we are pleased to see almost universally in married life; and this, of course, would not have prevented the development of love for another; but the main thing would be the galleys, and the eating each other up. Your dissatisfaction could not have taken such a form, because both of you were enlightened people, and therefore it was developed in only its easiest, gentlest, and least offensive form,—love towards another. Consequently there is no use in talking about love to another; that is not the main trouble at all. The essence of the matter lies in your dissatisfaction with your former position, and the cause of this dissatisfaction was the discordance of your characters. Both of you were good people, but after your character became mature, Viéra Pavlovna, and lost its childish indefiniteness, and acquired definite features, it proved that you and Dmitri Sergéitch were not very well adapted to each other. Is there anything reprehensible in either of you? Now, for example, I also am a decent man, but could you get along with me? You would hang yourself with weariness of me; how long do you suppose it would take you to come to that point?"
"A very few days," said Viéra Pavlovna, laughing.
"He was not such a gloomy monster as I am, yet you and he are quite too little adapted to each other. Who ought to have noticed it first? Who was the older? Whose character settled sooner? Who had the more experience in life? He ought to have foreseen it, and have prepared your mind so that you would not get alarmed or worry; but he understood it only when the feeling, which he ought to have expected and did not expect, was developed; but when the feeling resulting from the other feeling developed, then he perceived it. Why had he not foreseen and noticed it? Was he stupid? He had enough sense for that. No; it was from inattention, from carelessness. He neglected his duties toward you, Viéra Pavlovna; that is the case; and you are declaring that he was kind, that he loved you." Rakhmétof, gradually becoming excited, spoke with feeling; but Viéra Pavlovna stopped him.
"I must not listen to you, Rakhmétof," she said, in a tone of extreme dissatisfaction. "You are pouring reproaches upon a man to whom I am endlessly indebted."
"No, Viéra Pavlovna; if there had been no necessity of my saying that, I should not have said it. Did I notice it to-day only for the first time? Could I have said it if I had seen it only to-day for the first time? You know that it is
