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

"Ivan Ivanitch, do take me out hunting some day," I went on
softly. "I shall be very, very grateful to you."

At that moment a visitor came into the room. He was a tall,
thick-set gentleman whom I did not know, with a bald head, a big
fair beard, and little eyes. From his baggy, crumpled clothes and
his manners I took him to be a parish clerk or a teacher, but my
wife introduced him to me as Dr. Sobol.

"Very, very glad to make your acquaintance," said the doctor in a
loud tenor voice, shaking hands with me warmly, with a naive
smile. "Very glad!"

He sat down at the table, took a glass of tea, and said in a loud
voice:

"Do you happen to have a drop of rum or brandy? Have pity on me,
Olya, and look in the cupboard; I am frozen," he said, addressing
the maid.

I sat down by the fire again, looked on, listened, and from time
to time put in a word in the general conversation. My wife smiled
graciously to the visitors and kept a sharp lookout on me, as
though I were a wild beast. She was oppressed by my presence, and
this aroused in me jealousy, annoyance, and an obstinate desire
to wound her. "Wife, these snug rooms, the place by the fire," I
thought, "are mine, have been mine for years, but some crazy Ivan
Ivanitch or Sobol has for some reason more right to them than I.
Now I see my wife, not out of window, but close at hand, in
ordinary home surroundings that I feel the want of now I am
growing older, and, in spite of her hatred for me, I miss her as
years ago in my childhood I used to miss my mother and my nurse.
And I feel that now, on the verge of old age, my love for her is
purer and loftier than it was in the past; and that is why I want
to go up to her, to stamp hard on her toe with my heel, to hurt
her and smile as I do it."

"Monsieur Marten," I said, addressing the doctor, "how many
hospitals have we in the district?"

"Sobol," my wife corrected.

"Two," answered Sobol.

"And how many deaths are there every year in each hospital?"

"Pavel Andreitch, I want to speak to you," said my wife.

She apologized to the visitors and went to the next room. I got