was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he
had met his wife’s words.

There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when
they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not
succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed
towards his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of being hurt,
denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining
indifferent even—anything would have been better than what he did
do—his face utterly involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected
Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)—utterly involuntarily
assumed its habitual, good-humored, and therefore idiotic smile.

This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight of that
smile, Dolly shuddered as though at physical pain, broke out with her
characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and rushed out of the
room. Since then she had refused to see her husband.

“It’s that idiotic smile that’s to blame for it all,” thought Stepan
Arkadyevitch.

“But what’s to be done? What’s to be done?” he said to himself in
despair, and found no answer.

Chapter 2

Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself.
He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he
repented of his conduct. He could not at this date repent of the fact
that he, a handsome, susceptible man of thirty-four, was not in love
with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, and
only a year younger than himself. All he repented of was that he had
not succeeded better in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all the
difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his children,
and himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better
from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of them would
have had such an effect on her. He had never clearly thought out the
subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his wife must long ago have
suspected him of being unfaithful to her, and shut her eyes to the
fact. He had even supposed that she, a worn-out woman no longer young

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