Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/378



all the time of my married life I never stopped experiencing pangs of jealousy. But there were certain periods when I suffered more than usual from it. One such period was when, after the first babe, the doctors forbade her to nurse it. I was especially jealous during that time, in the first place, because my wife was experiencing that unrest, peculiar to mothers, which produces a causeless violation of the regular order of life; and, in the second, because, seeing how easily she rejected the moral obligation of mothers, I justly, though unconsciously, concluded that it would be just as easy for her to violate her marital life, the more so since she was quite well and, in spite of the prohibition of the charming doctors, later nursed her own children, and brought up healthy children."

"I see you do not like doctors," I said, noticing an especially malignant expression of his voice every time he mentioned them.

"It is not a question of likes and dislikes. They have ruined my life, as they have ruined the lives of thousands, of hundreds of thousands, without my being able to connect the consequences with the cause. I understand that they want to make money, just like the lawyers and others, and I should gladly have given up to them half of my income, and everybody else, understanding what they are doing, would gladly give up to them half of their possessions, if they only would not interfere with your domestic life, and never came up close to you. I have not been collecting information, but I know dozens of