“Why are we stopping here?” she asked.

“This is a junction.  They are waiting for the mail train to pass.”

Seeing that Artynov was looking at her, she screwed up her eyes coquettishly and began talking aloud in French; and because her voice sounded so pleasant, and because she heard music and the moon was reflected in the pond, and because Artynov, the notorious Don Juan and spoiled child of fortune, was looking at her eagerly and with curiosity, and because every one was in good spirits—­she suddenly felt joyful, and when the train started and the officers of her acquaintance saluted her, she was humming the polka the strains of which reached her from the military band playing beyond the trees; and she returned to her compartment feeling as though it had been proved to her at the station that she would certainly be happy in spite of everything.

The happy pair spent two days at the monastery, then went back to town.  They lived in a rent-free flat.  When Modest Alexevitch had gone to the office, Anna played the piano, or shed tears of depression, or lay down on a couch and read novels or looked through fashion papers.  At dinner Modest Alexevitch ate a great deal and talked about politics, about appointments, transfers, and promotions in the service, about the necessity of hard work, and said that, family life not being a pleasure but a duty, if you took care of the kopecks the roubles would take care of themselves, and that he put religion and morality before everything else in the world.  And holding his knife in his fist as though it were a sword, he would say: 

“Every one ought to have his duties!”

And Anna listened to him, was frightened, and could not eat, and she usually got up from the table hungry.  After dinner her husband lay down for a nap and snored loudly, while Anna went to see her own people.  Her father and the boys looked at her in a peculiar way, as though just before she came in they had been blaming her for having married for money a tedious, wearisome man she did not love; her rustling skirts, her bracelets, and her general air of a married lady, offended them and made them uncomfortable.  In her presence they felt a little embarrassed and did not know what to talk to her about; but yet they still loved her as before, and were not used to having dinner without her.  She sat down with them to cabbage soup, porridge, and fried potatoes, smelling of mutton dripping.  Pyotr Leontyitch filled his glass from the decanter with a trembling hand and drank it off hurriedly, greedily, with repulsion, then poured out a second glass and then a third.  Petya and Andrusha, thin, pale boys with big eyes, would take the decanter and say desperately: 

“You mustn’t, father. . . .  Enough, father. . . .”

And Anna, too, was troubled and entreated him to drink no more; and he would suddenly fly into a rage and beat the table with his fists: 

“I won’t allow any one to dictate to me!” he would shout.  “Wretched boys! wretched girl!  I’ll turn you all out!”