This remark meant ‘Leave me in peace, don’t disturb me when I’m trying to think.’ Olga flared up. All the annoyance, hatred and anger which had been accumulating in her during the day suddenly seemed to boil over. She wanted to say exactly what she thought about it all to her husband there and then, without waiting until the morning; she wanted to insult him, have her revenge. Trying hard not to shout she said, ‘Just try and see how terribly, terribly vile all this is! I’ve felt nothing but hatred for you all day long – it’s all your fault!’
Pyotr sat up too.
‘Terribly, terribly vile!’ Olga went on, beginning to shake all over. ‘You’ve no need to congratulate me! You’d better congratulate yourself! It’s a downright disgrace! You’ve taken your lying so far, you’re ashamed to be in the same room as your wife. You’re such a phoney! I can see right through you and I understand every step you take!’
‘Olga, when you’re not feeling too well again, please warn me. I can go and sleep in the study then.’
With these words Pyotr took a pillow and walked out of the bedroom. Olga had not anticipated this. For several minutes – speechless, her mouth wide open, and trembling all over – she looked at the door through which her husband had disappeared, trying to understand the meaning of it all. Was it one of those tricks resorted to by dishonest people during an argument, when they are in the wrong, or was it a deliberate insult to her pride? How was she to take it? Olga remembered her officer-cousin, a nice cheerful young man who often laughingly told her that when ‘my good lady wife starts nagging me at night’, he usually took a pillow and went away whistling to his study, leaving his wife looking stupid and ridiculous. This officer was married to a rich, frivolous, silly woman whom he did not respect and could barely tolerate.
Olga leapt up from the bed. She thought that now there was only one course of action – to dress herself as quickly as she could and leave that house for ever. The house was her property, but that was hard luck for Pyotr. Without first asking herself whether it was necessary, she dashed into the study to tell her husband about her decision (the thought ‘Woman’s logic!’ flashed through her mind) and say something offensive and sarcastic by way of farewell.
Pyotr lay on the couch and pretended he was reading the paper. A lighted candle stood on a chair nearby and his face lay hidden behind the paper.
‘Please explain the meaning of this, I’m asking you!’
‘ “Please explain…” ’ mimicked Pyotr, not showing his face. ‘I’m fed up, Olga! Word of honour, I’m worn out, and I don’t feel up to it right now… We can quarrel tomorrow.’
‘No, I know you only too well!’ Olga continued. ‘You hate me! Yes, yes! You hate me for being richer than you! You’ll never forgive me for that and you’ll always tell me lies.’ (The thought ‘Woman’s logic’ flashed through her mind again.) ‘I know you’re having a good laugh at me now… I’m even convinced that you only married me for social status and those vile horses… Oh, I’m so unhappy!’
Pyotr dropped his paper and sat up. He was stunned by this unexpected insult. He smiled as helplessly as a child, looked at his wife in bewilderment and, as if warding off blows, held out his hands to her and said pleadingly, ‘Olga!’
Expecting her to say more horrible things, he leant hard on the back of the couch, and his whole body looked just as helpless and childish as his smile.
‘Olga, how could you say a thing like that?’ he whispered.
Olga came to her senses. Suddenly she was aware of her mad love for that man, remembering that he was Pyotr, her husband, without whom she could not live one day, and who loved her madly too. She burst into loud sobs, in a voice that did not sound like hers at all, clasped her head and ran back into the bedroom.
She slumped on to the bed and the room echoed to the sound of broken, hysterical sobbing, which suffocated her and cramped her arms and legs. Remembering that a guest was staying about three or four rooms away, she buried her head under the pillow to smother the sobs, but the pillow slipped on to the floor and she almost fell herself as she bent down to pick it up. She tried to pull the blanket up to her face, but her hands would not obey her and convulsively tore at everything she tried to grasp.
She felt that all was lost now, that the lie she had told to insult her husband had smashed her life to smithereens. Her husband would never forgive her – the insult she had inflicted on him was not the kind to be smoothed away by caresses or vows. How could she convince her husband that she herself did not mean what she said?
‘It’s all over, it’s finished!’ she cried, not noticing that the pillow had once again slipped on to the floor. ‘For God’s sake!’
By this time her cries must have wakened the guest and the servants. Next day the whole district would know about her hysterics and everyone would blame Pyotr. She made an effort to control herself, but her sobs grew louder by the minute. ‘For God’s sake!’ she shouted in a voice hard to recognize as hers and not understanding just why she was shouting. ‘For God’s sake!’
She felt that the bed had collapsed under her and that her legs had become tangled up in the blanket. Pyotr came into the bedroom in his dressing-gown, carrying a candle.
‘Olga, that’s enough!’ he said.
She raised herself to her knees, screwed up her eyes in the candlelight and said between her sobs, ‘Please understand, please understand!’
She wanted to tell him that the visitors, the lies that he and she had told, had exhausted her, that now she was inwardly boiling. But all she could say was ‘Understand, please understand!’
‘Come on, drink this,’ he said, giving her some water.
Obediently, she took the glass and began to drink, but the water spilled over and trickled down her hands, breast and knees. Pyotr silently put her back in bed, covered her with the blanket, took the candle and left.
‘For God’s sake!’ Olga shouted again. ‘Pyotr, you must understand!’
Suddenly something gripped her so violently beneath the stomach and back that her tears were cut short and she bit the pillow in pain. But the pain immediately subsided and she burst out sobbing again.
The maid entered, inquiring anxiously as she straightened the blanket, ‘Madam, my dear madam, what’s wrong?’
‘Clear out of here,’ Pyotr snapped as he went over to the bed.
‘Please understand, please understand,’ Olga began.
‘Olga, I beg you, calm yourself!’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I wouldn’t have left the bedroom if I’d known you would take it like this. I just felt depressed. I’m telling you this as an honest man.’
‘Please try and understand… you lied, I lied…’
‘I do understand… Well, that’s all right now. I do understand,’ Pyotr said tenderly, sitting on the bed. ‘You spoke in the heat of the moment, it’s understandable… I swear I love you more than anything in the world and when I married you the thought that you were rich never entered my mind. My love had no bounds… that’s all, I assure you. I’ve never needed money and I’ve never known its value, so I can’t appreciate the difference between your position and mine. I’ve always thought that we were both equally rich. And that remark about my acting deceitfully in small matters. Up to now my life has been run on such frivolous lines that somehow it’s been impossible to manage without petty lies. Now I feel low too. Let’s stop this conversation, for God’s sake!’
Olga felt a sharp pain again and grasped her husband’s sleeve.
‘Oh, such a dreadful pain!’ she said hurriedly. ‘It’s terrible!’
‘To hell with all these visitors!’ Pyotr muttered as he stood up. ‘You shouldn’t have gone to the island today!’ he shouted. ‘And I’m a fool for letting you! God in heaven!’