She spoke this way often to me, and I was wretched with pity and fear for her.
As to my father-in-law, I had made a sort of truce with him, and he immediately made use of it in his own way:
"Here, Matvei, sign this," or "Do not write that."
Things were coming to a climax. We were, close to the recruiting time, and a second child was soon expected. The recruits were making holiday in the village. They called me out, but I refused to go, and they broke my windows for me.
The day came when I had to go to town to draw my lot. Olga was already afraid at this time to leave the house, and my father-in-law accompanied me and during the whole way he impressed it upon me what trouble he had taken for me, how much money he had spent and how everything had been arranged for my benefit.
And so it was. My number came along the last, and I was free. Titoff could hardly believe my luck and he laughed at me gloomily.
I did not answer, but I was unspeakably happy. My freedom meant everything to me--everything that oppressed my soul. And above all, it meant freedom from my dear father-in-law.
At home Olga's joy was great. She wept and laughed, the dear one; praised and caressed me as if I had killed a bear.
"God be praised," she said; "now I can die in peace."
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.