Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/45



were well. It was impossible to call ailment that of which Iván Ilích now and then said that he had a peculiar taste in his mouth and an uncomfortable feeling in the left side of his abdomen.

But it so happened that this discomfort kept growing and passing, not yet into a pain, but into the consciousness of a constant weight in his side and into ill humour. This ill humour, growing and growing all the time, began to spoil the pleasure of the light and decent life which had established itself in the family of the Golovíns. Man and wife began to quarrel more and more often, and soon there disappeared the ease and pleasure, and with difficulty decency alone was maintained. The scenes became more frequent again. Again there were left some islets, but only a few of these, on which husband and wife could meet without any explosion. Praskóvya Fédorovna now said not without reason that her husband was hard to get along with. With her usual habit of exaggerating, she said that he had always had such a terrible character that one had to have her goodness to have stood him for twenty years. It is true, the quarrels now began with him. It was he who began to find fault, always immediately before dinner, and frequently just as he was beginning to eat, during his soup. Now he remarked that some dish was chipped, or the food was not just right, or his son had put his elbow on the table, or there was something wrong with his daughter's hairdressing. For everything he blamed Praskóvya Fédorovna.

Praskóvya Fédorovna at first retorted and told him