and new, unexpected surprises of
happiness. He was happy; but on entering upon family life he saw
at every step that it was utterly different from what he had
imagined. At every step he experienced what a man would
experience who, after admiring the smooth, happy course of a
little boat on a lake, should get himself into that little boat.
He saw that it was not all sitting still, floating smoothly; that
one had to think too, not for an instant to forget where one was
floating; and that there was water under one, and that one must
row; and that his unaccustomed hands would be sore; and that it
was only to look at it that was easy; but that doing it, though
very 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 only
smiled contemptuously in his heart. In his future married life
there could be, he was convinced, nothing of that sort; even the
external forms, indeed, he fancied, must be utterly unlike the
life of others in everything. And all of a sudden, instead of
his life with his wife being made on an individual pattern, it
was, on the contrary, entirely made up of the pettiest details,
which he had so despised before, but which now, by no will of his
own, had gained an extraordinary importance that it was useless
to contend against. And Levin saw that the organization of all
these details was by no means so easy as he had fancied before.
Although Levin believed himself to have the most exact
conceptions of domestic life, unconsciously, like all men, he
pictured domestic life as the happiest enjoyment of love, with
nothing to hinder and no petty cares to distract. He ought, as
he conceived the position, to do his work, and to find repose
from it in the happiness of love. She ought to be beloved, and
nothing more. But, like all men, he forgot that she too would
want work. And he was surprised that she, his poetic, exquisite
Kitty, could, not merely in the first weeks, but even in the
first days of their married life, think, remember, and busy
herself about tablecloths, and furniture, about mattresses for
visitors, about a tray, about the cook, and the dinner, and so
on. While they were still engaged, he had been struck by the
definiteness with which she had declined the tour abroad and
decided to go into the country, as though she knew of something
she wanted, and could still think of something outside he