Part Five: Chapter 14

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Levin had been married three months. He was happy, but not atall in the way he had expected to be. At every step he found hisformer dreams disappointed, and new, unexpected surprises ofhappiness. He was happy; but on entering upon family life he sawat every step that it was utterly different from what he hadimagined. At every step he experienced what a man wouldexperience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of alittle boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat.He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; thatone had to think too, not for an instant to forget where one wasfloating; and that there was water under one, and that one mustrow; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that itwas only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it, thoughvery delightful, was very difficult.

　　As a bachelor, when he had watched other people's married life,seen the petty cares, the squabbles, the jealousy, he had onlysmiled contemptuously in his heart. In his future married lifethere could be, he was convinced, nothing of that sort; even theexternal forms, indeed, he fancied, must be utterly unlike thelife of others in everything. And all of a sudden, instead ofhis life with his wife being made on an individual pattern, itwas, on the contrary, entirely made up of the pettiest details,which he had so despised before, but which now, by no will of hisown, had gained an extraordinary importance that it was uselessto contend against. And Levin saw that the organization of allthese details was by no means so easy as he had fancied before.Although Levin believed himself to have the most exactconceptions of domestic life, unconsciously, like all men, hepictured domestic life as the happiest enjoyment of love, withnothing to hinder and no petty cares to distract. He ought, ashe conceived the position, to do his work, and to find reposefrom it in the happiness of love. She ought to be beloved, andnothing more. But, like all men, he forgot that she too wouldwant work. And he was surprised that she, his poetic, exquisiteKitty, could, not merely in the first weeks, but even in thefirst days of their married life, think, remember, and busyherself about tablecloths, and furniture, about mattresses forvisitors, about a tray, about the cook, and the dinner, and soon. While they were still engaged, he had been struck by thedefiniteness with which she had declined the tour abroad anddecided to go into the country, as though she knew of somethingshe wanted, and could still think of something outside her love.This had jarred upon him then, and now her trivial cares andanxieties jarred upon him several times. But he saw that thiswas essential for her. And, loving her as he did, though he didnot understand the reason of them, and jeered at these domesticpursuits, he could not help admiring them. He jeered at the wayin which she arranged the furniture they had brought from Moscow;rearranged their room; hung up curtains; prepared rooms forvisitors; a room for Dolly; saw after an abode for her new maid;ordered dinner of the old cook; came into collision with AgafeaMihalovna, taking from her the charge of the stores. He saw howthe old cook smiled, admiring her, and listening to herinexperienced, impossible orders, how mournfully and tenderlyAgafea Mihalovna shook her head over the young mistress's newarrangements. He saw that Kitty was extraordinarily sweet when,laughing and crying, she came to tell him that her maid, Masha,was used to looking upon her as her young lady, and so no oneobeyed her. It seemed to him sweet, but strange, and he thoughtit would have been better without this.

　　He did not know how great a sense of change she was experiencing;she, who at home had sometimes wanted some favorite dish, orsweets, without the possibility of getting either, now couldorder what she liked, buy pounds of sweets, spend as much moneyas she liked, and order any puddings she pleased.

　　She was dreaming with delight now of Dolly's coming to them withher children, especially because she would order for the childrentheir favorite puddings and Dolly would appreciate all her newhousekeeping. She did not know herself why and wherefore, butthe arranging of her house had an irresistible attraction forher. Istinctively feeling the approach of spring, and knowingthat there would be days of rough weather too, she built her nestas best she could, and was in haste at the same time to build itand to learn how to do it.

　　This care for domestic details in Kitty, so opposed to Levin'sideal of exalted happiness, was at first one of thedisappointments; and this sweet care of her household, the aim ofwhich he did not understand, but could not help loving, was oneof the new happy surprises.

　　Another disappointment and happy surprise came in their quarrels.Levin could never have conceived that between him and his wifeany relations could arise other than tender, respectful andloving, and all at once in the very early days they quarreled, sothat she said he did not care for her, that he cared for no onebut himself, burst into tears, and wrung her arms.

　　This first quarrel arose from Levin's having gone out to a newfarmhouse and having been away half an hour too long, because hehad tried to get home by a short cut and had lost his way. Hedrove home thinking of nothing but her, of her love, of his ownhappiness, and the nearer he drew to home, the warmer was histenderness for her. He ran into the room with the same feeling,with an even stronger feeling than he had had when he reached theShtcherbatskys' house to make his offer. And suddenly he was metby a lowering expression he had never seen in her. He would havekissed her; she pushed him away.

　　"What is it?"

　　"You've been enjoying yourself," she began, trying to be calm andspiteful. But as soon as she opened her mouth, a stream ofreproach, of senseless jealousy, of all that had been torturingher during that half hour which she had spent sitting motionlessat the window, burst from her. It was only then, for the firsttime, that he clearly understood what he had not understood whenhe led her out of the church after the wedding. He felt now thathe was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where heended and she began. He felt this from the agonizing sensationof division that he experienced at that instant. He was offendedfor the first instant, but the very same second he felt that hecould not be offended by her, that she was himself. He felt forthe first moment as a man feels when, having suddenly received aviolent blow from behind, he turns round, angry and eager toavenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that it ishe himself who has accidentally struck himself, that there is noone to be angry with, and that he must put up with and try tosoothe the pain.

　　Never afterwards did he feel it with such intensity, but thisfirst time he could not for a long while get over it. Hisnatural feeling urged him to defend himself, to prove to her shewas wrong; but to prove her wrong would mean irritating her stillmore and making the rupture greater that was the cause of all hissuffering. One habitual feeling impelled him to get rid of theblame and to pass it on her. Another feeling, even stronger,impelled him as quickly as possible to smooth over the rupturewithout letting it grow greater. To remain under such undeservedreproach was wretched, but to make her suffer by justifyinghimself was worse still. Like a man half-awake in an agony ofpain, he wanted to tear out, to fling away the aching place, andcoming to his senses, he felt that the aching place was himself.He could do nothing but try to help the aching place to bear it,and this he tried to do.

　　They made peace. She, recognizing that she was wrong, though shedid not say so, became tenderer to him, and they experienced new,redoubled happiness in their love. But that did not prevent suchquarrels from happening again, and exceedingly often too, on themost unexpected and trivial grounds. These quarrels frequentlyarose from the fact that they did not yet know what was ofimportance to each other and that all this early period they wereboth often in a bad temper. When one was in a good temper, andthe other in a bad temper, the peace was not broken; but whenboth happened to be in an ill-humor, quarrels sprang up from suchincomprehensibly trifling causes, that they could never rememberafterwards what they had quarreled about. It is true that whenthey were both in a good temper their enjoyment of life wasredoubled. But still this first period of their married life wasa difficult time for them.

　　During all this early time they had a peculiarly vivid sense oftension, as it were, a tugging in opposite directions of thechain by which they were bound. Altogether their honeymoon--thatis to say, the month after their wedding--from which fromtradition Levin expected so much, was not merely not a time ofsweetness, but remained in the memories of both as the bitterestand most humiliating period in their lives. They both aliketried in later life to blot out from their memories all themonstrous, shameful incidents of that morbid period, when bothwere rarely in a normal frame of mind, both were rarely quitethemselves.

　　It was only in the third month of their married life, after theirreturn from Moscow, where they had been staying for a month, thattheir life began to go more smoothly.