V
“I am not dead …” thought Olga Mihalovna when she began to understand her surroundings again, and when the pain was over.
A bright summer day looked in at the widely open windows; in the garden below the windows, the and the never ceased chattering for one instant.
The drawers were shut now, her husband’s bed had been made. There was no sign of the midwife or of the , or of Varvara in the room, only Pyotr Dmitritch was standing, as before, motionless by the window looking into the garden. There was no sound of a child’s crying, no one was congratulating her or , it was evident that the little creature had not been born alive.
“Pyotr!”
Olga Mihalovna called to her husband.
Pyotr Dmitritch looked round. It seemed as though a long time must have passed since the last guest had and Olga Mihalovna had insulted her husband, for Pyotr Dmitritch was thinner and hollow-eyed.
“What is it?” he asked, coming up to the bed.
He looked away, moved his lips and smiled with childlike helplessness.
“Is it all over?” asked Olga Mihalovna.
Pyotr Dmitritch tried to make some answer, but his lips and his mouth worked like a toothless old man’s, like Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch’s.
“Olya,” he said, his hands; big tears suddenly dropping from his eyes. “Olya, I don’t care about your property qualification, nor the Circuit Courts …” (he gave a ) “nor particular views, nor those visitors, nor your fortune. … I don’t care about anything! Why didn’t we take care of our child? Oh, it’s no good talking!”
With a gesture he went out of the bedroom.
But nothing mattered to Olga Mihalovna now, there was a in her brain from the , an emptiness in her soul. … The dull indifference to life which had overcome her when the two doctors were performing the operation still had possession of her.