Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/368

 something about money, which I never grudged, and certainly not to my wife. All I remember is that she gave such a twist to a remark of mine that it turned out to be an expression of my desire to rule over her by means of money, to which, according to her words, I had affirmed my own exclusive right,—at all events, it was something impossible, stupid, mean, and unnatural, of no consequence either to her or to me. I grew irritated, began to upbraid her for her want of delicacy, she did the same, and off it started again. In her words, in the expression of her countenance and her eyes, I saw the same cruel, cold animosity, which had struck me so before. I remember I had quarreled with my brother, my friend, my father, but there had never been between us that venomous malice which arose in this case.

"Some time passed, and this mutual hatred was again veiled under the infatuation, that is, under sensuality, and I consoled myself with the thought that these two quarrels were mistakes that could be mended. But soon there came a third and a fourth quarrel, and I understood that it was not an accident, but that it must be so, that it would be so, and I was horrified at that which awaited me. I was, besides, tormented by the terrible thought that it was I alone who was living with my wife so badly and contrary to all expectation, whereas this does not happen in other cases of matrimony. I did not know then that it was a common fate, and that every one thought, like myself, that it was his exclusive misfortune, that he concealed this exclusive and disgraceful misfortune, not only from everybody else but even from himself, without acknowledging it to himself.

"It had begun in the very first days and it continued all the time, and it grew ever stronger and more pointed. In the depth of my heart I felt from the start that I was lost, that there had happened that which I had not expected, that marriage was not only no happiness, but even