I poked fun at her, but at the bottom of my heart I felt badly, for I knew that she believed in her death--a ruinous belief, which destroys the life force in man. Three days later her travail began. For two long days she suffered horrible agony, and on the third day it was ended, after giving birth to a still-born child--ended as she had believed, my dear, sweet one. I do not remember the burial, for I was as if blind and deaf for some time afterward. It was Titoff who woke me. I was at Olga's grave, and I can see him now as he stood before me and looked into my face, and said: "So, Matvei, it is for the second time that we meet near the dead. Here our friendship was born. Here it should be strengthened anew." I looked about me as if I had found myself on earth for the first time. The rain drizzled, a mist surrounded everything, in which the bare trees swayed and the crosses on the tombstones swam and vanished. Everything looked dressed, garbed in cold, and in a piercing dampness which was difficult to breathe, as if the rain and the mist had sucked up all the air. "What do you want? Go away from here," I said to Titoff. "I want you to understand my pain. Perhaps because I hindered you from living out your own life God has now punished me by taking away my daughter." The earth under my feet was melting and turned into sticky mud, which seemed to drag down my feet. I clutched him, threw him on the ground as if he were a sack of bran. "Damn you!" I shouted. A mad, wild period began for me. I could not hold my head up. I was as if struck down by some strong hand and lay stretched out powerless on the ground. My heart was full of pain and I was outraged with God. I looked up at the holy images and hurried away as fast as I could, for I wanted to quarrel, not to repent. I knew that according to the law I had to do penance and should have said: "Thy will be done, O Lord. Thy hand is heavy, but righteous; Thy wrath is great yet beneficent." My conscience did not let me say such words. I remained standing, lost in my thoughts, and was unable to find myself. "Has this blow fallen upon me," I thought, "because I doubted Thy existence in secret?" This thought terrified me and I found excuses for myself: "It was not Thy existence that I doubted, but Thy mercy; for it seemed to me that we are all abandoned by Thee without help and without guidance." My soul was unbearably tortured; I could not sleep; I could do nothing. At night dark shadows tried to strangle me. Olga appeared before me. My heart was overcome with fear and I had no more strength to live. I decided to hang myself. It was night. I lay dressed on my bed. I glanced about me. I could see my poor, innocent wife before me, her blue eyes shining with a quiet light and calling me. The moon shone through the window and its bright reflection lay upon the floor and only increased the darkness in my soul.