to the company and go back to the nursery with the maid.
Society is irksome to Martha now. We two often went together formerly to the theatre or to a concert: at present she cares no more to go.
I mostly spend my evenings with her, in interminable conversations. She either relates something to me, or else she "gives sorrow words." I listen.
She is just now much grieved that her husband Witold has for nearly a fortnight hardly ever been at home. Some days we even dine without him.
"It is surely so," she was saying yesterday. "He enjoys his manhood to the full: everything is his. There, he has 'Bohemian' society, revelling, fast people, singing, champagne, flowers, and forgetfulness: here, he finds the pure and quiet light of the domestic fireside, the delights of fatherhood, the love of a faithful wife. When he is tired of one sort of pleasure, why then he tries the other. … And we—we are all crippled, helpless things—all!"
Silence for a moment.
