Olga Mihalovna jumped out of bed.  To her mind there was only one thing left for her to do now; to dress with all possible haste and to leave the house forever.  The house was her own, but so much the worse for Pyotr Dmitritch.  Without pausing to consider whether this was necessary or not, she went quickly to the study to inform her husband of her intention ("Feminine logic!” flashed through her mind), and to say something wounding and sarcastic at parting. . . .

Pyotr Dmitritch was lying on the sofa and pretending to read a newspaper.  There was a candle burning on a chair near him.  His face could not be seen behind the newspaper.

“Be so kind as to tell me what this means?  I am asking you.”

“Be so kind . . .”  Pyotr Dmitritch mimicked her, not showing his face.  “It’s sickening, Olga!  Upon my honour, I am exhausted and not up to it. . . .  Let us do our quarrelling to-morrow.”

“No, I understand you perfectly!” Olga Mihalovna went on.  “You hate me!  Yes, yes!  You hate me because I am richer than you!  You will never forgive me for that, and will always be lying to me!” ("Feminine logic!” flashed through her mind again.) “You are laughing at me now. . . .  I am convinced, in fact, that you only married me in order to have property qualifications and those wretched horses. . . .  Oh, I am miserable!”

Pyotr Dmitritch dropped the newspaper and got up.  The unexpected insult overwhelmed him.  With a childishly helpless smile he looked desperately at his wife, and holding out his hands to her as though to ward off blows, he said imploringly: 

“Olya!”

And expecting her to say something else awful, he leaned back in his chair, and his huge figure seemed as helplessly childish as his smile.

“Olya, how could you say it?” he whispered.

Olga Mihalovna came to herself.  She was suddenly aware of her passionate love for this man, remembered that he was her husband, Pyotr Dmitritch, without whom she could not live for a day, and who loved her passionately, too.  She burst into loud sobs that sounded strange and unlike her, and ran back to her bedroom.

She fell on the bed, and short hysterical sobs, choking her and making her arms and legs twitch, filled the bedroom.  Remembering there was a visitor sleeping three or four rooms away, she buried her head under the pillow to stifle her sobs, but the pillow rolled on to the floor, and she almost fell on the floor herself when she stooped to pick it up.  She pulled the quilt up to her face, but her hands would not obey her, but tore convulsively at everything she clutched.

She thought that everything was lost, that the falsehood she had told to wound her husband had shattered her life into fragments.  Her husband would not forgive her.  The insult she had hurled at him was not one that could be effaced by any caresses, by any vows. . . .  How could she convince her husband that she did not believe what she had said?