Youth by Leo Tolstoy Chapter 24 Page 9

wherefore you had better not be read to at all.

You may wish to walk about the room — and she will tell you that it would be far better for you not to do so. You may wish to talk with some friends who have called — and she will tell you that talking is not good for you. At nightfall the fever may come upon you again, and you may wish to be left alone whereupon your loving wife, though wasted, pale, and full of yawns, will go on sitting in a chair opposite you, as dusk falls, until her very slightest movement, her very slightest sound, rouses you to feelings of anger and impatience. You may have a servant who has lived with you for twenty years, and to whom you are attached, and who would tend you well and to your satisfaction during the night, for the reason that he has been asleep all day and is, moreover,