An artist said to Olga Ivanovna that with her flaxen hair and in her wedding-dress she was very much like a graceful cherry-tree when it is covered all over with delicate white blossoms in spring.

“Oh, let me tell you,” said Olga Ivanovna, taking his arm, “how it was it all came to pass so suddenly.  Listen, listen!...  I must tell you that my father was on the same staff at the hospital as Dymov.  When my poor father was taken ill, Dymov watched for days and nights together at his bedside.  Such self-sacrifice!  Listen, Ryabovsky!  You, my writer, listen; it is very interesting!  Come nearer.  Such self-sacrifice, such genuine sympathy!  I sat up with my father, and did not sleep for nights, either.  And all at once—­the princess had won the hero’s heart—­my Dymov fell head over ears in love.  Really, fate is so strange at times!  Well, after my father’s death he came to see me sometimes, met me in the street, and one fine evening, all at once he made me an offer... like snow upon my head....  I lay awake all night, crying, and fell hellishly in love myself.  And here, as you see, I am his wife.  There really is something strong, powerful, bearlike about him, isn’t there?  Now his face is turned three-quarters towards us in a bad light, but when he turns round look at his forehead.  Ryabovsky, what do you say to that forehead?  Dymov, we are talking about you!” she called to her husband.  “Come here; hold out your honest hand to Ryabovsky....  That’s right, be friends.”

Dymov, with a naive and good-natured smile, held out his hand to Ryabovsky, and said: 

“Very glad to meet you.  There was a Ryabovsky in my year at the medical school.  Was he a relation of yours?”

II

Olga Ivanovna was twenty-two, Dymov was thirty-one.  They got on splendidly together when they were married.  Olga Ivanovna hung all her drawing-room walls with her own and other people’s sketches, in frames and without frames, and near the piano and furniture arranged picturesque corners with Japanese parasols, easels, daggers, busts, photographs, and rags of many colours....  In the dining-room she papered the walls with peasant woodcuts, hung up bark shoes and sickles, stood in a corner a scythe and a rake, and so achieved a dining-room in the Russian style.  In her bedroom she draped the ceiling and the walls with dark cloths to make it like a cavern, hung a Venetian lantern over the beds, and at the door set a figure with a halberd.  And every one thought that the young people had a very charming little home.