Princess Márya Aleksyéevna's judgment about marriage is the well-known one: "If young men marry without sufficient means,―there will come children, want,―they will get tired of one another in a year or two, or ten, there will be quarrels, misery, hell." In all this Princess Márya Aleksyéevna is quite right, and predicts correctly, so long as these marrying people have not another sole aim, which is unknown to Princess Márya Aleksyéevna,―not a mental aim, which is cognized by reason, but one which forms the light of life, the attainment of which agitates more than anything else. If this exists, it is well, and Princess Márya Aleksyéevna will be fooled. If this does not exist, there are ninety-nine chances out of a hundred that nothing will come of the marriage but unhappiness.
People who marry like that present themselves to me like people who fall without stumbling. If you have fallen, what is to be done? And if you have not stumbled, what sense is there in falling intentionally?
There are two things that bind you,―your convictions,―faith and love. In my opinion one is enough. The real, true union is human, Christian love; if this shall exist, and upon it shall grow up love, enamourment, it is well and firm. If there is but love, enamourment, it is not exactly bad, but also not good, still it is possible. Honest natures can with great struggles live through it. But if neither exists, but only a prétexte of one or the other, it is certainly bad. A man has to be as severe as possible with himself, and must know in the name of what he is acting.
Novels end by the marriage of the hero and the heroine. They ought to begin with this and end with their unmarrying, that is, becoming free. For to describe the lives of men in such a way as to break off the description at
