The Darling and Other Stories eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 267 pages of information about The Darling and Other Stories.

The Darling and Other Stories eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 267 pages of information about The Darling and Other Stories.

“I haven’t long to live now,” he thought.  “I am a dead man, and ought not to stand in the way of the living.  It would be strange and stupid to insist upon one’s rights now.  I’ll have it out with her; let her go to the man she loves. . . .  I’ll give her a divorce.  I’ll take the blame on myself.”

Olga Dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and overboots.

“The nasty, fat boy,” she said with a sob, breathing hard.  “It’s really dishonest; it’s disgusting.”  She stamped.  “I can’t put up with it; I can’t, I can’t!”

“What’s the matter?” asked Nikolay Yevgrafitch, going up to her.

“That student, Azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, and there was fifteen roubles in it.  I borrowed it from mamma.”

She was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears.

“It can’t be helped!” said the doctor.  “If he’s lost it, he’s lost it, and it’s no good worrying over it.  Calm yourself; I want to talk to you.”

“I am not a millionaire to lose money like that.  He says he’ll pay it back, but I don’t believe him; he’s poor . . .”

Her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she had lost.

“Ach!  I’ll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you’ll only hold your tongue!” he said irritably.

“I must take off my things!” she said, crying.  “I can’t talk seriously in my fur coat!  How strange you are!”

He helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal).  She went into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears.  She sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked, swinging herself in a rocking-chair.

“I happened to see this;” and he handed her the telegram.

She read it and shrugged her shoulders.

“Well?” she said, rocking herself faster.  “That’s the usual New Year’s greeting and nothing else.  There are no secrets in it.”

“You are reckoning on my not knowing English.  No, I don’t know it; but I have a dictionary.  That telegram is from Riss; he drinks to the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses.  But let us leave that,” the doctor went on hurriedly.  “I don’t in the least want to reproach you or make a scene.  We’ve had scenes and reproaches enough; it’s time to make an end of them. . . .  This is what I want to say to you:  you are free, and can live as you like.”

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Darling and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.