“It’s ten o’clock, though,” said Dmitri Petrovitch.  “It’s time we were going.  Yes, my dear fellow,” he sighed, “if only you knew how afraid I am of my ordinary everyday thoughts, in which one would have thought there should be nothing dreadful.  To prevent myself thinking I distract my mind with work and try to tire myself out that I may sleep sound at night.  Children, a wife—­all that seems ordinary with other people; but how that weighs upon me, my dear fellow!”

He rubbed his face with his hands, cleared his throat, and laughed.

“If I could only tell you how I have played the fool in my life!” he said.  “They all tell me that I have a sweet wife, charming children, and that I am a good husband and father.  They think I am very happy and envy me.  But since it has come to that, I will tell you in secret:  my happy family life is only a grievous misunderstanding, and I am afraid of it.”  His pale face was distorted by a wry smile.  He put his arm round my waist and went on in an undertone: 

“You are my true friend; I believe in you and have a deep respect for you.  Heaven gave us friendship that we may open our hearts and escape from the secrets that weigh upon us.  Let me take advantage of your friendly feeling for me and tell you the whole truth.  My home life, which seems to you so enchanting, is my chief misery and my chief terror.  I got married in a strange and stupid way.  I must tell you that I was madly in love with Masha before I married her, and was courting her for two years.  I asked her to marry me five times, and she refused me because she did not care for me in the least.  The sixth, when burning with passion I crawled on my knees before her and implored her to take a beggar and marry me, she consented. . . .  What she said to me was:  ’I don’t love you, but I will be true to you. . . .’  I accepted that condition with rapture.  At the time I understood what that meant, but I swear to God I don’t understand it now.  ‘I don’t love you, but I will be true to you.’  What does that mean?  It’s a fog, a darkness.  I love her now as intensely as I did the day we were married, while she, I believe, is as indifferent as ever, and I believe she is glad when I go away from home.  I don’t know for certain whether she cares for me or not —­I don’t know, I don’t know; but, as you see, we live under the same roof, call each other ‘thou,’ sleep together, have children, our property is in common. . . .  What does it mean, what does it mean?  What is the object of it?  And do you understand it at all, my dear fellow?  It’s cruel torture!  Because I don’t understand our relations, I hate, sometimes her, sometimes myself, sometimes both at once.  Everything is in a tangle in my brain; I torment myself and grow stupid.  And as though to spite me, she grows more beautiful every day, she is getting more wonderful. . .  I fancy her hair is marvellous, and her smile is like no other woman’s.  I love her, and I know that my love is hopeless.  Hopeless love for a woman by whom one has two children!  Is that intelligible?  And isn’t it terrible?  Isn’t it more terrible than ghosts?”