“You can't.”
“I can't understand why I was in such a hurry! We girls are so silly and giddy.… There's nobody to whip us! However, one can't undo the past, and to reason about it is useless.… Neither reasoning nor tears are of any good. Serezha, I cried all last night! He was there … lying next to me, and I was thinking of you.… I couldn't sleep.… I wanted to run away in the night, even into the wood to father.… It is better to live with a mad father than with this—what's his name.”
“Reasoning won't help.… Olia, you ought to have reasoned when you drove home with me from Tenevo, and were so happy at getting married to a rich man.… It's too late to practice eloquence now.…”
“Too late.… Then let it be so!” Olga said with a decisive wave of the hand. “It will be possible to live, if it is no worse.… Good-bye, I must be off.…”
“No, not good-bye.…”
I drew Olia towards me and covered her face with kisses, as if I were trying to reward myself for the lost three days. She pressed close against me like a cold lamb and warmed my face with her hot breath.… There was stillness in the room.…
“The husband killed his wife!” bawled my parrot.
Olia shivered, released herself from my embraces, and looked inquiringly at me.
“It's only the parrot, my soul,” I said. “Calm yourself.”
“The husband killed his wife!” Ivan Dem'yanych repeated again.