ere was a smell of charcoal
fumes, and the air was filled with bluish smoke. The artists came in, in
muddy high boots and with faces wet with rain, examined their sketches,
and comforted themselves by saying that the Volga had its charms even
in bad weather. On the wall the cheap clock went "tic-tic-tic."... The
flies, feeling chilled, crowded round the ikon in the corner, buzzing,
and one could hear the cockroaches scurrying about among the thick
portfolios under the seats....

Ryabovsky came home as the sun was setting. He flung his cap on the
table, and, without removing his muddy boots, sank pale and exhausted on
the bench and closed his eyes.

"I am tired..." he said, and twitched his eyebrows, trying to raise his
eyelids.

To be nice to him and to show she was not cross, Olga Ivanovna went up
to him, gave him a silent kiss, and passed the comb through his fair
hair. She meant to comb it for him.

"What's that?" he said, starting as though something cold had touched
him, and he opened his eyes. "What is it? Please let me alone."

He thrust her off, and moved away. And it seemed to her that there was a
look of aversion and annoyance on his face.

At that time the peasant woman cautiously carried him, in both hands,
a plate of cabbage-soup. And Olga Ivanovna saw how she wetted her fat
fingers in it. And the dirty peasant woman, standing with her body
thrust forward, and the cabbage-soup which Ryabovsky began eating
greedily, and the hut, and their whole way of life, which she at first
had so loved for its simplicity and artistic disorder, seemed horrible
to her now. She suddenly felt insulted, and said coldly:

"We must part for a time, or else from boredom we shall quarrel in
earnest. I am sick of this; I am going today."

"Going how? Astride on a broomstick?"

"Today is Thursday, so the steamer will be here at half-past nine."

"Eh? Yes, yes.... Well, go, then..." Ryabovsky said softly, wiping his
mouth with a towel instead of a dinner napkin. "You are dull and have
nothing to do here, and one would have to be a great egoist to try and
keep you. Go home, and we shall meet again after the twentieth."

Olga Ivanovna packed in good spirits. Her cheeks positively glowed with
pleasure. Could it really be true, she asked herself, that she would
soon be writing in her drawing-room and sleeping in her bedroom, and
dining with a cloth on the table? A weight was lifted from her heart,
and she no longer felt angr