and putting his hands in his pockets, he watched his master with his head on one side. Stepan Arkadyevitch was silent a minute. Then a good-humored and rather pitiful smile showed itself on his handsome face.
“Eh, Matvey?” he said, shaking his head.
“It’s all right, sir; she will come round,” said Matvey.
“Come round?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think so? Who’s there?” asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, hearing the rustle of a woman’s dress at the door.
“It’s I,” said a firm, pleasant, woman’s voice, and the stern, pockmarked face of Matrona Philimonovna, the nurse, was thrust in at the doorway.
“Well, what is it, Matrona?” queried Stepan Arkadyevitch, going up to her at the door.
Although Stepan Arkadyevitch was completely in the wrong as regards his wife, and was conscious of this himself, almost everyone in the house (even the nurse, Darya Alexandrovna’s chief ally) was on his side.
“Well, what now?” he asked disconsolately.
“Go to her, sir; own your fault again. Maybe God will aid you. She is suffering so, it’s sad to see her; and besides, everything in the house is topsy-turvy. You must have pity, sir, on the children. Beg her forgiveness, sir. There’s no help for it! One must take the consequences. …”
“But she won’t see me.”
“You do your part. God is merciful; pray to God, sir, pray to God.”