overcoat. How had it come on his shoulders? While he was settling
that question, his wife's imagination was drawing another picture,
awful and impossible: darkness, stillness, whispering, and so on,
and so on.


A PLAY

"PAVEL VASSILYEVITCH, there's a lady here, asking for you," Luka
announced. "She's been waiting a good hour. . . ."

Pavel Vassilyevitch had only just finished lunch. Hearing of the
lady, he frowned and said:

"Oh, damn her! Tell her I'm busy."

"She has been here five times already, Pavel Vassilyevitch. She
says she really must see you. . . . She's almost crying."

"H'm . . . very well, then, ask her into the study."

Without haste Pavel Vassilyevitch put on his coat, took a pen in
one hand, and a book in the other, and trying to look as though he
were very busy he went into the study. There the visitor was awaiting
him--a large stout lady with a red, beefy face, in spectacles.
She looked very respectable, and her dress was more than fashionable
(she had on a crinolette of four storeys and a high hat with a
reddish bird in it). On seeing him she turned up her eyes and folded
her hands in supplication.