And when Pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about
the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed
and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt,
missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they
went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and
prayed that God would give them children.

And so the Pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably
in love and complete harmony.

But behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office,
Vassily Andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see
about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. He
had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months'
illness. And Olenka was a widow once more.

"I've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after
her husband's funeral. "How can I live without you, in wretchedness
and misery! Pity me, good people, all alone in the world!"

She went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up
wearing hat and gloves for good. She hardly ever went out, except
to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun.
It was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and
opened the shutters of the windows. She was sometimes seen in the
mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what
went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised.
People guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the
veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from
the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said