幸福的家庭都是相似的，不幸的家庭各有各的不幸。
奥布隆斯基家里一切都乱了套。妻子发现丈夫与从前家里的一位法籍女家庭教师私通，便向丈夫宣布：她无法再与他同住一室了。这种状况已经持续了三天，不仅夫妻俩自己，就连全家上下都痛苦地感受到了。家里的每个人都知道，他们这样住在一起毫无意义，就连任何客栈里萍水相逢的旅客，彼此之间的关系也比奥布隆斯基一家要亲近些。妻子没有走出自己的房间，丈夫已经三天没回家了。孩子们满屋子乱跑，到处疯玩；英籍家庭女教师与女管家吵了一架，还写信给朋友，请朋友帮她找份新差事；前天午餐时厨师就走了；厨娘和马车夫也辞了工。
争吵后的第三天，斯捷潘·阿尔卡季奇·奥布隆斯基公爵——他在上流社会里有个外号叫“斯蒂瓦”——在通常醒来的时刻，也就是早上八点钟醒了过来，不是睡在妻子的卧室里，而是睡在自己书房里那张蒙着皮面的沙发上。他把自己保养得很好的肥壮身躯在富有弹性的沙发上翻了个身，仿佛还想再睡个长长的回笼觉似的；他使劲抱住另一面的枕头，把脸埋进枕头里；但他突然一骨碌爬起来，在沙发上坐起身，睁开了眼睛。
“对，对，刚才梦里是怎么回事？”他想着，回忆着刚才的梦。“刚才，是怎么回事？想起来了！阿拉宾在达姆施塔特请客吃饭；不对，不是达姆施塔特，而是某个美国城市。对了，但达姆施塔特是在美国。没错，阿拉宾在玻璃桌上请客吃饭，那些桌子还唱起歌来：Il mio tesoro——不对，不是Il mio tesoro，而是更好听的曲子，桌上还摆着些小酒瓶，那些酒瓶也是女人，”他回忆着。
斯捷潘·阿尔卡季奇的眼睛快活地闪着光，他含笑沉思。“对，那梦不错，真不错。还有很多美妙的情景，只是无法用言语表达，甚至醒来后也无法用思想表达。”他注意到一道亮光从一块呢绒窗帘旁透进来，便快活地放下双腿，探到沙发边上，用脚摸索着那双拖鞋——那双拖鞋是他妻子用金黄色摩洛哥皮做的，是他上次过生日时妻子送给他的礼物。于是，和这九年来他每天都在做的那样，他没有起身，伸手到卧室里一向挂着晨衣的地方。这时，他突然想起，他并没有睡在妻子的卧室里，而是睡在书房里，并且想起了原因：笑容从他脸上消失了，他皱起了眉头。
“唉，唉，唉！喔！……”他把一切经过都回想起来以后，喃喃地说。接着，他和妻子吵架的每一个细节，他处境的无望，以及最糟糕的是，他自己的过错，又一齐涌上了他的心头。
“是的，她不会原谅我，也没法原谅我。最可怕的是，这一切都是我的错——都是我的错，虽然我并不是有意的。这就是整个局面的关键所在，”他想道。“唉，唉，唉！”他绝望地反复叹息着，同时回忆起这次吵架给他带来的种种剧烈的痛苦。
最不愉快的是最初那一刻：那天他从剧院回来，高高兴兴、兴致勃勃，手里拿着一只大梨子，准备送给妻子，但发现妻子不在客厅里，又惊奇地发现她也不在书房里，最后在卧室里找到了她，她手里拿着那封倒霉的信——那封信暴露了一切。
她，他的多莉，那个在他看来总是为家务事操劳烦恼、思想又很狭隘的女人，正一动不动地坐着，手里攥着那封信，脸上带着恐惧、绝望和愤怒的神情望着他。
“这是什么？这是什么？”她指着那封信问道。
一回忆起这件事，斯捷潘·阿尔卡季奇就像通常遇到这种情况那样，与其说是为事情本身感到烦恼，不如说是为自己当时回答妻子的话语时的态度感到烦恼。
他当时恰好遇到了人们通常在被意外地撞见干了十分丢脸的事时的那副样儿。他没能让自己的脸孔适应被妻子发现他的过错后所处的境地。他不该感到委屈、否认、为自己辩护、请求宽恕，甚至不该表现得无所谓——任何表情都比他当时做出的表情要好——但他的脸孔却完全不由自主地（斯捷潘·阿尔卡季奇是喜欢生理学的，他认为这是脊髓神经的反射作用）——完全不由自主地露出了他平日那种惯常的、和善的、因而也是愚蠢的微笑。
他无法原谅自己这种愚蠢的微笑。多莉一看到这种微笑，犹如感到肉体上的疼痛一般，打了个哆嗦，随即以她特有的暴躁脾气说了一大堆尖刻刺耳的话，便冲出了房间。从此以后，她就拒绝再见到丈夫。
“都是这该死的微笑惹的祸，”斯捷潘·阿尔卡季奇想道。
“可是怎么办呢？怎么办呢？”他绝望地自言自语，却找不到答案。
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its
own way.
Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys’ house. The wife had
discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French
girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced
to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with
him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only
the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family
and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the
house felt that there was no sense in their living together, and that
the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in
common with one another than they, the members of the family and
household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the
husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all
over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper,
and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for
her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time;
the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given warning.
Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch
Oblonsky—Stiva, as he was called in the fashionable world—woke up at
his usual hour, that is, at eight o’clock in the morning, not in his
wife’s bedroom, but on the leather-covered sofa in his study. He turned
over his stout, well-cared-for person on the springy sofa, as though he
would sink into a long sleep again; he vigorously embraced the pillow
on the other side and buried his face in it; but all at once he jumped
up, sat up on the sofa, and opened his eyes.
“Yes, yes, how was it now?” he thought, going over his dream. “Now, how
was it? To be sure! Alabin was giving a dinner at Darmstadt; no, not
Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in
America. Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the
tables sang, _Il mio tesoro_—not _Il mio tesoro_ though, but something
better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and
they were women, too,” he remembered.
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a
smile. “Yes, it was nice, very nice. There was a great deal more that
was delightful, only there’s no putting it into words, or even
expressing it in one’s thoughts awake.” And noticing a gleam of light
peeping in beside one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his
feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt about with them for his
slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on
gold-colored morocco. And, as he had done every day for the last nine
years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, towards the place
where his dressing-gown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he
suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife’s room, but in
his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his
brows.
“Ah, ah, ah! Oo!...” he muttered, recalling everything that had
happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was
present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and
worst of all, his own fault.
“Yes, she won’t forgive me, and she can’t forgive me. And the most
awful thing about it is that it’s all my fault—all my fault, though I’m
not to blame. That’s the point of the whole situation,” he reflected.
“Oh, oh, oh!” he kept repeating in despair, as he remembered the
acutely painful sensations caused him by this quarrel.
Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming, happy and
good-humored, from the theater, with a huge pear in his hand for his
wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing-room, to his surprise
had not found her in the study either, and saw her at last in her
bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed everything in her hand.
She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household details,
and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting perfectly still
with the letter in her hand, looking at him with an expression of
horror, despair, and indignation.
“What’s this? this?” she asked, pointing to the letter.
And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevitch, as is so often the case,
was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he
had met his wife’s words.
There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when
they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not
succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed
towards his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of being hurt,
denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining
indifferent even—anything would have been better than what he did
do—his face utterly involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected
Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)—utterly involuntarily
assumed its habitual, good-humored, and therefore idiotic smile.
This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight of that
smile, Dolly shuddered as though at physical pain, broke out with her
characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and rushed out of the
room. Since then she had refused to see her husband.
“It’s that idiotic smile that’s to blame for it all,” thought Stepan
Arkadyevitch.
“But what’s to be done? What’s to be done?” he said to himself in
despair, and found no answer.
