He saw before him an immense field of action for his whole life, which he would devote to well-doing and in which consequently he would be happy. There was no need to search for a sphere of activity: it lay ready before him; he had a direct duty – he owned serfs.… And what a joyful and grateful task lay before him! ‘To influence this simple, receptive, unperverted class of people; to save them from poverty, give them a sufficiency, transmit to them an education which fortunately I possess, to reform their vices arising from ignorance and superstition, to develop their morality, to make them love the right.… What a brilliant, happy future! And I, who do it all for my own happiness, shall in return enjoy their gratitude, and see myself advancing day by day further and further towards the appointed aim. A marvellous future! How could I have failed to see it before?
‘And besides all that,’ he thought at the same time, ‘what prevents my being happy in the love of a woman, in the joys of family life?’ And his youthful imagination painted a still more enchanting future. ‘I and my wife, whom I love as no one ever before loved anyone in the world, will always live amid this peaceful poetic nature, with our children and perhaps with my old aunt. We have our mutual love, our love for our children, and we both know that our aim is to do good. We help each other to move towards that goal. I shall make general arrangements, give general and just assistance, carry on the farm, a savings-bank and workshops, while she, with her pretty little head, wearing a simple white dress which she lifts above her dainty foot, walks through the mud to the peasant school, to the infirmary, to some unfortunate peasant who strictly speaking does not deserve aid, and everywhere brings consolation and help. The children, the old men, and the old women, adore her and look on her as an angel – as Providence. Then she returns, and conceals from me the fact that she has been to see the unfortunate peasant and given him some money; but I know it all and embrace her tightly, and firmly and tenderly kiss her lovely eyes, her shyly blushing cheeks, and her smiling rosy lips.’
Chapter XIX
‘WHERE are those dreams?’ thought the young man now as he neared his house after his visits. ‘For more than a year I have been seeking happiness in that way, and what have I found? It is true I sometimes feel that I have a right to be satisfied with myself, but it is a dry, reasoning sort of satisfaction. No, that is not true, I am simply dissatisfied with myself! I am dissatisfied because I do not find happiness here, and I long for happiness so passionately. I have not only experienced no enjoyment, I have cut myself off from all that gives it. Why? What for? Who is the better for it? My aunt was right when she wrote that it is easier to find happiness for oneself than to give it to others. Have my peasants grown richer? Are they more educated or morally more developed? Not at all! They are no better off, and it grows harder for me every day. If I saw my plans succeeding, or met with any gratitude … but no, I see a false routine, vice, suspicion, helplessness. I am wasting the best years of my life in vain,’ he thought, and remembered that he had heard from his nurse that his neighbours called him a whipper-snapper; that he had no money left in the counting-house, that his newly-introduced threshing machine, to the general amusement of the peasants, had only whistled and had not threshed anything when for the first time it was started at the threshing-floor before a large audience; and that he had to expect officials from the Land Court any day to take an inventory of his estate because, tempted by different new undertakings, he had let the payments on his mortgage lapse. And suddenly, as vividly as the walk in the forest and the dream of a landlord’s life had presented themselves to his mind before, so now did his little room in Moscow, where as a student he had sat late at night, by the light of one candle, with his beloved sixteen-year-old friend and comrade. They had read and repeated some dry notes on civic law for five hours on end, and having finished them had sent for supper and gone shares in the price of a bottle of champagne, and discussed the future awaiting them. How very different the future had appeared to the young student! Then it had been full of enjoyment, of varied activities, of brilliant success, and indubitably led them both to what then seemed the greatest blessing in the world – fame!
‘He is already getting on, rapidly getting on, along that road,’ thought Nekhlyúdov of his friend, ‘while I …’
But by this time he was already approaching the porch of his house, where ten or more peasant- and domestic-serfs stood awaiting him with various requests, and his dreams were replaced by realities.
There was a tattered, dishevelled, blood-stained peasant woman who complained with tears that her father-in-law wanted to kill her: there were two brothers, who for two years had been quarrelling about the division of a peasant farm between them, and now stood gazing at one another with desperate hatred: and there was an unshaven grey-headed domestic serf, with hands trembling from drunkenness, whom his son, the gardener, had brought to the master with a complaint of his depraved conduct: there was a peasant who had turned his wife out of the house because she had not worked all spring: and there was his wife, a sick woman who did not speak, but sat on the grass near the entrance, sobbing and showing an inflamed and swollen leg roughly bandaged with dirty rags.…
Nekhlyúdov listened to all the petitions and complaints, and having given advice to some, settled the disputes of others, and made promises to yet others, went to his room with a mixed feeling of weariness, shame, helplessness, and remorse.
Chapter XX
IN the room occupied by Nekhlyúdov – which was not a large one – there was an old leather couch studded with brass nails, several arm-chairs of a similar kind, an old-fashioned carved and inlaid card-table with a brass rim, which stood open and on which were some papers, and an open, old-fashioned English grand piano with a yellowish case and worn and warped narrow keys. Between the windows hung a large mirror in an old gilt carved frame. On the floor beside the table lay bundles of papers, books, and accounts. In general the whole room had a disorderly and characterless appearance, and this air of untidy occupancy formed a sharp contrast to the stiff, old-fashioned aristocratic arrangement of the other rooms of the large house.
On entering the room Nekhlyúdov angrily flung his hat on the table and sat down on a chair before the piano, crossing his legs and hanging his head.
‘Will you have lunch, your Excellence?’ asked a tall, thin, wrinkled old woman who entered the room in a cap, a print dress, and a large shawl.
Nekhlyúdov turned to look at her and was silent for a moment as if considering something.
‘No, I don’t want any, nurse,’ he said, and again sank into thought.
The old nurse shook her head at him with vexation, and sighed.
‘Eh, Dmítri Nikoláevich, why are you moping? There are worse troubles! It will pass – be sure it will …’
‘But I’m not moping. What has put that into your head, Malánya Finogénovna?’ replied Nekhlyúdov trying to smile.
‘How can you help moping – don’t I see?’ the old nurse retorted warmly. ‘All alone the whole day long. And you take everything so to heart and see to everything yourself – and now you hardly eat anything. Is it reasonable? If only you went to town or visited your neighbours, but who ever saw the likes of this? You are young to trouble so about everything.… Excuse me, master, I’ll sit down,’ she continued, taking a chair near the door. ‘Why, you’ve been so indulgent with them that they’re not afraid of anyone. Does a master behave like that? There is nothing good in it; you only ruin yourself and let the people get spoilt. Our people are like that: they don’t understand it – really they don’t. You might at least go to see your aunt. What she wrote was true.…’ she ended admonishingly.