This would have been well enough had he
not persisted in talking about matters of art and literature, of
which, of course, he knew nothing. He did it, I believe, to please his
wife and myself. I despised him for many things and yet, in my heart,
I knew that he had much that I had not. He was, and is, a finer man
than I.... And, last and first of all, he possessed part of his wife
that I did not. After all, she did, in her own beautiful way, love
him. She was a mother to him; she laughed tenderly at his foolishness,
cared for him, watched over him, defended him. Me she would never need
to defend. Our relationship was built rather on my defence of her.
Sometimes I would wish that I were such a _durak_ as Andrey
Vassilievitch, that I might have her protection.... There were many,
many times when I hated him--no times at all when he did not irritate
me. I wished.... I wished.... I do not know what I wished. Only I
always waited for the time when I should have all of her, when I
should hold her against all the world.
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