monotonous hum of bees. . . .

Suddenly she heard footsteps and voices; some one was coming along
the path towards the beehouse.

"How stifling it is!" said a feminine voice. "What do you think--
is it going to rain, or not?"

"It is going to rain, my charmer, but not before night," a very
familiar male voice answered languidly. "There will be a good rain."

Olga Mihalovna calculated that if she made haste to hide in the
shanty they would pass by without seeing her, and she would not
have to talk and to force herself to smile. She picked up her skirts,
bent down and crept into the shanty. At once she felt upon her face,
her neck, her arms, the hot air as heavy as steam. If it had not
been for the stuffiness and the close smell of rye bread, fennel,
and brushwood, which prevented her from breathing freely, it would
have been delightful to hide from her visitors here under the
thatched roof in the dusk, and to think about the little creature.
It was cosy and quiet.

"What a pretty spot!" said a feminine voice. "Let us sit here, Pyotr
Dmitritch."

Olga Mihalovna began peeping through a crack between two branches.
She saw her husband, Pyotr Dmitritch, and Lubotchka Sheller, a girl
of seventeen who had not long left boarding-school. Pyotr Dmitritch,
with his hat on the back of his head, languid and indolent from
having drunk so much at dinner, slouched by the hurdle and raked