“What has happened?” I asked.
“He beats me!” Olga said, and fell sobbing on to an armchair. “He beats me!”
“Who is he?”
“My husband! I can't live with him! I have left him!”
“This is revolting!” the Count exclaimed, and he struck the table with his fist. “What right has he? This is tyranny! This … the devil only knows what it is! To beat his wife? To beat! What did he do it for?”
“For nothing, for nothing at all,” Olga said, wiping away her tears. “I pulled my handkerchief out of my pocket, and the letter you sent me yesterday fell on the floor.… He seized it and read it … and began to beat me.… He clutched my hand and crushed it—look, there are still red spots on it—and demanded an explanation.… Instead of explaining, I ran here.… Can't you defend me? He has not the right to treat his wife so roughly! I'm no cook! I'm a noblewoman!”
The Count paced about the room and jabbered with his drunken, muddling tongue some sort of nonsense which when rendered into sober language was intended to mean “of the status of women in Russia.”
“This is barbarous! This is New Zealand! Does this muzhik also think that at his funeral his wife will have her throat cut? Savages when they go into the next world take their wives with them!”
I could not recover from my surprise.… How was this sudden visit of Olga's in a nightdress to be understood? What was I to think—what to decide? If she had been beaten, if her dignity had been wounded, why had she not run away to her father or to the housekeeper?… Lastly why not to me, who was certainly near to her? And had she really been insulted? My heart told me of the innocence of simple-minded Urbenin, and understanding the truth, it sank with the pain that the stupefied husband must have been feeling at that time. Without asking any questions, not knowing where to commence, I began to soothe Olga and offered her wine.
“What a mistake I made! What a mistake!” she sighed between her tears, lifting the wineglass to her lips. “What sanctimoniousness he feigned when he was courting me! I thought he was an angel and not a man!”