Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either.

" But three months had passed and he had not left off minding about it; and it was as painful for him to think of it as it had been those first days.

He could not be at peace because after dreaming so long of family life, and feeling himself so ripe for it, he was still not married, and was further than ever from marriage.

He was painfully conscious himself, as were all about him, that at his years it is not well for man to be alone.

He remembered how before starting for Moscow he had once said to his cowman Nikolay, a simple-hearted peasant, whom he liked talking to: "Well, Nikolay! I mean to get married," and how Nikolay had promptly answered, as of a matter on which there could be no possible doubt: "And high time too, Konstantin Demitrievitch.