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"Ah, ah, ah! Oo!..." he muttered, recalling everything that had

happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was

present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position,

and worst of all, his own fault.

"Yes, she won't forgive me, and she can't forgive me. And the

most awful thing about it is that it's all my fault-all my fault,

though I'm not to blame. That's the point of the whole

situation," he reflected. "Oh, oh, oh!" he kept repeating in

despair, as he remembered the acutely painful sensations caused

him by this quarrel.

Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming,

happy and good-humored, from the theater, with a huge pear in his

hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing-room,

to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw

her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed

everything in her hand.