"And love?"
"No, not love."
"But aren't you married?"
"I want my baby."
Kseniya Ippolytovna, who was lying on the sofa, rose up on her knees, and stretching out her arms cried:
"Ah, a baby! Is that not instinct?"
"That is a law!"
The women began to argue. Then the dispute died down. Arkhipov proposed a game of chance. They uncovered a green table, set lighted candles at its corners and commenced to play leisurely and silently as in winter. Arkhipov sat erect, resting his elbows at right angles on the table.
The wind whistled outside, the blizzard increased in violence, and from some far distance came the dismal, melancholy creaking and grinding of iron. Alena came in, and sat quietly beside her husband, her hands folded in her lap. They were killing time.
"The last time, I sat down to play a game of chance amidst the fjords in a little valley hotel; a dreadful storm raged the whole while," Kseniya Ippolytovna remarked pensively. "Yes, there are big and little tragedies in life!"