“Come to supper, gentlemen.”

As before, Olga Ivanovna hunted celebrities, found them, was not satisfied, and went in pursuit of fresh ones.  As before, she came back late every night; but now Dymov was not, as last year, asleep, but sitting in his study at work of some sort.  He went to bed at three o’clock and got up at eight.

One evening when she was getting ready to go to the theatre and standing before the pier glass, Dymov came into her bedroom, wearing his dress-coat and a white tie.  He was smiling gently and looked into his wife’s face joyfully, as in old days; his face was radiant.

“I have just been defending my thesis,” he said, sitting down and smoothing his knees.

“Defending?” asked Olga Ivanovna.

“Oh, oh!” he laughed, and he craned his neck to see his wife’s face in the mirror, for she was still standing with her back to him, doing up her hair.  “Oh, oh,” he repeated, “do you know it’s very possible they may offer me the Readership in General Pathology?  It seems like it.”

It was evident from his beaming, blissful face that if Olga Ivanovna had shared with him his joy and triumph he would have forgiven her everything, both the present and the future, and would have forgotten everything, but she did not understand what was meant by a “readership” or by “general pathology”; besides, she was afraid of being late for the theatre, and she said nothing.

He sat there another two minutes, and with a guilty smile went away.

VII

It had been a very troubled day.

Dymov had a very bad headache; he had no breakfast, and did not go to the hospital, but spent the whole time lying on his sofa in the study.  Olga Ivanovna went as usual at midday to see Ryabovsky, to show him her still-life sketch, and to ask him why he had not been to see her the evening before.  The sketch seemed to her worthless, and she had painted it only in order to have an additional reason for going to the artist.

She went in to him without ringing, and as she was taking off her goloshes in the entry she heard a sound as of something running softly in the studio, with a feminine rustle of skirts; and as she hastened to peep in she caught a momentary glimpse of a bit of brown petticoat, which vanished behind a big picture draped, together with the easel, with black calico, to the floor.  There could be no doubt that a woman was hiding there.  How often Olga Ivanovna herself had taken refuge behind that picture!

Ryabovsky, evidently much embarrassed, held out both hands to her, as though surprised at her arrival, and said with a forced smile: 

“Aha!  Very glad to see you!  Anything nice to tell me?”

Olga Ivanovna’s eyes filled with tears.  She felt ashamed and bitter, and would not for a million roubles have consented to speak in the presence of the outsider, the rival, the deceitful woman who was standing now behind the picture, and probably giggling malignantly.