Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way.

     Everything at the Oblonskys' was topsy-turvy.
Oblonsky's wife had found out that he had been having an
affair with the French governess who used to live with them,
and told him she could no longer stay under the same roof
with him.  This was the third day things had been this way,
and not only the married couple themselves, but the family
and the whole household were painfully aware of it.
Everyone in the house felt that there was no sense in their
living together, and that people who had casually dropped
into any inn would have more connection with each other than
they, the Oblonsky family and household.  Oblonsky's wife
refused to leave her rooms; he himself hadn't been home for
three days.  The children were running around the house as
though lost; the English governess had had a quarrel with
the housekeeper and written to a friend of hers asking her
to look out for a new job for her; the day before  the cook
had picked dinnertime to go out; the kitchen maid and
coachman had given notice.

     The third day after the quarrel Prince Stephen
Arkadyevich Oblonsky -- Stiva, as he was called in society
-- woke up at his usual time, that is, eight in the morning,
not in his wife's bedroom but in his own study, on the
leather covered sofa.  He twisted his plump, well-kept body
on the springy sofa; then he suddenly jumped up, sat down on
the sofa, and opened his eyes.  It was just then that he
suddenly recalled why he wasn't sleeping in his wife's
bedroom, but in his study; the smile vanished from his face
and he frowned.

     What had been most disagreeable of all was the first
moment when, on coming back cheerful and satisfied from the
theater with a huge pear for his wife in his hand, he had
not, to his surprise, found her in the drawing room or in
his study, but finally saw her in her bedroom holding the
unlucky note that had revealed everything.

     What happened then was what happens to people who are
caught at something shameful.  He couldn't manage to put on
the right expression for his situation with respect to his
wife now that his guilt was exposed.  Instead of acting
offended, making denials or excuses, asking forgiveness, or
even remaining indifferent -- anything would have been
better than what he did do! -- his face quite involuntarily
(a reflex of the brain, he thought; he was fond of
physiology) suddenly took on its usual goodhearted and
therefore silly smile.

     Oblonsky was honest with himself.  He could not deceive
himself by telling himself that he repented of his conduct.
He could not feel repentant that he, a handsome, amorous man
of thirty-four, was not in love with his wife, the mother of
five living and two dead children, who was only a year
younger than he.  He only regretted that he hadn't been able
to conceal things from her better...