“Damnation take those visitors!” muttered Pyotr Dmitritch, getting up. “You ought not to have gone to the island today!” he cried. “What an idiot I was not to prevent you! Oh, my God!”

He scratched his head in vexation, and, with a wave of his hand, walked out of the room.

Then he came into the room several times, sat down on the bed beside her, and talked a great deal, sometimes tenderly, sometimes angrily, but she hardly heard him. Her sobs were continually interrupted by fearful attacks of pain, and each time the pain was more acute and prolonged. At first she held her breath and bit the pillow during the pain, but then she began screaming on an unseemly piercing note. Once seeing her husband near her, she remembered that she had insulted him, and without pausing to think whether it were really Pyotr Dmitritch or whether she were in delirium, clutched his hand in both hers and began kissing it.

“You were lying, I was lying⁠ ⁠…” she began justifying herself. “Understand, understand.⁠ ⁠… They have exhausted me, driven me out of all patience.”

“Olya, we are not alone,” said Pyotr Dmitritch.

Olga Mihalovna raised her head and saw Varvara, who was kneeling by the chest of drawers and pulling out the bottom drawer. The top drawers were already open. Then Varvara got up, red from the strained position, and with a cold, solemn face began trying to unlock a box.

“Marya, I can’t unlock it!” she said in a whisper. “You unlock it, won’t you?”

Marya, the maid, was digging a candle end out of the candlestick with a pair of scissors, so as to put in a new candle; she went up to Varvara and helped her to unlock the box.

“There should be nothing locked⁠ ⁠…” whispered Varvara. “Unlock this basket, too, my good girl. Master,” she said, “you should send to Father Mihail to unlock the holy gates! You must!”