"My mistress ordered me to say that there is very great need, sir."
"Well, but what 's the matter?"
"Please to see for yourself, sir...."
Vasíly rose, with vexation tossed the letters into a casket, and betook himself to Olga Ivánovna. She was sitting alone in a corner,—pale and motionless.
"What do you want?"—he asked her, not very politely.
Olga looked at him, and with a shudder, covered her eyes.
"What ails you? what 's the matter with thee, Olga?"
He took her hand... Olga Ivánovna's hand was as cold as ice... She tried to speak .... and her voice died away. The poor woman had no doubt left in her mind as to her condition.
Vasíly was somewhat disconcerted. Olga Ivánovna's room was a couple of paces from the bedroom of Anna Pávlovna. Vasíly cautiously seated himself beside Olga, kissed and warmed her hands, and argued with her in a whisper. She listened to him, and shivered silently, slightly. Paláshka stood in the doorway and softly wiped away her tears. In the adjoining room a pendulum was beating heavily and regularly, and the breathing of a sleeper was audible. Olga Ivánovna's torpor dissolved, at last, in tears and dull sobs. Tears are the equivalent of a thunder-storm: after them a person is always quieter. When Olga Ivánovna had become somewhat composed, and only sobbed convulsively from time to time like a child, Vasíly knelt down before her, and with caresses and tender promises soothed her completely, gave her a drink of water, put her to bed, and went away. All night long he did not undress himself, wrote two or three letters, burned two or three papers, got out a golden locket with the portrait of a black-browed and black-eyed woman, with a bold, sensual face, gazed long at her features, and paced his chamber in thought. On the following morning, at tea, he beheld, with a good deal of dissatisfaction, poor Olga's reddened, swollen eyes, and pale, distraught face. After breakfast, he proposed to her that she should take a stroll with him in the park. Olga followed Vasíly like an obedient sheep. But when, two hours later, she returned from the park, she looked dreadfully; she told Anna Pávlovna that she felt ill, and went to bed. During the walk, Vasíly had announced to her, with all due penitence, that he was secretly married—he was just as much a bachelor as I am. Olga Ivánovna did not fall down in a swoon—people fall in swoons only on the stage; but she became suddenly petrified, although she not only had not been hoping to marry Vasíly Ivánovitch, but had even, somehow, been afraid to think of it. Vasíly began to demonstrate to her the necessity of parting from him and marrying Rogatchyóff. Olga Ivánovna looked at him with dumb horror. Vasíly talked coldly, practically, sensibly; he blamed himself, he expressed regret,—but all his arguments wound up with the following words: "We must act." Olga lost her head completely; she was frightened and ashamed; dismal, heavy despair took possession of her; she longed for death—and sadly awaited Vasíly's decision.