She unbuttoned her dress with trembling fingers and showed the small withered breast, all covered with dark patches, as though it had been gnawed.
"Don't!" said Ilya gloomily. It made him sick to see the tortured, lacerated body—he could not believe that it was Masha, the friend of his childhood, once so gay, who sat before him. She bared her shoulder and said in a toneless voice:
"See how my shoulder is knocked about! Everything he can, all my body is pinched and hair torn out."
"But why?"
"He's a beast. He says, 'You don't love me,' and he pinches me."
"Perhaps—before he married you, there was some one else?"
"How could there be? I saw only you and Jakov—no one ever touched me. Yes, and now I hate all that. It hurts me. I hate it. I'm always sick."
"Don't—don't—Masha," said Ilya gently. She was silent, sat once more as though turned to stone, her breast still bare. Ilya looked from behind the samovar again at her thin bruised body and said: "Do up your dress!"
"I don't mind you," she answered mechanically, and began to button her blouse with shaking fingers. All was still. Then the sound of loud sobbing came from the shop. Ilya got up and went to the door and closed it, saying crossly:
"Be quiet—Gavrushka—go to sleep!"