“That’s not bad,” she said.

“Yes, that dress would suit you beautifully,” I said, “beautifully.”

And looking with emotion at the dress, admiring that patch of grey simply because she liked it, I went on tenderly: 

“A charming, exquisite dress!  Splendid, glorious, Masha!  My precious Masha!”

And tears dropped on the fashion plate.

“Splendid Masha . . .”  I muttered; “sweet, precious Masha. . . .”

She went to bed, while I sat another hour looking at the illustrations.

“It’s a pity you took out the window frames,” she said from the bedroom, “I am afraid it may be cold.  Oh, dear, what a draught there is!”

I read something out of the column of odds and ends, a receipt for making cheap ink, and an account of the biggest diamond in the world.  I came again upon the fashion plate of the dress she liked, and I imagined her at a ball, with a fan, bare shoulders, brilliant, splendid, with a full understanding of painting, music, literature, and how small and how brief my part seemed!

Our meeting, our marriage, had been only one of the episodes of which there would be many more in the life of this vital, richly gifted woman.  All the best in the world, as I have said already, was at her service, and she received it absolutely for nothing, and even ideas and the intellectual movement in vogue served simply for her recreation, giving variety to her life, and I was only the sledge-driver who drove her from one entertainment to another.  Now she did not need me.  She would take flight, and I should be alone.

And as though in response to my thought, there came a despairing scream from the garden.

“He-e-elp!”

It was a shrill, womanish voice, and as though to mimic it the wind whistled in the chimney on the same shrill note.  Half a minute passed, and again through the noise of the wind, but coming, it seemed, from the other end of the yard: 

“He-e-elp!”

“Misail, do you hear?” my wife asked me softly.  “Do you hear?”

She came out from the bedroom in her nightgown, with her hair down, and listened, looking at the dark window.

“Someone is being murdered,” she said.  “That is the last straw.”

I took my gun and went out.  It was very dark outside, the wind was high, and it was difficult to stand.  I went to the gate and listened, the trees roared, the wind whistled and, probably at the feeble-minded peasant’s, a dog howled lazily.  Outside the gates the darkness was absolute, not a light on the railway-line.  And near the lodge, which a year before had been the office, suddenly sounded a smothered scream: 

“He-e-elp!”

“Who’s there?” I called.

There were two people struggling.  One was thrusting the other out, while the other was resisting, and both were breathing heavily.

“Leave go,” said one, and I recognized Ivan Tcheprakov; it was he who was shrieking in a shrill, womanish voice:  “Let go, you damned brute, or I’ll bite your hand off.”