Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband.  And now, listening to the historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story.  As the tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and tears had brought her to her hopeless state.

At last Alexey Fyodorovitch closed the book and said: 

“That’s the end, and thank God for it.  To-morrow we’ll begin a new one.”

Nina Fyodorovna laughed.  She had always been given to laughter, but of late Laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, and even without any cause at all.

“Yulia came before dinner while you were out,” she said.  “So far as I can see, she hasn’t much faith in her papa.  ’Let papa go on treating you,’ she said, ’but write in secret to the holy elder to pray for you, too.’  There is a holy man somewhere here.  Yulia forgot her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow,” she went on after a brief pause.  “No, when the end comes, neither doctors nor holy men are any help.”

“Nina, why can’t you sleep at night?” Laptev asked, to change the subject.

“Oh, well, I don’t go to sleep—­that’s all.  I lie and think.”

“What do you think about, dear?”

“About the children, about you . . . about my life.  I’ve gone through a great deal, Alyosha, you know.  When one begins to remember and remember. . . .  My God!” She laughed.  “It’s no joke to have borne five children as I have, to have buried three. . .  Sometimes I was expecting to be confined while my Grigory Nikolaitch would be sitting at that very time with another woman.  There would be no one to send for the doctor or the midwife.  I would go into the passage or the kitchen for the servant, and there Jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, would be waiting for him to come home.  My head used to go round . . . .  He did not love me, though he never said so openly.  Now I’ve grown calmer—­it doesn’t weigh on my heart; but in old days, when I was younger, it hurt me—­ach! how it hurt me, darling!  Once—­ while we were still in the country—­I found him in the garden with a lady, and I walked away. . .  I walked on aimlessly, and I don’t know how, but I found myself in the church porch.  I fell on my knees:  ‘Queen of Heaven!’ I said.  And it was night, the moon was shining. . . .”

She was exhausted, she began gasping for breath.  Then, after resting a little, she took her brother’s hand and went on in a weak, toneless voice: 

“How kind you are, Alyosha! . . .  And how clever! . . .  What a good man you’ve grown up into!”