Apart from the fact that there were signs of trouble in the province, of which we will speak later, he had private reasons for brooding, his heart was wounded, not merely his official dignity.

When Andrey Antonovitch had entered upon married life, he had never conceived the possibility of conjugal strife, or dissension in the future.

It was inconsistent with the dreams he had cherished all his life of his Minna or Ernestine.

He felt that he was unequal to enduring domestic storms.

Yulia Mihailovna had an open explanation with him at last.
"You can't be angry at this," she said, "if only because you've still as much sense as he has, and are immeasurably higher in the social scale.
The boy still preserves many traces of his old free-thinking habits; I believe it's simply mischief; but one can do nothing suddenly, in a hurry; you must do things by degrees.