for God's sake, make haste and fetch the doctor or the midwife! Has
Vassily gone? Send some one else. Send your husband!"

"It's the birth," Olga Mihalovna thought. "Varvara," she moaned,
"but he won't be born alive!"

"It's all right, it's all right, mistress," whispered Varvara.
"Please God, he will be alive! he will be alive!"

When Olga Mihalovna came to herself again after a pain she was no
longer sobbing nor tossing from side to side, but moaning. She could
not refrain from moaning even in the intervals between the pains.
The candles were still burning, but the morning light was coming
through the blinds. It was probably about five o'clock in the
morning. At the round table there was sitting some unknown woman
with a very discreet air, wearing a white apron. From her whole
appearance it was evident she had been sitting there a long time.
Olga Mihalovna guessed that she was the midwife.

"Will it soon be over?" she asked, and in her voice she heard a
peculiar and unfamiliar note which had never been there before. "I
must be dying in childbirth," she thought.

Pyotr Dmitritch came cautiously into the bedroom, dressed for the
day, and stood at the window with his back to his wife. He lifted
the blind and looked out of window.

"What rain!" he said.

"What time is it?" asked Olga Mihalovna, in order to hear the