never saw anything but a misfortune in it, and always felt sympathy for it,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, though indeed this was not the fact, and he had never felt sympathy for misfortunes of that kind, but the more frequently he had heard of instances of unfaithful wives betraying their husbands, the more highly he had thought of himself. “It is a misfortune which may befall anyone. And this misfortune has befallen me. The only thing to be done is to make the best of the position.”

And he began passing in review the methods of proceeding of men who had been in the same position that he was in.

“Daryalov fought a duel....”

The duel had particularly fascinated the thoughts of Alexey Alexandrovitch in his youth,