,
forgetting all modesty; any other woman in your place would have
hidden herself from people, would have sat shut up at home, and
would only have been seen in the temple of God, pale, dressed all
in black and weeping, and every one would have said in genuine
compassion: 'O Lord, this erring angel is coming back again to Thee
. . . .' But you, my dear, have forgotten all discretion; have lived
openly, extravagantly; have seemed to be proud of your sin; you
have been gay and laughing, and I, looking at you, shuddered with
horror, and have been afraid that thunder from Heaven would strike
our house while you were sitting with us. My dear, don't speak,
don't speak," cried Marya Konstantinovna, observing that Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna wanted to speak. "Trust me, I will not deceive you, I
will not hide one truth from the eyes of your soul. Listen to me,
my dear. . . . God marks great sinners, and you have been marked-out:
only think--your costumes have always been appalling."

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, who had always had the highest opinion of her
costumes, left off crying and looked at her with surprise.

"Yes, appalling," Marya Konstantinovna went on. "Any one could judge
of your behaviour from the elaboration and gaudiness of your attire.
People laughed and shrugged their shoulders as they looked at you,
and I grieved, I grieved. . . . And forgive me, my dear; you are
not nice in your person! When we met in the bathing-place, you made
me tremble. Your outer clothing was decent enough, but your petticoat,
your chemise. . . . My dear, I blushed! Poor Ivan Andreitch! No one
ever ties his cravat properly, and from his linen and his boots,
poor fellow! one can see he has no one at home to look after him.
And he is always hungry, my darling, and of course, if there is no
one at home to think of the samovar and the coffee, one is forced
to spend half one's salary at the pavilion. And it's simply awful,
awful in your home! No one else in the town has flies, but there's
no getting rid of them in your rooms: all the plates and dishes are
black with them. If you look at the windows and the chairs, there's
nothing but dust, dead flies, and glasses. . . . What do you want
glasses standing about for? And, my dear, the table's not cleared
till this time in the day. And one's ashamed to go into your bedroom:
underclothes flung about everywhere, india-rubber tubes hanging on
the walls, pails and basins standing about. . . . My dear! A husband
o