smile, shrugging her shoulders. "Nobody asks you."

"Nobody asks you, either, and yet you have got up a regular committee in
_my_ house," I said.

"I am asked, but you can have my word for it no one will ever ask you.
Go and help where you are not known."

"For God's sake, don't talk to me in that tone." I tried to be mild, and
besought myself most earnestly not to lose my temper. For the first few
minutes I felt glad to be with my wife. I felt an atmosphere of youth,
of home, of feminine softness, of the most refined elegance--exactly
what was lacking on my floor and in my life altogether. My wife was
wearing a pink flannel dressing-gown; it made her look much younger,
and gave a softness to her rapid and sometimes abrupt movements. Her
beautiful dark hair, the mere sight of which at one time stirred me to
passion, had from sitting so long with her head bent c ome loose from
the comb and was untidy, but, to my eyes, that only made it look more
rich and luxuriant. All this, though is banal to the point of vulgarity.
Before me stood an ordinary woman, perhaps neither beautiful nor
elegant, but this was my wife with whom I had once lived, and with
whom I should have been living to this day if it had not been for her
unfortunate character; she was the one human being on the terrestrial
globe whom I loved. At this moment, just before going away, when I knew
that I should no longer see her even through the window, she seemed to
me fascinating even as she was, cold and forbidding, answering me with
a proud and contemptuous mockery. I was proud of her, and confessed to
myself that to go away from her was terrible and impossible.

"Pavel Andreitch," she said after a brief silence, "for two years we