"Ah, ah, ah! Oo!..." he muttered, recalling everything that had

happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife

was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his

position, and worst of all, his own fault.

"Yes, she won't forgive me, and she can't forgive me. And the

most awful thing about it is that it's all my fault--all my

fault, though I'm not to blame. That's the point of the whole

situation," he reflected. "Oh, oh, oh!" he kept repeating in

despair, as he remembered the acutely painful sensations caused

him by this quarrel.

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Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming,

happy and good-humored, from the theater, with a huge pear in his

hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing-room,

to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw

her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed

everything in her hand.

She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household

details, and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting

perfectly still with the letter in her hand, looking at him with

an expression of horror, despair, and indignation.

"What's this? this?" she asked, pointing to the letter.

And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevitch, as is so often the

case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in

which he had met his wife's words.

There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people

when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful.

He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which

he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault.

Instead of being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging

forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent even--anything

would have been better than what he did do--his face utterly

involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected Stepan

Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)--utterly involuntarily

assumed its habitual, good-humored, and therefore idiotic smile.

This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight

of that smile, Dolly shuddered as though at physical pain, broke

out with her characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and

rushed out of the room. Since then she had refused to see her

husband.

"It's that idiotic smile that's to blame for it all," thought

Stepan Arkadyevitch.

"But what's to be done? What's to be done?" he said to himself

in despair, and found no answer.




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