Then he became alarmed. He called everybody. He summoned the whole staff of the hotel. He sent for all the ladies he knew in Kharkoff (and they were many) imploring them all to save me, to recall me to life. When I came to myself the room was filled with women: there was Rosalia, and two Hungarian girls from the adjoining apartment, and there was also the German baroness, and little Julia Terlezkaja, the latest and fairest of my husband's conquests. All these graceful creatures were bending over my couch, while Vassili on his knees with his head buried in the coverlet was sobbing: “Save her! She is dead! I have killed her!”
I put out my hand and touched his hair.
“I am alive,” I said softly; and he threw himself upon me and kissed me. The women stood round us in a semi-circle, gay and graceful as the figures on a Gobelin tapestry.
“I love you,” Vassili was exclaiming; “I love you just as you are. I should hate you to be like everybody else.” And in French he added, looking at Madame Terlezkaja: “C'est très rigolo d'avoir une femme qui n'est pas une femme.”
I hid my face in the pillow, and wept; while the fair Terlezkaja, who seemed to be the kindest of them all, bent over and consoled me.
“Pay no heed to him,” she whispered. “I think he has been drinking a little.”
The door opened. A doctor, who had been sent for by the manager of the hotel, entered with a resolute authoritative air. At the sight of him the women disappeared like a flight of startled sparrows. Of course they took Vassili with them.
To the good old doctor I confided the secret which Vassili had disclosed to me and which was burning my heart.
“I want to have a child, a little child of my own!” I cried.
“Of course. Of course. So you shall,” said the old doctor, with a soothing smile. “There is no reason why you should not. You are a little anemic, that is all.”