Let me tell you,
madam, let me tell you that I should have been equal to this position,
and not only this position but a dozen positions like it, for I have
abilities; but with you, madam, with you--it's impossible, for with
you here I have no abilities. There cannot be two centres, and you have
created two--one of mine and one in your boudoir--two centres of power,
madam, but I won't allow it, I won't allow it! In the service, as in
marriage, there must be one centre, two are impossible.... How have you
repaid me?" he went on. "Our marriage has been nothing but your proving
to me all the time, every hour, that I am a nonentity, a fool, and
even a rascal, and I have been all the time, every hour, forced in a
degrading way to prove to you that I am not a nonentity, not a fool at
all, and that I impress every one with my honourable character. Isn't
that degrading for both sides?"

At this point he began rapidly stamping with both feet on the carpet,
so that Yulia Mihailovna was obliged to get up with stern dignity. He
subsided quickly, but passed to being pathetic and began sobbing (yes,
sobbing!), beating himself on the breast almost for five minutes,
getting more and more frantic at Yulia Mihailovna's profound silence. At
last he made a fatal blunder, and let slip that he was jealous of Pyotr
Stepanovitch. Realising that he had made an utter fool of himself, he
became savagely furious, and shouted that he "would not allow them to
deny God" and that he would "send her _salon_ of irresponsible infidels
packing," that the governor of a province was bound to believe in God
"and so his wife was too," that he wouldn't put up with these young
men; that "you, madam, for the sake of your own dignity, ought to have
thought of your husband and to have stood up for his intelligence even
if he were a man of poor abilities (and I'm by no means a man of poor
abilities!), and yet it's your doing that every one here despises me, it
was you put them all up to it!" He shouted that he would annihilate
the woman question, that he would eradicate every trace of it, that
to-morrow he would forbid and break up their silly fete for the benefit
of the governesses (damn them!), that the first governess he came across
to-morrow morning he would drive out of the province "with a Cossack!
I'll make a point of it!" he shrieked. "Do you know," he screamed, "do
you know that your rascals are inciting men at the factory, and that I
know it? Let me tell