Family Happiness by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (books to read this summer .TXT) 📖

Chapter 2

The journey to Petersburg, a week in Moscow, visits to my own relations and

my husband’s, settling down in our new quarters, travel, new towns and new

faces — all this passed before me like a dream. It was all so new, various,

and delightful, so warmly and brightly lighted up by his presence and his

live, that our quiet life in the country seemed to me something very remote

and unimportant. I had expected to find people in society proud and cold;

but to my great surprise, I was received everywhere with unfeigned

cordiality and pleasure, not only by relations, but also by strangers. I

seemed to be the one object of their thoughts, and my arrival the one thing

they wanted, to complete their happiness. I was surprised too to discover in

what seemed to me the very best society a number of people acquainted with

my husband, though he had never spoken of them to me; and I often felt it

odd and disagreeable to hear him now speak disapprovingly of some of these

people who seemed to me so kind. I could not understand his coolness towards

them or his endeavors to avoid many acquaintances that seemed to me

flattering. Surely, the more kind people one knows, the better; and here

everyone was kind.

 

“This is how we must manage, you see,” he said to me before we left the

country; “here we are little Croesueses, but in town we shall not be at all

rich. So we must not stay after Easter, or go into society, or we shall get

into difficulties. For your sake too I should not wish it.”

 

“Why should we go into society?” I asked; “we shall have a look at the

theaters, see our relations, go to the opera, hear some good music, and be

ready to come home before Easter.”

 

But these plans were forgotten the moment we got the Petersburg. I found

myself at once in such a new and delightful world, surrounded by so many

pleasures and confronted by such novel interests, that I instantly, though

unconsciously, turned my back on my past life and its plans. “All that was

preparatory, a mere playing at life; but here is the real thing! And there

is the future too!” Such were my thoughts. The restlessness and symptoms of

depression which had troubled me at home vanished at once and entirely, as

if by magic. My love for my husband grew calmer, and I ceased to wonder

whether he loved me less. Indeed I could not doubt his love: every thought

of mine was understood at once, every feeling shared, and every wish

gratified by him. His composure, if it still existed, no longer provoked me.

I also began to realize that he not only loved me but was proud of me. If we

paid a call, or made some new acquaintance, or gave an evening party at

which I, trembling inwardly from fear of disgracing myself, acted as

hostess, he often said when it was over: “Bravo, young woman! capital! you

needn’t be frightened; a real success!” And his praise gave me great

pleasure. Soon after our arrival he wrote to his mother and asked me to add

a postscript, but refused to let me see his letter; of course I insisted on

reading it; and he had said: “You would not know Masha again, I don’t

myself. Where does she get that charming graceful self-confidence and ease,

such social gifts with such simplicity and charm and kindliness? Everybody

is delighted with her. I can’t admire her enough myself, and should be more

in love with her than ever, if that were possible.”

 

Now I know what I am like,” I thought. In my joy and pride I felt that I

love him more than before. My success with all our new acquaintances was a

complete surprise to me. I heard on all sides, how this uncle had taken a

special fancy for me, and that aunt was raving about me; I was told by one

admirer that I had no rival among the Petersburg ladies, and assured by

another, a lady, that I might, if I cared, lead the fashion in society. A

cousin of my husband’s, in particular, a Princess D., middle-aged and very

much at home in society, fell in love with me at first sight and paid me

compliments which turned my head. The first time that she invited me to a

ball and spoke to my husband about it, he turned to me and asked if I wished

to go; I could just detect a sly smile on his face. I nodded assent and felt

that I was blushing.

 

“She looks like a criminal when confessing what she wishes,” he said with a

good-natured laugh.

 

“But you said that we must not go into society, and you don’t care for it

yourself,” I answered, smiling and looking imploringly at him.

 

“Let us go, if you want to very much,” he said.

 

“Really, we had better not.”

 

“Do you want to? very badly?” he asked again.

 

I said nothing.

 

“Society in itself is no great harm,” he went on; “but unsatisfied social

aspirations are a bad and ugly business. We must certainly accept, and we

will.”

 

“To tell you the truth,” I said, “I never in my life longed for anything as

much as I do for this ball.”

 

So we went, and my delight exceeded all my expectations. It seemed to me,

more than ever, that I was the center round which everything revolved, that

for my sake alone this great room was lighted up and the band played, and

that this crowd of people had assembled to admire me. From the hairdresser

and the lady’s maid to my partners and the old gentlemen promenading the

ball room, all alike seemed to make it plain that they were in love with me.

The general verdict formed at the ball about me and reported by my cousin,

came to this: I was quite unlike the other women and had a rural simplicity

and charm of my own. I was so flattered by my success that I frankly told my

husband I should like to attend two or three more balls during the season,

and “so get thoroughly sick of them,” I added; but I did not mean what I

said.

 

He agreed readily; and he went with me at first with obvious satisfaction.

He took pleasure in my success, and seemed to have quite forgotten his

former warning or to have changed his opinion.

 

But a time came when he was evidently bored and wearied by the life we were

leading. I was too busy, however, to think about that. Even if I sometimes

noticed his eyes fixed questioningly on me with a serious attentive gaze, I

did not realize its meaning. I was utterly blinded by this sudden affection

which I seemed to evoke in all our new acquaintances, and confused by the

unfamiliar atmosphere of luxury, refinement, and novelty. It pleased me so

much to find myself in these surroundings not merely his equal but his

superior, and yet to love him better and more independently than before,

that I could not understand what he could object to for me in society life.

I had a new sense of pride and self-satisfaction when my entry at a ball

attracted all eyes, while he, as if ashamed to confess his ownership of me

in public, made haste to leave my side and efface himself in the crowd of

black coats. “Wait a little!” I often said in my heart, when I identified

his obscure and sometimes woebegone figure at the end of the room — “Wait

till we get home! Then you will see and understand for whose sake I try to

be beautiful and brilliant, and what it is I love in all that surrounds me

this evening!” I really believed that my success pleased me only because it

enabled me to give it up for his sake. One danger I recognized as possible

— that I might be carried away by a fancy for some new acquaintance, and

that my husband might grow jealous. But he trusted me so absolutely, and

seemed so undisturbed and indifferent, and all the young men were so

inferior to him, that I was not alarmed by this one danger. Yet the

attention of so many people in society gave me satisfaction, flattered my

vanity, and made me think that there was some merit in my love for my

husband. Thus I became more offhand and self-confident in my behavior to

him.

 

‘Oh, I saw you this evening carrying on a most animated conversation with

Mme N.,” I said one night on returning from a ball, shaking my finger at

him. He had really been talking to this lady, who was a well-known figure in

Petersburg society. He was more silent and depressed than usual, and I said

this to rouse him up.

 

“What is to good of talking like that, for you especially, Masha?” he said

with half-closed teeth and frowning as if in pain. “Leave that to others; it

does not suit you and me. Pretence of that sort may spoil the true relation

between us, which I still hope may come back.”

 

I was ashamed and said nothing.

 

“Will it ever come