I HAD been very unwell before we left St. Petersburg, and instead of going home we moved into a at a short distance from the city, where my husband left me while he went to see his mother. I was then quite well enough to accompany him, but he urged me not to do so, as his reason my state of health. I quite understood that he was not really afraid of my health, but he was by the idea that it would not be good for us to be in the country; I did not insist very , and remained where I was. Without him I felt myself truly in the midst of emptiness and ; but when he returned I perceived that his presence no longer added to my life what it had been to add. Those former relations, when any thought, any sensation, not communicated to him, oppressed me like a crime; when all his actions, all his words, appeared to me models of perfection; when, from sheer joy, we would laugh at nothing, looking at each other; those relations had so insensibly changed into something quite different, that we ourselves hardly admitted the . But the fact was that each of us had now separate occupations and interests, which we no longer sought to share. We had even ceased to be at all troubled at thus living in distinct worlds, and entirely as strangers to each other. We had become habituated to this thought, and at the end of a year there was no longer the when our eyes chanced to meet. His boyishness, his outbursts of light-hearted gaiety when with me, were gone; gone, too, was that indulgent , against which I had so often risen in rebellion; nor had the look survived, which, in other days, had at once disturbed and delighted me; there were no more of the prayers, no more of the hours of exaltation which we had so loved to share, and indeed we saw each other only very rarely; he was constantly out, and I no longer remaining alone, no longer complained of it; I was perpetually , on my side, with the obligations of society, and never felt any need of him whatever.  
Scenes and between us were quite unheard-of. I endeavored to satisfy him, he carried out all my wishes, any one would have said that we still loved each other.
 
When we were alone together, which was of rare occurrence, I felt neither joy, , nor embarrassment, in his presence, any more than if I had been alone. I knew well that here was no new-comer, no stranger, but on the contrary, a very excellent man, in short my husband, whom I knew just as well as I knew myself. I was persuaded that I could tell beforehand all that he would do, all that he would think, what view he would take of any matter, and if he did or thought otherwise I only considered that he made a mistake; I never expected anything at all from him. In one word, it was my husband, that was all. It seemed to me that things were so, and had to be so; that no other relations between us could exist, or indeed ever had existed. When he went away, especially at first, I still felt terribly lonely, and while he was absent I felt the full value of his support; when he came home, I would even throw myself in his arms with joy; but scarcely had two hours elapsed ere I had forgotten this joy, and would find that I had nothing to say to him. In these brief moments, when calm, tenderness seemed to revive between us, it seemed to me that there never had been anything but this; that this alone was what had once so powerfully stirred my heart, and I thought I read in his eyes the same impression. I felt that to this tenderness there was a limit, which he did not wish to pass, and neither did I. Sometimes this caused me a little regret, but I had no time to think about it seriously, and I tried to put it out of my mind, by giving myself up to a variety of amusements of which I did not even render a clear account to myself, but which perpetually offered themselves to me. The life in the world, which, at first, had bewildered me with its and the gratification it afforded to my self-love, had soon established entire over my , and become at once a habit and a , occupying in my soul that place which I had fancied would be the home of sentiment. Therefore I avoided being alone, lest it might force me to look into and realize my condition. My whole time, from the earliest hour in the morning till the latest at night, was appropriated to something; even if I did not go out, there was no time that I left free. I found in this life neither pleasure, nor weariness, and it seemed to me it had always been thus.
 
In this manner three years passed away, and our relations with each other remained the same, benumbed, , motionless, as if no could come to them, either for better or worse. During the course of these three years there were two important events in the family, but neither brought any change to my own life. These events were the birth of my first child, and the death of Tatiana Semenovna. At first the sentiment took possession of me with such power, so great and unexpected a seized upon me, that I imagined a new existence was beginning; but at the end of two months, when I commenced to go into society once more, this sentiment, which had been gradually , had become nothing more than the and cold performance of a duty. My husband, on the contrary, from the day of this son’s birth, had become his old self, gentle, calm, and home-loving, recalling for his child, all his former tenderness and gaiety. Often when I went in my ball-dress into the child’s nursery, to give him the evening before starting and found my husband there, I would catch a glance of reproach, or a severe and look upon me, and I would all at once feel ashamed. I was myself terrified at my indifference towards my own child, and I asked myself: “Can I be so much worse than other women?—But what is to be done?” I questioned. “Of course I love my son, but, for all that, I cannot sit down beside him for whole days at a time, that would bore me to death; and as for making a , nothing in the world would induce me to do such a thing!”
 
