his jealousies or suspicions; and the tone of raillery habitual with Alekseï Aleksandrovitch was to the highest degree useful to him in his present relations with his wife. He was somewhat cooler in his treatment of her, although he seemed to have felt only a slight ill-will toward her after that night's conversation which she had refused to listen to. In his relations to her there was a shade of spite, but nothing more. He seemed to say, "You have not been willing to have an understanding with me; so much the worse for you. Now you must make the first advances, and I, in my turn, will not listen to you."
"So much the worse for you," said he in his thought, like a man who should try in vain to put out a fire and should be angry at his vain efforts, and should say, "I have done my best for you; burn then!"
This man, so keen and shrewd in matters of public concern, could not see the absurdity of such behavior to his wife. He did not understand it because it was too terrible to understand his actual position. He preferred to bury the affection which he felt for his wife and child deep in his heart, as in a box locked and sealed. He, a watchful father, had begun toward the end of that winter to be singularly cold toward the child, speaking to him in the same bantering tone that he used toward his wife. When he addressed him he would say, "Ah, young man!"
Alekseï Aleksandrovitch thought and declared that he had never had so many important affairs as this year; but he did not confess that he had himself undertaken them in order to keep from opening his secret coffer which contained his sentiments toward his wife and his family, and his thoughts concerning them,—thoughts which grew more and more terrible to him the longer he kept them out of sight.
If any one had assumed the right to ask him what he thought about his wife's conduct, this calm and pacific Alekseï Aleksandrovitch would have made no reply, but would have been very indignant with the man who should dare to ask him such a question. And so his
