Bugrov heaved a sigh and enveloped Liza in the fumes of sherry.

“You are young and silly, you don’t understand anything. . . .  I am never at home. . . .  And they take advantage of it.  You must be sensible, prudent.  They will deceive you.  And then I won’t endure it. . . .  Then I may do anything. . . .  Of course!  Then you can just lie down, and die.  I . . .  I am capable of doing anything if you deceive me, my good girl.  I might beat you to death. . . .  And . . .  I shall turn you out of the house, and then you can go to your rascals.”

And Bugrov (horribile dictu) wiped the wet, tearful face of the traitress Liza with his big soft hand.  He treated his twenty-year-old wife as though she were a child.

“Come, that’s enough. . . .  I forgive you.  Only God forbid it should happen again!  I forgive you for the fifth time, but I shall not forgive you for the sixth, as God is holy.  God does not forgive such as you for such things.”

Bugrov bent down and put out his shining lips towards Liza’s little head.  But the kiss did not follow.  The doors of the hall, of the dining-room, of the parlour, and of the drawing-room all slammed, and Groholsky flew into the drawing-room like a whirlwind.  He was pale and trembling.  He was flourishing his arms and crushing his expensive hat in his hands.  His coat fluttered upon him as though it were on a peg.  He was the incarnation of acute fever.  When Bugrov saw him he moved away from his wife and began looking out of the other window.  Groholsky flew up to him, and waving his arms and breathing heavily and looking at no one, he began in a shaking voice: 

“Ivan Petrovitch!  Let us leave off keeping up this farce with one another!  We have deceived each other long enough!  It’s too much!  I cannot stand it.  You must do as you like, but I cannot!  It’s hateful and mean, it’s revolting!  Do you understand that it is revolting?”

Groholsky spluttered and gasped for breath.

“It’s against my principles.  And you are an honest man.  I love her!  I love her more than anything on earth!  You have noticed it and . . . it’s my duty to say this!”

“What am I to say to him?” Ivan Petrovitch wondered.

“We must make an end of it.  This farce cannot drag on much longer!  It must be settled somehow.”

Groholsky drew a breath and went on: 

“I cannot live without her; she feels the same.  You are an educated man, you will understand that in such circumstances your family life is impossible.  This woman is not yours, so . . . in short, I beg you to look at the matter from an indulgent humane point of view. . . .  Ivan Petrovitch, you must understand at last that I love her—­love her more than myself, more than anything in the world, and to struggle against that love is beyond my power!”

“And she?” Bugrov asked in a sullen, somewhat ironical tone.

“Ask her; come now, ask her!  For her to live with a man she does not love, to live with you is . . . is a misery!”