wife was hanging and remembered that his wife had asked him to buy
and bring to their summer cottage five yards of tape, a pound of
cheese, and some tooth-powder.

"I hope I've not lost the pattern of that tape," he thought, "where
did I put it? I believe it's in my blue reefer jacket. . . . Those
wretched flies have covered her portrait with spots already, I must
tell Olga to wash the glass. . . . She's reading the twelfth scene,
so we must soon be at the end of the first act. As though inspiration
were possible in this heat and with such a mountain of flesh, too!
Instead of writing plays she'd much better eat cold vinegar hash
and sleep in a cellar. . . ."

"You don't think that monologue's a little too long?" the lady asked
suddenly, raising her eyes.

Pavel Vassilyevitch had not heard the monologue, and said in a voice
as guilty as though not the lady but he had written that monologue:

"No, no, not at all. It's very nice. . . ."

The lady beamed with happiness and continued reading:

ANNA: You are consumed by analysis. Too early you have ceased to
live in the heart and have put your faith in the intellect.

VALENTIN: What do you mean by the heart? That is a concept of
anatomy. As a conventional term for what are called the feelings,
I do not admit it.