costumes, left off crying and looked at her with surprise.

"Yes, appalling," Marya Konstantinovna went on. "Any one could judge
of your behaviour from the elaboration and gaudiness of your attire.
People laughed and shrugged their shoulders as they looked at you,
and I grieved, I grieved. . . . And forgive me, my dear; you are
not nice in your person! When we met in the bathing-place, you made
me tremble. Your outer clothing was decent enough, but your petticoat,
your chemise. . . . My dear, I blushed! Poor Ivan Andreitch! No one
ever ties his cravat properly, and from his linen and his boots,
poor fellow! one can see he has no one at home to look after him.
And he is always hungry, my darling, and of course, if there is no
one at home to think of the samovar and the coffee, one is forced
to spend half one's salary at the pavilion. And it's simply awful,
awful in your home! No one else in the town has flies, but there's
no getting rid of them in your rooms: all the plates and dishes are
black with them. If you look at the windows and the chairs, there's
nothing but dust, dead flies, and glasses. . . . What do you want
glasses standing about for? And, my dear, the table's not cleared
till this time in the day. And one's ashamed to go into your bedroom:
underclothes flung about everywhere, india-rubber tubes hanging on
the walls, pails and basins standing about. . . . My dear! A husband
ought to know nothing, and his wife ought to be as neat as a little
angel in his presence. I wake up every morning before it is light,
and wash my face with cold water that my Nikodim Alexandritch may
not see me looking drowsy."

"That's all nonsense," Nadyezhda Fyodorovna sobbed. "If only I were
happy, but I am so unhappy!"