XVII.
Well, this is the way we lived. Our relations grew ever more hostile. Finally we reached such a stage that it was not the dissensions that caused the hostility, but the hostility which provoked the dissensions. No matter what she said, I disagreed with her from the start, and the same was the case with her.
"In the fourth year both sides came to the natural conclusion that we could not understand each other or agree. We did not even try to hear each other's opinions. In regard to the simplest things, especially in regard to the children, we invariably stuck to our ideas. As I think of them now, the opinions which I defended were not of such prime importance to me as not to admit of deviations; but she held the contrary view, and yielding would have meant yielding to her. That I could not do. Neither could she. She, no doubt, considered herself absolutely right in regard to me, while I was, to my thinking, a saint in her presence. When we were left alone, we were doomed to silence or to kinds of conversation which, I am sure, animals even could carry on: 'What time is it? It is time to go to bed. What shall we have for dinner? Where shall I go? What do the papers say? Send for the doctor. Másha has a sore throat.' It was enough for us to deviate a hair's breadth from this circle of conversations, which was contracted to impossible limits, in order to give irritation a chance to flame up.
"There were conflicts and expressions of hatred for the coffee, the table-cloth, the vehicle, the progress of the game of cards,—for things that could be of no importance to
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