Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/66

 period before birth and during nursing. And again yield f necessary, and do not trouble about what will come of it. Nothing can come of it except good for yourself, for your husband, and for your children: for, acting thus you will be seeking not your own happiness and peace, but the fulfillment of that which God desires of you. Pardon me if I have said anything amiss. I have tried before God to express what I have lived through and through over in connection with this question.

Difficult relations with one's husband or wife can be disentangled only by a humble life, as a knot in sewing can be disentangled only by the reel patiently following all the intricacies of the thread.

... It seems he is dissatisfied with his married life, regrets his good lawful act, would to God it were not so. Believe me, there are no external conditions good in themselves; an unreasonable man married to an angel, and another kind of man married to a devil, are equally dissatisfied; and many, not only many, but almost all who are dissatisfied with their marriage (and they are all dissatisfied), all believe that no position can be worse than theirs. Therefore, the position of all is alike.

It thou lookest upon woman as an object of delight though she be, and even the more so if she be thy wife, thou committest adultery. Under conditions of the fulfillment of the law of manual