All of a sudden, it seemed to him, as though Matréna's shoulders were as cold, and covered with the same sort of sticky sweat as Tchízhik, when the latter was writhing with convulsions on the hospital cot. He shuddered, and said, in a dull voice:

"Sénka is dead...."

"Dead? The kingdom of heaven to the child Sénka, newly-appeared before God!"[17] said Matréna prayerfully, and then she began to spit fiercely—some of the soap had got into her mouth.

"I'm sorry for him," sighed Grigóry.

"He was a dreadful tease."

"He's dead, and that ends it! It's no business of yours now, what sort of a fellow he was!... But it's a pity he died. He was bold and lively.... The accordeon ... Hm!... He was a clever lad.... I sometimes used to look at him and think: I'll take him as an apprentice, or something of that sort.... He was an orphan ... he would have got used to us, and have taken the place of a son to us.... For, you see, we have no children.... No.... You're so healthy, yet you don't bear any children.... You had one, and that was the end of it. Ekh, you woman! If we had some squalling little brats, you'd see we shouldn't find life so tiresome.... But now it's only live on, and work.... And for what? To feed myself and you.... And of what use are we ... of what use is food to us? In order that we may work.... So it turns out to be a senseless circle.... But if we had children—that would be quite another matter.... That it would."

He said this in a sad, dissatisfied tone, with his head drooping low. Matréna stood before him and listened, gradually turning pale, as he continued:

"I'm healthy, you're healthy, and still we have no children.... What's the meaning of it? Why? Ye-es ... a man thinks and thinks about it ... and then he takes to drink!"

"You lie!" said Matréna firmly and loudly.—"You lie! Don't you dare to utter your dastardly words to me ... do you hear? Don't you dare! You drink—because you choose to, out of self-indulgence, because you have no self-control, and my childlessness has nothing whatever to do with the matter; you lie, Gríshka!"

Grigóry was stunned. He flung himself back, against the back of his chair, cast a glance at his wife, and did not recognize her. Never before had he beheld her so infuriated, never had she looked at him with such mercilessly-angry eyes, or spoken with such power in her words.

"Come now, come!"—ejaculated Grigóry defiantly, clutching the seat of his chair with his hands.—"Come now, talk some more!"

"And so I will! I wouldn't have spoken, only that reproach from you I cannot endure! I don't bear you children, don't I? And I won't! I can't any more.... I can't have any children!..." a sob was audible in her shriek.

"Don't yell," her husband warned her.

"Why don't I bear children, hey? Come now, recall to your mind, Grísha, how much have you beaten me? How many kicks in the side have you showered on me?... reckon them up, do! How you have tortured, racked me? Do you know how much blood flowed from me after your tortures? My chemise used to be bloody clear up to my neck! And that's why I bear no children, my dear husband! How can you reproach me for that, hey? How is it that your ugly phiz isn't ashamed to look me in the face? ... For you are a murderer! you have killed your children, killed them yourself! and now you reproach me because I don't bear any.... I have endured everything from you, I have forgiven you for everything,—but those words I will never forgive, to all eternity! When I am dying,—I'll call that to mind! Don't you understand that you are to blame yourself, that you have destroyed me? Ain't I like all women—don't I want children? Do you think I don't want them? Many a night, when I couldn't sleep, I have prayed to the Lord God that He would preserve the children in my body from you, you murderer! ... When I see a strange child—I choke with bitterness, out of envy and pity for myself.... I'd like! ... Queen of Heaven!... I used to pet that Sénka on the sly.... What am I? O Lord! A barren woman...."

She began to sob. The words leaped from her mouth without sense of coherence.

Her face was spotted all over, she trembled, and scratched her neck, because the sobs gurgled in her throat. Keeping a stout grasp on his chair, Grigóry, pale and crushed, sat opposite her, and with widely-opened eyes stared at this woman, who was a stranger to him, and he was afraid of her ... afraid that she would clutch him by the throat and strangle him. Precisely that was what her terrible eyes, blazing with wrath, promised him. She was twice as strong as he now, and he felt it, and turned cowardly; he could not rise and strike her, as he would have done, had he not understood that she had undergone a transformation, as though she had imbibed vast strength from some source.

"You have stung my very soul, Gríshka! Great is your sin toward me! I have endured, I have held my peace ... because ... I love you ... but your reproaches I cannot bear!... My strength is exhausted.... You heaven-sent husband of mine! For those words of yours, may you be thrice accur...."

