“What silliness!” she says, making a serious face and covering herself with the quilt.  “I suppose you have forgotten that I am ill!  Clever, I must say!”

“Sorry . . .” falters her husband in confusion.

“If my illness takes a bad turn it will be your fault.  Not kind! not good!”

Lizotchka closes her eyes and is silent.  Her former languor and expression of martyrdom return again, there is a sound of gentle moans.  Vassya changes the compress, and glad that his wife is at home and not gadding off to her aunt’s, sits meekly at her feet.  He does not sleep all night.  At ten o’clock the doctor comes.

“Well, how are we feeling?” he asks as he takes her pulse.  “Have you slept?”

“Badly,” Lizotchka’s husband answers for her, “very badly.”

The doctor walks away to the window and stares at a passing chimney-sweep.

“Doctor, may I have coffee to-day?” asks Lizotchka.

“You may.”

“And may I get up?”

“You might, perhaps, but . . . you had better lie in bed another day.”

“She is awfully depressed,” Vassya whispers in his ear, “such gloomy thoughts, such pessimism.  I am dreadfully uneasy about her.”

The doctor sits down to the little table, and rubbing his forehead, prescribes bromide of potassium for Lizotchka, then makes his bow, and promising to look in again in the evening, departs.  Vassya does not go to the office, but sits all day at his wife’s feet.

At midday the admirers of her talent arrive in a crowd.  They are agitated and alarmed, they bring masses of flowers and French novels.  Lizotchka, in a snow-white cap and a light dressing jacket, lies in bed with an enigmatic look, as though she did not believe in her own recovery.  The admirers of her talent see her husband, but readily forgive his presence:  they and he are united by one calamity at that bedside!

At six o’clock in the evening Lizotchka falls asleep, and again sleeps till two o’clock in the morning.  Vassya as before sits at her feet, struggles with drowsiness, changes her compress, plays at being a Jew, and in the morning after a second night of suffering, Liza is prinking before the looking-glass and putting on her hat.

“Wherever are you going, my dear?” asks Vassya, with an imploring look at her.

“What?” says Lizotchka in wonder, assuming a scared expression, “don’t you know that there is a rehearsal to-day at Marya Lvovna’s?”

After escorting her there, Vassya having nothing to do to while away his boredom, takes his portfolio and goes to the office.  His head aches so violently from his sleepless nights that his left eye shuts of itself and refuses to open. . . .

“What’s the matter with you, my good sir?” his chief asks him.  “What is it?”

Vassy a waves his hand and sits down.

“Don’t ask me, your Excellency,” he says with a sigh.  “What I have suffered in these two days, what I have suffered!  Liza has been ill!”