first by not being a husband to his wife, and secondly by not allowing himself to suspect.
“No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced her former infatuations,” he told himself. “There has never been an instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the heart”—a statement which, though gathered from an unknown source, he believed implicitly.
Yet strange to say Borís’ presence in his wife’s drawing room (and he was almost always there) had a physical effect upon Pierre; it constricted his limbs and destroyed the unconsciousness and freedom of his movements.
“What a strange antipathy,” thought Pierre, “yet I used to like him very much.”
In the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather blind and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who did nothing but harmed nobody and was