the Lizas, the Ivans, and the Mishutkas as with
pawns. . . . Groholsky lost his peace again. . . .

One morning, about ten days afterwards, on waking up late, he went
out on to the verandah and saw a spectacle which shocked him,
revolted him, and moved him to intense indignation. Under the
verandah of the villa opposite stood the French women, and between
them Liza. She was talking and looking askance at her own villa as
though to see whether that tyrant, that despot were awake (so
Groholsky interpreted those looks). Ivan Petrovitch standing on the
verandah with his sleeves tucked up, lifted Isabella into the air,
then Fanny, and then Liza. When he was lifting Liza it seemed to
Groholsky that he pressed her to himself. . . . Liza too flung one
leg over the parapet. . . . Oh these women! All sphinxes, every one
of them!

When Liza returned home from her husband's villa and went into the
bedroom on tip-toe, as though nothing had happened, Groholsky, pale,
with hectic flushes on his cheeks, was lying in the attitude of a
man at his last gasp and moaning.

On seeing Liza, he sprang out of bed, and began pacing about the
bedroom.

"So that's what you are like, is it?" he shrieked in a high tenor.
"So that's it! Very much obliged to you! It's revolting, madam!
Immoral, in fact! Let me tell you that!"

Liza turned pale, and of course burst into tears. When women feel
that they are in the right, they scold and shed tears; when they
are conscious of being in fault, they shed tears only.

"On a level with those depraved creatures! It's . . . it's . . .
it's . . . lower than any impropriety! Why, do you know what they
are? They are kept women! Cocottes! And you a respectable woman go
rushing off where they are. . . And he . . . He! What does he want?
What more does he want of me? I don't understand it! I have given
him half of my property--I have given him more! You know it
yourself! I have given him what I have not myself. . . . I have
given him almost all. . . . And he! I've put up with your calling
him Vanya, though he has no right whatever to such intimacy. I have
put up with your walks, kisses after dinner. . . . I have put up
with everything, but this I will not put up with. . . . Either he
or I! Let him go away, or I go away! I'm not equal to living like
this any longer, no! You can see that for yourself! . . . Either
he or I. . . . Enough! The cup is brimming over. . . . I have
suffered a great deal as it is. . .