"Oh, it's quite a common thing, not in the least unusual! Do you suppose there are many women true to their husbands? Only the ugly ones and the sick ones—a pretty woman always wants to enjoy herself and have a little romance."
During the whole morning she instructed Ilya on this point, told him all sorts of stories of wives who were untrue to their husbands. In her red blouse, with her skirts tucked up, and her sleeves rolled above her elbows, supple and light, she danced about the kitchen, preparing the pasties for her husband, and chattering all the time in her clear, ringing voice:
"A husband!—d'you think a wife must be always content with him? The husband can sometimes be very disagreeable, even if you love him; and then he never thinks twice if he has a chance to be false to his wife. So it's dull for a wife, too, to think of nothing all her life but—my husband, my husband, my husband."
Ilya listened, as he drank his tea, which seemed to have a bitter taste. In this woman's speech there was something defiant, unpleasantly provocative, that was new to him. Involuntarily he remembered Olympiada, the deep voice, the quiet movements, and the glowing words that had power to grip his heart. For the rest Olympiada was a woman of no great education, who might have been the wife of a small tradesman, but even because of that she was simpler in her shamelessness. Ilya answered Tatiana's pleasantries with a slight laugh, and had to force himself even to laugh. His heart was sick, and he only laughed because he did not know what to speak of. Her words aroused a painful melancholy in him, and yet he listened with deep interest, and finally said thoughtfully:
"I did not believe that such things happened in your set?"
"Things, my dear, are the same everywhere."
"You don't mind much, do you? Why do you look so cross?"
Ilya stood in the doorway and looked fixedly at her, wrinkling his brow. She went up to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and looked into his face curiously.
"I'm not cross," said Ilya seriously.
"Really? Oh! thank you—ha! ha! ha! how good you are!" She laughed brightly.