, goodness
knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something,
and I still feel as though I am lying in the Vale of Daghestan and
dreaming of a ball. In short, man's never satisfied with what he
has."

He went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing
had happened, and Laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and
tried to understand why Polina had gone to live with Yartsev. And
then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments.
And he felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone to live with
Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was
not what it had been.

XV

Laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; Yulia
was in the study, and she, too, was reading. It seemed there was
nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. From time
to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "Whether
one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't
it come to the same thing?" And the time when he used to be jealous,
troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. He had succeeded in
going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking
forward to another visit in the spring to England, which he had
very much liked.

And Yulia Sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off
going to the lodge to cry. That winter she had given up driving out
shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed
at home. She never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her
husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons
that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the
wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition.
She spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now
as she had been in her father's house.

The winter passed cheerlessly. Card-playing was the rule everywhere
in Moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as
singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. And
since there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers
and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment
of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and
monotonous social duty.

Moreover, the Laptevs never had a day without something vexatious
happening. Old Laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to
the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be
blin