“But, you know, that’s awful, Dymov!”

“Why so?  Your friends don’t know anything of science or medicine, but you don’t reproach them with it.  Every one has his own line.  I don’t understand landscapes and operas, but the way I look at it is that if one set of sensible people devote their whole lives to them, and other sensible people pay immense sums for them, they must be of use.  I don’t understand them, but not understanding does not imply disbelieving in them.”

“Let me shake your honest hand!”

After dinner Olga Ivanovna would drive off to see her friends, then to a theatre or to a concert, and she returned home after midnight.  So it was every day.

On Wednesdays she had “At Homes.”  At these “At Homes” the hostess and her guests did not play cards and did not dance, but entertained themselves with various arts.  An actor from the Dramatic Theatre recited, a singer sang, artists sketched in the albums of which Olga Ivanovna had a great number, the violoncellist played, and the hostess herself sketched, carved, sang, and played accompaniments.  In the intervals between the recitations, music, and singing, they talked and argued about literature, the theatre, and painting.  There were no ladies, for Olga Ivanovna considered all ladies wearisome and vulgar except actresses and her dressmaker.  Not one of these entertainments passed without the hostess starting at every ring at the bell, and saying, with a triumphant expression, “It is he,” meaning by “he,” of course, some new celebrity.  Dymov was not in the drawing-room, and no one remembered his existence.  But exactly at half-past eleven the door leading into the dining-room opened, and Dymov would appear with his good-natured, gentle smile and say, rubbing his hands: 

“Come to supper, gentlemen.”

They all went into the dining-room, and every time found on the table exactly the same things:  a dish of oysters, a piece of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviare, mushrooms, vodka, and two decanters of wine.

“My dear maitre d’ hotel!” Olga Ivanovna would say, clasping her hands with enthusiasm, “you are simply fascinating!  My friends, look at his forehead!  Dymov, turn your profile.  Look! he has the face of a Bengal tiger and an expression as kind and sweet as a gazelle.  Ah, the darling!”

The visitors ate, and, looking at Dymov, thought, “He really is a nice fellow”; but they soon forgot about him, and went on talking about the theatre, music, and painting.

The young people were happy, and their life flowed on without a hitch.

The third week of their honeymoon was spent, however, not quite happily—­sadly, indeed.  Dymov caught erysipelas in the hospital, was in bed for six days, and had to have his beautiful black hair cropped.  Olga Ivanovna sat beside him and wept bitterly, but when he was better she put a white handkerchief on his shaven head and began to paint him as a Bedouin.  And they were both in good spirits.  Three days after he had begun to go back to the hospital he had another mischance.