ght; then I shall make a scene."

The tax-collector saw the look of beatitude gradually vanish from
his wife's face, saw how ashamed and miserable she was--and he
felt a little happier.

"Why do you want me at once?" asked his wife.

"I don't want you, but I wish you to be at home. I wish it, that's
all."

At first Anna Pavlovna refused to hear of it, then she began
entreating her husband to let her stay just another half-hour; then,
without knowing why, she began to apologise, to protest--and all
in a whisper, with a smile, that the spectators might not suspect
that she was having a tiff with her husband. She began assuring him
she would not stay long, only another ten minutes, only five minutes;
but the tax-collector stuck obstinately to his point.

"Stay if you like," he said, "but I'll make a scene if you do."

And as she talked to her husband Anna Pavlovna looked thinner,
older, plainer. Pale, biting her lips, and almost crying, she went
out to the entry and began putting on her things.

"You are not going?" asked the ladies in surprise. "Anna Pavlovna,
you are not going, dear?"

"Her head aches," said the tax-collector for his wife.

Coming out of the club, the husband and wife walked all the way
home in silence. The tax-collector walked behind his wife, and
watching her downcast, sorrowful, humiliated little figure, he
recalled the look of beatitude which had so irritated him at the
club, and the consciousness that the beatitude was gone filled his
soul with triumph. He was pleased and satisfied, and at the same
time he felt the lack of something; he would have liked to go back
to the club and make every one feel dreary and miserable, so that
all might know how stale and worthless life is when you walk along
the streets in the dark and hear the slush of the mud under your
feet, and when you know that you will wake up next morning with
nothing to look forward to but vodka and cards. Oh, how awful it
is!

And Anna Pavlovna could scarcely walk. . . . She was still under
the influence of the dancing, the music, the talk, the lights, and
the noise; she asked herself as she walked along why God had thus
afflicted her. She felt miserable, insulted, and choking with hate
as she listened to her husband's heavy footsteps. She was silent,
trying to think of the most offensive, biting, and venomous word
she could hurl at her husband, and at the same time she was fully
aware that no word could penetrate her tax-