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

was writing something quickly. Seeing me, she started, got up
from the table, and remained standing in an attitude such as to
screen her papers from me.

"I beg your pardon, I have only come for a minute," I said, and,
I don't know why, I was overcome with embarrassment. "I have
learnt by chance that you are organizing relief for the famine,
Natalie."

"Yes, I am. But that's my business," she answered.

"Yes, it is your business," I said softly. "I am glad of it, for
it just fits in with my intentions. I beg your permission to take
part in it."

"Forgive me, I cannot let you do it," she said in response, and
looked away.

"Why not, Natalie?" I said quietly. "Why not? I, too, am well fed
and I, too, want to help the hungry."

"I don't know what it has to do with you," she said with a
contemptuous smile, shrugging her shoulders. "Nobody asks you."

"Nobody asks you, either, and yet you have got up a regular
committee in _my_ house," I said.

"I am asked, but you can have my word for it no one will ever ask
you. Go and help where you are not known."

"For God's sake, don't talk to me in that tone." I tried to be
mild, and besought myself most earnestly not to lose my temper.
For the first few minutes I felt glad to be with my wife. I felt
an atmosphere of youth, of home, of feminine softness, of the
most refined elegance -- exactly what was lacking on my floor and
in my life altogether. My wife was wearing a pink flannel
dressing-gown; it made her look much younger, and gave a softness
to her rapid and sometimes abrupt movements. Her beautiful dark
hair, the mere sight of which at one time stirred me to passion,
had from sitting so long with her head bent c ome loose from the
comb and was untidy, but, to my eyes, that only made it look more
rich and luxuriant. All this, though is banal to the point of
vulgarity. Before me stood an ordinary woman, perhaps neither
beautiful nor elegant, but this was my wife with whom I had once
lived, and with whom I should have been living to this day if it
had not been for her unfortunate character; she was the one human
being on the terrestrial globe whom I loved. At this moment, just
before going away, when I knew that I should no longer see her
even through the window, she seemed to me fascinating even as she
was, cold and forbidding, answering me with a proud and