The cook brought in the samovar.  Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and, still shivering—­the room was cold—­began abusing the singers who had sung in the ninth symphony.  She was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open.  She drank one glass of tea, then a second, and then a third.

“And so you are married,” she said.  “But don’t be uneasy; I’m not going to pine away.  I shall be able to tear you out of my heart.  Only it’s annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . .  Youth!” she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and she laughed.  “Youth!  You must have purity, reinheit! reinheit!” she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. “Reinheit!”

When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears.

“You’re happy, at any rate?” she asked.

“No.”

“Does she love you?”

Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking about the room.

“No,” he repeated.  “If you want to know, Polina, I’m very unhappy.  There’s no help for it; I’ve done the stupid thing, and there’s no correcting it now.  I must look at it philosophically.  She married me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and is miserable.  I see it.  At night we sleep together, but by day she is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to find distraction, society.  With me she feels ashamed and frightened.”

“And yet she takes money from you?”

“That’s stupid, Polina!” cried Laptev.  “She takes money from me because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has it or not.  She is an honest, pure girl.  She married me simply because she wanted to get away from her father, that’s all.”

“And are you sure she would have married you if you had not been rich?” asked Polina.

“I’m not sure of anything,” said Laptev dejectedly.  “Not of anything.  I don’t understand anything.  For God’s sake, Polina, don’t let us talk about it.”

“Do you love her?”

“Desperately.”

A silence followed.  She drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at the doctors’ club.

“But is it possible to love without knowing why?” asked Polina, shrugging her shoulders.  “No; it’s the promptings of animal passion!  You are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that reinheit! Go away from me; you are unclean!  Go to her!”

She brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it at him.  He put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the elbow, and broke into sobs.

“Hush, Polina!  Don’t!” he said, and could not unclasp her fingers.  “Calm yourself, I entreat you.”