"Hold your tongue!—" thundered Gríshka, with a snarl. "You're outrageous! Have you forgotten where we are? You accursed devil!"

There was a mist over Grigóry's eyes. He could not discern who it was that was standing in the door-way, and talking in a bass voice; he swore in vile language, thrust the man aside, and rushed out into the fields. And Matréna, after standing still in the middle of the room for a minute, reeling and as though struck with blindness, with her hands outstretched before her, went to the cot, and fell upon it, with a groan.

Darkness descended, and the golden moon, covering the fields with shadows, peered curiously into the windows of the room from the sky, from amid ragged, dark-blue clouds.

Soon a fine, drizzling rain began to beat upon the window-panes and the walls of the barracks—the forerunner of the interminable autumn rains which fill the soul with melancholy.

The pendulum of the clock ticked off the seconds with equable beat, the raindrops lashed the panes. Hour after hour passed, and the rain still descended, and on the cot, the woman lay motionless and stared, with swollen eyes, at the ceiling. Her face was gloomy, stern, her teeth were tightly clenched, her cheek-bones stood out prominently, and in her eyes gleamed both terror and sadness. And the rain still rattled against the walls and the window-panes; it seemed as though it were whispering something wearisomely-monotonous, were trying to convince someone of something, but had not sufficient passion to do it quickly, handsomely, with force, and hoped to attain its end by a torturing, interminable, colorless sermon, which lacked the sincere pathos of faith.

The rain continued and was still pouring when the sky became overcast with hues of approaching dawn, which presage an inclement day, and so resemble the color of a knife, which has been long in use, and has lost the gleam of its polish. But still Matréna could not sleep. In the monotonous murmur of the rain, she heard a question which was both anxious and alarming to her:

"What will happen now? What will happen now?"

It resounded importunately outside the windows, and an aching pain in all her being responded to it.

"What will happen now?"

The woman was afraid to answer herself, although the answer kept flashing up before her in the shape of a drunken husband, as fierce as any wild beast. But it was difficult to part with her dream of a calm, loving life; she had already got accustomed to this dream, and she banished from her a menacing foreboding. And at the same time, the consciousness flashed across her, that if this did happen—if Grigóry should take to drink again, she could no longer live with him. She saw him different, she herself had become a different person, and her former life aroused in her both fear and disgust—novel sensations, hitherto unknown to her. But she was a woman, and in the end, she began to upbraid herself for this breach with her husband.

"And how did it come about?... O Lord!... It's just as though I had torn myself off a hook ..."

In such contradictory, torturing reflections, another long hour passed by. Day dawned. A heavy fog was swirling over the plain, and the sky could not be seen through its gray mist.

"Mrs. Orlóff! Time to go on duty...."

Mechanically obeying this summons, shouted through the door of her room, she slowly rose from her bed, washed herself in haste, and went to the barracks, feeling weak and half ill. In the barracks she evoked general surprise by the languor of her movements, and her gloomy face with its dull eyes.

"Mrs. Orlóff! You seem to be ill?" one of the doctors said to her.

"It's nothing...."

"But tell me, don't stand on ceremony! you know, we can get a substitute for you ..."

Matréna felt conscience-stricken, she did not wish to betray her pain and terror to this person who was kind, but still a stranger to her, nevertheless. And summoning up, from the depths of her tortured soul, the remnants of her courage, she said to the woman-doctor, with a smile:

"It's nothing! I have had a little quarrel with my husband ... It will pass off ... it isn't the first time...."

"You poor thing!"—sighed the doctor, who knew about her life.

Matréna wanted to fall down before her, bury her head in the doctor's lap, and scream.... But she restrained herself, and only pressed her lips tightly together, and passed her hand over her throat, as though she were thrusting back into her breast the sobs which were on the point of bursting forth.

When she was relieved from duty, she entered her room, and the first thing she did, was to look out of the window. Across the fields, to the barracks, a waggon was moving,—they must be bringing a sick person in it. Fine rain was sifting down from the gray storm-clouds. Nothing else was to be seen. Matréna turned away from the window, and with a heavy sigh, seated herself at the table, engrossed by the thought:

"What will happen now?"—And her heart beat time to these words.

For a long time she sat there, alone, in a heavy semi-doze, and every time the sound of footsteps in the corridor made her shudder, and rising from her chair, she looked out of the door....