The death of my husband’s mother was a great grief to him; it was very painful to him, he said, to live after her at Nikolski, but though I also regretted her and really sympathized with his sorrow, it would have been at that time more agreeable, more restful to me, to return and make our residence there. We had passed the greater part of these three years in the city; once only had I been at Nikolski, for a visit of two months; and during the third year we had been abroad.
 
We passed this summer at the baths.
 
I was then twenty-one years of age. We were, I thought, prosperous; from my home life I expected no more than it had already given me; all the people whom I knew, it seemed to me, loved me; my health was excellent, I knew that I was pretty, my toilettes were the freshest at the baths, the weather was superb, an indefinable atmosphere of beauty and surrounded me, and everything appeared to me in the highest degree and . Yet I was not, as light-hearted as I had been in the old days at Nikolski, when I had felt that my happiness was within myself, when I was happy because I deserved to be so, when my happiness was great but might be greater still. Now all was different; nevertheless the summer was charming. I had nothing to desire, nothing to hope, nothing to fear; my life, as it seemed to me, was at its full, and my conscience, it also seemed to me, was entirely clear.
 
Among the men most at the baths during this season, there was not one whom, for any reason whatever, I preferred above the others, not even old Prince K. our ambassador, who paid me attention. One was too young, another was too old, this one was an Englishman with light curly hair, that one, a bearded Frenchman; I was indifferent to all, but, at the same time, all were indispensable to me. as they might be, they yet belonged to, and formed a part of, this life of elegance surrounding me, this atmosphere in which I breathed. However, there was one among them, an Italian, Marquis D. who, by the bold fashion in which he showed the he felt for me, had attracted my attention more than the others. He allowed no occasion to escape him of meeting me, dancing with me, appearing on horseback beside me, accompanying me to the casino, and he was constantly telling me how beautiful I was. From my window I sometimes saw him wandering around our house, and more than once the annoying of the glances shot towards me from his flashing eyes had made me blush and turn away.
 
He was young, handsome, elegant; and one thing about him was his extraordinary resemblance to my husband, especially in his smile and something about the upper part of the face, though he was the handsomer man of the two. I was struck by the , in spite of differences in some particulars, in the mouth for instance, the look, the longer shape of the chin; and instead of the charm given to my husband’s face by his expression of kindness and ideal calmness, there was in the other something gross and almost . After a while I could not help seeing that he was in love with me; I sometimes found myself thinking of him with lofty pity. I undertook to tranquillize him, and bring him down to terms of cordial confidence and friendship, but he these attempts with , and, to my great , continued to show indications of a passion, silent, indeed, as yet, but momentarily threatening to break . Although I would not acknowledge it to myself, I was afraid of this man, and seemed, against my own will, as it were, forced to think of him. My husband had made his acquaintance, and was even more intimate with him than with most of our circle, with whom he confined himself to being simply the husband of his wife, and to whom his bearing was and cold.
 
Towards the end of the season I had a slight illness, which confined me to the house for two weeks. The first time I went out, after my recovery, was to listen to the music in the evening, and I was at once told of the arrival of Lady C. a beauty, who had been expected for some time. A circle of friends quickly gathered around me, eagerly welcoming me once more among them, but a yet larger circle was forming about the new , and everybody near me was telling me about her and her beauty. She was out to me; a beautiful and bewitching woman, truly, but with an expression of confidence and self-sufficiency which impressed me unpleasantly, and I said so. That evening, everything that usually seemed so bright and delightful was to me. The following day Lady C. organized an expedition to the castle, which I declined. Hardly any one remained behind with me, and the aspect of affairs was decidedly changed to my eyes. All, men and things, seemed stupid and dull; I felt like crying, and resolved to complete my cure as soon as possible and go home to Russia. At the bottom of my heart bad, feelings, but I would not confess it to myself. I said that I was not well, making that a for giving up society. I very seldom went out, and then only in the morning, alone, to drink the waters, or for a quiet wa............