And so their life went on from day to day, monotonous and tiresome, like a rainy evening, when everything is wet, gray, and cloudy—an oppressive, colorless life. “We live just as if we were turning over the pages of a cook-book. One day only differs from another in so far as that yesterday we had rice soup and cutlets for dinner, and to-day cabbage soup and cutlets,” sometimes thought Xenia Pavlovna, and a kind of despair suddenly took possession of all her being, and it seemed to her that she must decide on something, do something. But what should she do? And in reply to this a sad smile appeared on her lips—gentle and helpless—and her eyes filled with unbidden tears.
Then she would get a fit of the blues. Everything suddenly began to bore her, she did not care to see any one, nor talk to any one; it seemed to her that people spoke not of what they thought, nor of what interested them, but were, on the contrary, doing their best to hide their real thoughts; that they laughed at things not because they thought them laughable, but simply from politeness and wishing to appear amiable. And that all of them were only pretending to be good and clever, while in reality they were trivial, stupid, and unbearably tiresome.
She sat down at the window, resting her head on her hand, and looked out upon the street, where the tiresome, hateful day was dying away in a gray twilight. She remembered her youth, when life had seemed so big, with immeasurable horizons enveloped in an alluring, dove-colored mist, so interesting in its endless variations, so enigmatic and incomprehensible; when it seemed that the most important and wished-for thing was still before her, when her maiden heart stood still with fear and curiosity before the unknown future, when her heart was filled with a vague alarm in the expectation of a great happiness, perhaps the happiness of a triumphant love. And here it is—real life. The horizon ends with the grocery store across the street and is enveloped in the poesy of the cook-book. All of them live from day to day, are bored, gossip, speak of their dwellings, servants, occupations, play cards, bear children, and complain—the husbands about their wives and the wives about their husbands. And there is no triumphant love anywhere—but only triumphant triviality, rascality, and ennui. All that was interesting in life was already a thing of the past, it had all happened long before; then she had been supremely happy, and that happiness—which is given to one only once in life—passed away imperceptibly, and would nevermore return.
It grew darker; on the streets appeared timidly blinking yellow lights. The bells rang for vespers, and this ringing of the church-bells awakened in her soul something vague and alarming: a sad longing for something which had gone forever; or was it that it reproached the soul soiled by life? “Evening bells, evening bells!” Xenia whispered with a deep sigh.
Suddenly in the dim drawing-room appeared a whitish figure: it was Iván Mikhailovich, who came out of his study without a vest. He stretched, yawned, let out an “O-go-go-go!” and remarked: “I dined well and enjoyed a splendid snooze. What are you dreaming about?”
“Oh, just so, I was thinking what a tiresome affair it is to live in this world!”
“How is that! After you have given birth to three children you all at once begin to find life tiresome?”
“Oh, how commonplace and trivial this is!”
“Well, you are again in the dumps!” Iván Mikhailovich spoke angrily and turned away. Xenia Pavlovna broke into a laugh, then this laugh became intermixed with crying, and ended in hysterics.
“W-ell! The devil is loose!” muttered Iván Mikhailovich, and rang for the maid, whom he ordered to fetch some water. “Cold, from the faucet.”