But when, at last, the door opened, and Grigóry entered, she did not shudder, and did not rise, for she felt as though the autumnal storm-clouds had suddenly descended upon her, from the sky, with all their weight.

Grigóry halted at the door, flung his wet cap on the floor, and stamping heavily with his feet, he approached his wife. He was streaming with water. His face was red, his eyes were dim, and his lips were stretched in a broad, stupid smile. As he walked, Matréna heard the water seeping in his boots. He was pitiful, and she had not imagined him in this aspect.

"Good!"—she said softly.

Grigóry waggled his head stupidly, and asked her:

"Would you like to have me bow down to your feet?"

She made no reply.

"You wouldn't? Well, that's your affair.... But I've been thinking all the while: am I guilty toward you or not? It turns out—that I am. So now I say: do you want me to bow down to your f-feet?"

She maintained silence, inhaling the odor of vódka which emanated from him, and a bitter feeling gnawed at her soul.

"Now, see here, you—don't you make faces! Take your chance while I'm peaceable...." said Grigóry, raising his voice.—"Come, are you going to forgive me?"

"You're drunk," said Matréna, with a sigh.... Go and sleep...."

"You lie, I'm not drunk, I'm tired, I've been walking and walking and thinking.... I've done a heap of thinking, brother ... oh! You look out!"

He menaced her with his finger, laughing with a wry grimace.

"Why don't you speak?"

"I can't talk with you."

"You can't? Why not?"

All at once, he flared up, and his voice grew firmer.

"You screamed at me, you snarled at me yesterday ... well, and now I'm asking your forgiveness. Understand that!"

He said this in a very ominous way, his lips quivered, and his nostrils were inflated. Matréna knew what that meant, and the past rose up before her in vivid colors: the cellar, the Saturday fights, the anguish and suffocation of their life.

"I understand!"—she said, sharply.—"I see that you are ... turning into a beast again now ... ekh, you disgusting creature!"

"I'm turning into a beast? That ... hasn't anything to do with the case.... I say ... will you forgive me? What are you thinking about? Do I need it—your forgiveness? I can get on capitally without it ... but still, here, I want you to forgive me.... Understand?"

"Go away from me, Grigóry!" ... exclaimed the woman sadly, turning away from him.

"Go away?"—laughed Grigóry maliciously.—"I'm to go away, so that you will remain at liberty? Come now, I wo-on't! Have you seen this?"

He seized her by the shoulder, dragged-her toward him, and flourished a knife in her face—a short, thick, sharp; piece of rusty iron.

"We-ell?"

"Ekh, if you would only cut my throat,"—said Matréna, with a deep sigh, and freeing herself from his grasp, she turned away from him again. Then he, also, staggered back from her, startled, not by her words, but by the tone of them. He had heard those words from her lips before, had heard them more than once—but she had never uttered them in that manner. And the fact that she had turned away from him without fearing the knife, also augmented his amazement and discomfiture. Several seconds earlier it would have been easy for him to strike her, but now he could not do it, and did not wish to do it. Almost frightened by her indifference to his threat, he flung the knife on the table, and with dull wrath he asked his wife:

"Devil! What is it you want?"

"I don't want anything!"—cried Matréna, sighing.—"And what do you want? Did you come to kill me? Well, then, kill me!"

Grigóry looked at her, and held his peace, not knowing what he could do now, and seeing nothing clearly in his tangled thoughts. He had come with a definite intention to conquer his wife. On the preceding day, during their clash, she had been stronger than he; he was conscious of that, and it lowered him in his own eyes. It was imperatively necessary that she should submit to him, he did not understand why, but he did know solidly, that it was necessary. Passionate by nature, he had gone through a great deal and had thought a great deal about the matter during those four and twenty hours, and—being an ignorant man—he did not know how to single out of the chaos those feelings which had been aroused by the just accusation boldly hurled at him by his wife. He understood that this was a revolt against him, and he had brought the knife with him, in order to frighten Matréna; he would have killed her, but she offered a less passive resistance to his desire to subjugate her. But here she was in front of him, helpless, overwhelmed with grief and yet stronger than he. It angered him to perceive this, and this anger had a sobering effect upon him.

"Listen!"—he said,—"and don't you put on any conceited airs! You know that I, in downright earnest ... will drive this into your ribs—and that's the end of you! That will put an end to the whole matter!?.. It's very simple...."

