Silence followed again.  The doctor shifted his seat from the chair to the sofa and impatiently playing with his hat, kept his eyes fixed upon Olga Ivanovna.  From his face it could be seen that he wanted to speak, and was waiting for a fitting moment.

“You are silent, but still I do not give up hope,” said the lady, turning round.  “Why are you silent?”

“I should be as glad of any hope as you, Olga, but there is none,” Tsvyetkov answered, “we must look the hideous truth in the face.  The boy has a tumour on the brain, and we must try to prepare ourselves for his death, for such cases never recover.”

“Nikolay, are you certain you are not mistaken?”

“Such questions lead to nothing.  I am ready to answer as many as you like, but it will make it no better for us.”

Olga Ivanovna pressed her face into the window curtains, and began weeping bitterly.  The doctor got up and walked several times up and down the drawing-room, then went to the weeping woman, and lightly touched her arm.  Judging from his uncertain movements, from the expression of his gloomy face, which looked dark in the dusk of the evening, he wanted to say something.

“Listen, Olga,” he began.  “Spare me a minute’s attention; there is something I must ask you.  You can’t attend to me now, though.  I’ll come later, afterwards. . . .”  He sat down again, and sank into thought.  The bitter, imploring weeping, like the weeping of a little girl, continued.  Without waiting for it to end, Tsvyetkov heaved a sigh and walked out of the drawing-room.  He went into the nursery to Misha.  The boy was lying on his back as before, staring at one point as though he were listening.  The doctor sat down on his bed and felt his pulse.

“Misha, does your head ache?” he asked.

Misha answered, not at once:  “Yes.  I keep dreaming.”

“What do you dream?”

“All sorts of things. . . .”

The doctor, who did not know how to talk with weeping women or with children, stroked his burning head, and muttered: 

“Never mind, poor boy, never mind. . . .  One can’t go through life without illness. . . .  Misha, who am I—­do you know me?”

Misha did not answer.

“Does your head ache very badly?”

“Ve-ery.  I keep dreaming.”

After examining him and putting a few questions to the maid who was looking after the sick child, the doctor went slowly back to the drawing-room.  There it was by now dark, and Olga Ivanovna, standing by the window, looked like a silhouette.

“Shall I light up?” asked Tsvyetkov.

No answer followed.  The house-fly was still brushing against the ceiling.  Not a sound floated in from outside as though the whole world, like the doctor, were thinking, and could not bring itself to speak.  Olga Ivanovna was not weeping now, but as before, staring at the flower-bed in profound silence.  When Tsvyetkov went up to her, and through the twilight glanced at her pale face, exhausted with grief, her expression was such as he had seen before during her attacks of acute, stupefying, sick headache.