Thedorovna.
Ivan Il'ich, as a subordinate official, generally danced, as a judge he only danced on exceptional occasions. It was, as if he said: Though I have now different functions, and am in the fifth class, nevertheless, if a dance must be danced, I will show that I can do better than others even in that respect. So, now and then, he would dance of an evening with Praskov'ya Thedorovna, and it was principally during these dances that he made a conquest of Praskov'ya Thedorovna. She fell in love with him. Ivan Il'ich had no clear, fixed intention of marrying; but when the girl fell in love with him, he put himself this question: "Why, indeed, should I not marry?"
The girl, Praskov'ya Thedorovna, was of a good old family, and not bad-looking; she also had a little property of her own. Ivan Il'ich might calculate on making a much more brilliant match, yet this was not a bad match. Ivan Il'ich had his salary, and she, so he reckoned, had about the same. Her family was a good one, and she was a gentle, very pretty, and thoroughly well-principled woman. To say that Ivan Il'ich married because he was in love with his fianciè, and found in her a sympathy with his views of life, would have been as inaccurate as to say that he married because the people of his circle had approved of the match. Ivan Il'ich married for two reasons: it was pleasant to him to acquire such a wife, and, at the same time, he did what people of the highest position considered the proper thing to do.
So Ivan Il'ich married.
The very process of marriage and the first period of his wedded life, with the conjugal caresses, the new