Conscious that he was not saying the proper thing, Grigóry paused. Matréna did not move, as she stood turned away from him. A feverishly-rapid reckoning up of all that she had gone through with her husband was in progress within her, and this imperative question throbbed in her heart:

"What will happen now?"

"Mótrya!"—Grigóry began suddenly and softly, propping himself with one hand on the table, and bending toward his wife.—"Am I to blame, if ... everything isn't.. if it isn't as it should be?... This is very disgusting to me!"

He twisted his head about and sighed.

"I'm so sick of it! I'm so cramped here on earth! Is this life? Come, let's take the cholera patients,—what are they? Are they a support to me? Some will die, and others will get well,... and I must go on living again. How am I to live? it's not life—only convulsions ... isn't that enough to make a man angry? I understand everything, you see, only it's difficult for me to say that I can't live so ... but how I want to live ... I don't know! They heal those sick people yonder, and give them every attention—... but I'm healthy, and if my soul aches, am I any the less valuable than they? Just think of it—I'm worse off than a cholera patient.... I have convulsions in my heart—that's what the trouble is!... And you shriek at me! Do you think I'm a wild beast? A drunkard, and—that's the end of it? Ekh you ... you woman! you wooden...."

He spoke quietly and persuasively, but she did not hear his speech well, busy as she was in reviewing the past.

"Now you won't speak.. said Gríshka, lending an ear to something new and powerful which was springing up within him.—"And why do you remain silent? What do you want?"

"I want nothing from you!"—exclaimed Matréna ...—"Why do you hammer away at me? Why do you torture me? What do you want?"

"What? Why ... that, of course..."

But Orlóff became conscious that he could not tell his wife exactly what he wanted,—that everything should immediately become clear, so to speak, both to him and to her. He comprehended that something had formed between them which could not be removed by any words whatever ...

Then a wild anger flashed up suddenly and vividly within him. Flourishing his arm, he dealt his wife a blow with his fist on the nape of her neck, and roared, like a wild beast:

"What are you about, you witch, hey? Why are you playing? I'll kill you, you carrion!"

The blow drove her, face down, upon the table, but she instantly sprang to her feet, and, looking straight in her husband's face, with a gaze of hatred, she said firmly, loudly and curtly:

"Beat away!"

"Shut up!"

"Beat! Well?"

"Akh, you devil!"

"Ho, Grigóry, there's been enough of that. I won't have any more of it...."

"Shut up!"

"I won't allow you to jeer at me...."

He gnashed his teeth, and retreated from her a pace—perhaps with the object of hitting her more conveniently.

But, at that moment, the door opened, and Doctor Yáshtchenko made his appearance on the threshold.

"Wha-at's the meaning of this? Where are you, hey? What sort of a performance are you going through with?"

His face was stem and astounded. Orlóff was not in the slightest degree abashed at the sight of him, and he even bowed to him, saying:

"It's—.. disinfection between husband and wife."

And he laughed convulsively in the doctor's face.

"Why didn't you present yourself for duty?"—shouted the doctor sharply, incensed by the laugh.

Gríshka shrugged his shoulders, and calmly declared:

"I was busy ... about my own affairs...."

"So ... yes! And who was making that row here last night?"

"We...."

"You? Very good.... You behave yourselves in domestic fashion ... you prowl about without leave...."

"We're not serfs, so...."

"Silence! You've turned this into a dram-shop ... you beasts! I'll show you where you are!"

A flood of wild daring, of passionate longing to overturn everything, to tear the confusion out of his hunted soul, overwhelmed Gríshka, in a burning tide. It seemed to him that he would now do something unusual, and, at the same time, deliver his dark soul from the entanglements which now held it in bondage. He shuddered, felt an agreeable sensation of cold in his heart, and turning to the doctor with a sort of cat-like grimace, he said:

"Don't you bother your gullet, don't yell.... I know where I am—in the exterminating house!"

"Wha-at? What did you say?"—the astonished doctor bent toward him.

Gríshka understood that he had uttered a savage word, but he did not cool down, for all that, but waxed all the hotter.

"Never mind, it will pass off! Digest that!... Matréna! Get ready to go!"

"No, my dear fellow, stop! You must answer me...." uttered the doctor, with ominous composure.—"You scoundrel, I'll give it to you for this...."

Gríshka stared point-blank at him, and began to talk, with the sensation that he was leaping off somewhere, and with every leap he breathed more and more freely.

