and life is absolutely empty.

In this activity we were less conscious of the sufferings of our cohabitation.

Moreover, in the first of it, we had a superb occupation,--the arrangement of the new dwelling, and then, too, the moving from the city to the country, and from the country to the city.
"Thus we spent a winter.

The following winter an incident happened to us which passed unnoticed, but which was the fundamental cause of all that happened later.

My wife was suffering, and the rascals (the doctors) would not permit her to conceive a child, and taught her how to avoid it.