"Checkov, Anton - The Wife And Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chekhov Anton)

He looked intently into my face; the charming expression faded
away, his eyes grew dim again, and he sniffed and muttered
feebly:

"Yes, yes. . . . Excuse an old man. . . . It's all nonsense . . .
yes."

As he slowly descended the staircase, spreading out his hands to
balance himself and showing me his huge, bulky back and red neck,
he gave me the unpleasant impression of a sort of crab.

"You ought to go away, your Excellency," he muttered. "To
Petersburg or abroad. . . . Why should you live here and waste
your golden days? You are young, wealthy, and healthy. . . . Yes.
. . . Ah, if I were younger I would whisk away like a hare, and
snap my fingers at everything."

III

My wife's outburst reminded me of our married life together. In
old days after every such outburst we felt irresistibly drawn to
each other; we would meet and let off all the dynamite that had
accumulated in our souls. And now after Ivan Ivanitch had gone
away I had a strong impulse to go to my wife. I wanted to go
downstairs and tell her that her behaviour at tea had been an
insult to me, that she was cruel, petty, and that her plebeian
mind had never risen to a comprehension of what _I_ was saying
and of what _I_ was doing. I walked about the rooms a long time
thinking of what I would say to her and trying to guess what she
would say to me.

That evening, after Ivan Ivanitch went away, I felt in a
peculiarly irritating form the uneasiness which had worried me of
late. I could not sit down or sit still, but kept walking about
in the rooms that were lighted up and keeping near to the one in
which Marya Gerasimovna was sitting. I had a feeling very much
like that which I had on the North Sea during a storm when every
one thought that our ship, which had no freight nor ballast,
would overturn. And that evening I understood that my uneasiness
was not disappointment, as I had supposed, but a different
feeling, though what exactly I could not say, and that irritated
me more than ever.

"I will go to her," I decided. "I can think of a pretext. I shall
say that I want to see Ivan Ivanitch; that will be all."

I went downstairs and walked without haste over the carpeted
floor through the vestibule and the hall. Ivan Ivanitch was
sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room; he was drinking tea