"Don't you shout, Andréi Stepánovitch ... don't swear.... You think that, because there's cholera, you can order me about. 'Tis a vain dream.... That you cure people, nobody needs to be told.—And what I said about extermination was, of course, an idle word, and I was angry.... But don't you yell so much, all the same...."

"No, you lie!"—said the doctor calmly.... "I'll give you a lesson ... hey, there, come hither!"

People were already standing in the corridor.... Gríshka screwed up his eyes, and set his teeth.

"No, I'm not lying, and I'm not afraid ... but if you want to give me a lesson, I'll tell you for your convenience."

"We-ell? Say it...."

"I'll go to the town, and I'll spread the news: 'My lads! Do you know how they cure the cholera?'"

"Wha-at?"—and the doctor opened his eyes widely.

"So when we had that disinfection there with limination ...."

"What are you saying, devil take you!"—cried the doctor in a dull tone.—Irritation had given way in him to amazement in the presence of that young fellow whom he had known as an industrious, far from unintelligent workman, and who now, no one knew why, was foolishly and stupidly running his neck into the noose....

"What nonsense are you chattering, you fool?"

"Fool!"—rang like an echo through Gríshka's whole being. He understood that this verdict was just, and he became all the more angry.

"What am I saying? I know ... I don't care ...." he said, with wildly flashing eyes....—"Now I understand why the like of me never cares ... and it's utterly useless for us to restrain ourselves in our feelings.... Matréna, get ready!"

"I won't go!" announced Matréna firmly.

The doctor stared at them with round eyes, and rubbed his brow, comprehending nothing.

"You're ... either a drunken man or a crazy man! Do you understand what you are doing?" Gríshka would not, could not yield. In reply to the doctor, he said, ironically:

"And how do you understand it? What are you doing? Disinfection, ha, ha! You heal the sick ... while the well people die with the narrowness of their life.... Matréna! I'll smash your pate! Go...."

"I won't go with you!"

She was pale, and unnaturally motionless, but her eyes gazed firmly and coldly into her husband's face ... Gríshka, despite all his heroic courage, turned away from her, and hanging his head, made no reply.

"Faugh!" and the doctor spat.—"The devil himself couldn't make out the meaning of this.... Here you! Begone! Take yourself off, and be thankful that I haven't been severe with you ... you ought to be arrested ... you blockhead! Get out!"

Grigóry glanced, in silence, at the doctor, and then dropped his head again. He would have felt better if they had thrashed him, or even sent him to the police-station.... But the doctor was a kind man, and perceived that Orlóff was almost irresponsible.

"For the last time, I ask you, will you go?" Gríshka hoarsely asked his wife.

"No, I will not go,"—she answered, and bent down a little, as though in expectation of a blow.

Gríshka waved his hand.

"Well ... the devil take the whole lot of you!—And what the devil do I want you for, anyway?"

"You're a savage blockhead," began the doctor, argumentatively.

"Don't you bark!" shouted Gríshka.—"Well, you cursed trollop, I'm going! I think we shall never see each other again ... but perhaps we shall ... that will be as I choose! But if we do meet again—it won't be good for you, I warn you!"

And Orlóff moved toward the door.

"Good-bye ... tragedian!..." said the doctor sardonically, when Gríshka came on a level with him.

Grigóry halted, and raising his mournful flashing eyes to him, he said in a repressed, low tone:

"Don't you touch me ... don't wind the spring up tight ... it has unwound, and hasn't hit anybody ... so let it go at that."

He picked up his cap from the floor, stuck it on his head, bristled up, and went out, without even glancing at his wife.

The doctor gazed searchingly at her. She stood before him pale, with an insensible sort of face.—The doctor nodded his head in the direction of Grigóry, and asked her:

"What is the matter with him?"

"I don't know...."

"Hm.... And where will he go now?"

"On a drunken spree!"—replied Mrs. Orlóff firmly.

The doctor frowned and went away.

Matréna looked out of the window. The figure of a man was moving swiftly along, in the evening twilight, through wind and rain, from the barracks to the town. The figure was alone, in the midst of the wet, gray plain ... The face of Matréna Orlóff turned still paler, she went into a corner, fell on her knees, and began to pray, zealously executing ground-reverences,[18] sighing out her petitions in a passionate whisper, and rubbing her breast and her throat with hands which trembled with emotion.