The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

said the lady. “What savage ideas about a woman and marriage!”* The Domostroy is a matrimonial code of the days of Ivan the Terrible.“Yes, gentlemen,” said th

s. But I ask: a preference for how long?”“For how long? For a long time, for a life-time sometimes.”“But that happens only in novels. In life, never. In life this preference for one to the exclusion of all others lasts in rare cases several years, oftener several months, or even weeks, days, hours . . . .”“Oh, sir. Oh, no, no, permit me,” said all three of us at the same time.The clerk himself uttered a monosyllable of disapproval.“Yes, I know,” he said, shouting louder than all of us; “you are talking of what is believed to exist, and I am talking of what is. Every man feels what you call love toward each pretty woman he sees, and very little toward his wife. That is the origin of the proverb,— and it is a true one,—‘Another’s wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.”’“Ah, but what you say is terrible! There certainly exists among human beings this feeling which is called love, and which lasts, not for months and years, but for life.”“No, that does not exist. Even if it should be admitted that Menelaus had preferred Helen all his life, Helen would have preferred Paris; and so it has been, is, and will be eternally. And it cannot be otherwise, just as it cannot happen that, in a load of chick-peas, two peas marked with a special sign should fall side by side. Further, this is not only an improbability, but it is certain that a feeling of satiety will come to Helen or to Menelaus. The whole difference is that to one it comes sooner, to the other later. It is only in stupid novels that it is written that ‘they loved each other all their lives.’ And none but children can believe it. To talk of loving a man or woman for life is like saying that a candle can burn forever.”“But you are talking of physical love. Do you not admit a love based upon a conformity of ideals, on a spiritual affinity?”“Why not? But in that case it is not necessary to procreate together (excuse my brutality). The point is that this conformity of ideals is not met among old people, but among young and pretty persons,” said he, and he began to laugh disagreeably.“Yes, I affirm that love, real love, does not consecrate marriage, as we are in the habit of believing, but that, on the contrary, it ruins it.”“Permit me,” said the lawyer. “The facts contradict your words. We see that marriage exists, that all humanity — at least the larger portion — lives conjugally, and that many husbands and wives honestly end a long life together.”The nervous gentleman smiled ill-naturedly.“And what then? You say that marriage is based upon love, and wh