and thus depriving himself of a large part of his income. He decided to settle this business now, at once, while he was there. The reaping and selling of the corn he left for the steward to manage in due season, and also the selling of the agricultural implements and useless buildings. But he asked his steward to call the peasants of the three neighbouring villages that lay in the midst of his estate (Kousminski) to a meeting, at which he would tell them of his intentions and arrange about the price at which they were to rent the land.
With the pleasant sense of the firmness he had shown in the face of the steward's arguments, and his readiness to make a sacrifice, Nekhludoff left the office, thinking over the business before him, and strolled round the house, through the neglected flower-garden—this year the flowers were planted in front of the steward's house—over the tennis ground, now overgrown with dandelions, and along the lime-tree walk, where he used to smoke his cigar, and where he had flirted with the pretty Kirimova, his mother's visitor. Having briefly prepared in his mind the speech he was going to make to the peasants, he again went in to the steward, and, after tea, having once more arranged his thoughts, he went into the room prepared for him in the big house, which used to be a spare bedroom.
In this clean little room, with pictures of Venice on the walls, and a mirror between the two windows, there stood a clean bed with a spring mattress, and by the side of it a small table, with a decanter of water, matches, and an extinguisher. On a table by the looking-glass lay his open portmanteau, with his dressing-case and some books in it; a Russian book, The Investigation of the Laws of Criminality, and a German and an English book on the same subject, which he meant to read while travelling in the country. But it was too late to begin to-day, and he began preparing to go to bed.
An old-fashioned inlaid mahogany arm-chair stood in the corner of the room, and this chair, which Nekhludoff remembered standing in his mother's bedroom, suddenly raised a perfectly unexpected sensation in his soul. He was suddenly filled with regret at the thought of the house that would tumble to ruin, and the garden that would run wild, and the forest that would be cut down, and all these farmyards, stables, sheds, machines, horses, cows which he knew had cost so much effort, though not to himself, to acquire and to keep. It had seemed easy to give up all this, but now it was hard, not only to give this, but even to let the land and lose half his income. And at once a consideration, which proved that it was unreasonable to let the land to the peasants, and thus to destroy his property, came to his service. 'I must not hold property in land. If I possess no property in land, I cannot keep up the house and farm. And, besides, I am going to Siberia, and shall not need either the house or the estate,' said one voice. 'All this is so,' said another voice, 'but you are not going to spend all your life in Siberia. You may marry, and have children, and must hand the estate on to them in as good a condition as you received it. There is a duty to the land, too. To give up, to destroy everything is very easy; to acquire it very difficult. Above all, you must consider your future life, and what you will do with yourself, and you must dispose of your property accordingly. And are you really firm in your resolve? And then, are you really acting according to your conscience, or are you acting in order to be admired of men?' Nekhludoff asked himself all this, and had to acknowledge that he was influenced by the thought of what people would say about him. And the more he thought about it the more questions arose, and the more unsolvable they seemed.
In hopes of ridding himself of these thoughts by falling asleep, and solving them in the morning when his head would be fresh, he lay down on his clean bed. But it was long before he could sleep. Together with the fresh air and the moonlight, the croaking of the frogs entered the room, mingling with the trills of a couple of nightingales in the park and one close to the window in a bush of lilacs in bloom. Listening to the nightingales and the frogs, Nekhludoff remembered the inspector's daughter, and her music, and the inspector; that reminded him of Maslova, and how her lips trembled, like the croaking of the frogs, when she said, 'You must just leave it.' Then the German steward began going down to the frogs, and had to be held back, but he not only went down but turned into Maslova, who began reproaching Nekhludoff, saying, 'You are a prince, and I am a convict.' 'No, I must not give in,' thought Nekhludoff, waking up, and again asking himself, 'Is what I am doing right? I do not know, and no matter, no matter, I must only fall asleep now.' And he began himself to descend where he had seen the inspector and Maslova climbing down to, and there it all ended.
CHAPTER II.
EFFORTS AT LAND RESTORATION.
The next day Nekhludoff awoke at nine o'clock. The young office clerk who attended on 'the master' brought him his boots, shining as they had never shone before, and some cold, beautifully clear spring water, and informed him that the peasants were already assembling.
Nekhludoff jumped out of bed, and collected his thoughts. Not a trace of yesterday's regret at giving up and thus destroying his property remained now. He remembered this feeling of regret with surprise; he was now looking forward with joy to the task before him, and could not help being proud of it. He could see from the window the old tennis ground, overgrown with dandelions, on which the peasants were beginning to assemble. The frogs had not croaked in vain the night before; the day was dull. There was no wind; a soft warm rain had begun falling in the morning, and hung in drops on leaves, twigs, and grass. Besides the smell of the fresh vegetation, the smell of damp earth, asking for more rain, entered in at the window. While dressing, Nekhludoff several times looked out at the peasants gathered on the tennis ground. One by one they came, took off their hats or caps to one another, and took their places in a circle, leaning on their sticks. The steward, a stout, muscular, strong young man, dressed in a short pea-jacket, with a green stand-up collar, and enormous buttons, came to say that all had assembled, but that they might wait until Nekhludoff had finished his breakfast—tea and coffee, whichever he pleased; both were ready.
'No, I think I had better go and see them at once,' said Nekhludoff, with an unexpected feeling of shyness and shame at the thought of the conversation he was going to have with the peasants. He was going to fulfil a wish of the peasants, the fulfilment of which they did not even dare to hope for—to let the land to them at a low price, i.e., to confer a great boon; and yet he felt ashamed of something. When Nekhludoff came up to the peasants, and the fair, the curly, the bald, the grey heads were bared before him, he felt so confused that he could say nothing. The rain continued to come down in small drops, that remained on the hair, the beards, and the fluff of the men's rough coats. The peasants looked at 'the master,' waiting for him to speak, and he was so abashed that he could not speak. This confused silence was broken by the sedate, self-assured German steward, who considered himself a good judge of the Russian peasant, and who spoke Russian remarkably well. This strong, over-fed man, and Nekhludoff himself, presented a striking contrast to the peasants, with their thin, wrinkled faces and the shoulder blades protruding beneath their coarse coats.
'Here's the Prince wanting to do you a favor, and to let the land to you; only you are not worthy of it,' said the steward.
'How are we not worthy of it, Vasili Karlovitch? Don't we work for you? We were well satisfied with the deceased lady—God have mercy on her soul—and the young Prince will not desert us now. Our thanks to him,' said a redhaired, talkative peasant.
'Yes, that's why I have called you together. I should like to let you have all the land, if you wish it.'
The peasants said nothing, as if they did not understand or did not believe it.
'Let's see. Let us have the land? What do you mean?' asked a middle-aged man.
'To let it to you, that you might have the use of it, at a low rent.'
'A very agreeable thing,' said an old man.
'If only the pay is such as we can afford,' said another.
'There's no reason why we should not rent the land.'
'We are accustomed to live by tilling the ground.'
'And it's quieter for you, too, that way. You'll have to do nothing but receive the rent. Only think of all the sin and worry now!' several voices were heard saying.
'The sin is all on your side,' the German remarked. 'If only you did your work, and were orderly.'
'That's impossible for the likes of us,' said a sharp-nosed old man. 'You say, 'Why do you let the horse get into the corn?' just as if I let it in. Why, I was swinging my scythe, or something of the kind, the livelong day, till the day seemed as long as a year, and so I fell asleep while watching the herd of horses at night, and it got into your oats, and now you're skinning me.'
'And you should keep order.'
