e rang the bell, Polya, who considered me her favourite and
hated me for it, used to say with a jeering smile:

"Go along, _your_ mistress wants you."

Zinaida Fyodorovna considered me as a being of a lower order, and
did not suspect that if any one in the house were in a humiliating
position it was she. She did not know that I, a footman, was unhappy
on her account, and used to ask myself twenty times a day what was
in store for her and how it would all end. Things were growing
visibly worse day by day. After the evening on which they had talked
of his official work, Orlov, who could not endure tears, unmistakably
began to avoid conversation with her; whenever Zinaida Fyodorovna
began to argue, or to beseech him, or seemed on the point of crying,
he seized some plausible excuse for retreating to his study or going
out. He more and more rarely slept at home, and still more rarely
dined there: on Thursdays he was the one to suggest some expedition
to his friends. Zinaida Fyodorovna was still dreaming of having the
cooking done at home, of moving to a new flat, of travelling abroad,
but her dreams remained dreams. Dinner was sent in from the restaurant.
Orlov asked her not to broach the question of moving until after
they had come back from abroad, and apropos of their foreign tour,
declared that they could not go till his hair had grown long, as
one could not go trailing from hotel to hotel and serving the idea
without long hair.

To crown it all, in Orlov's absence, Kukushkin began calling at the
flat in the evening. There was nothing exceptional in his behaviour,
but I could never forget the conversation in which he had offered
to cut Orlov out. He was regaled with tea and red wine, and he used
to titter and, anxious to say something pleasant, would declare
that a free union was superior in every respect to legal marriage,
and that all decent people ought really to come to Zinaida Fyodorovna
and fall at her feet.

VIII

Christmas was spent drearily in vague anticipations of calamity.
On New Year's Eve Orlov unexpectedly announced at breakfast that
he was being sent to assist a senator who was on a revising commission
in a certain province.

"I don't want to go, but I can't find an excuse to get off," he
said with vexation. "I must go; there's nothing for it."

Such news instantly made Zinaida Fyodorovna's eyes look red. "Is
it for long?" she asked.

"Five days or so."

"I am glad, really, you are going," s