The Awakening | Page 7

agreeable and partly
disagreeable to Nekhludoff. It was agreeable to feel the power of
authority over so vast an estate, and it was disagreeable, because in his
youth he was an enthusiastic adherent of Herbert Spencer, and being
himself a large land owner, was struck by the proposition in Social
Statics that private ownership of land is contrary to the dictates of
justice. With the frankness and boldness of youth, he not only then
spoke of the injustice of private ownership of land; not only did he
compose theses in the university on the subject, but he actually
distributed among the peasants the few hundred acres of land left him
by his father, not desiring to own land contrary to his convictions. Now
that he found himself the owner of vast estates, he was confronted by
two alternatives: either to waive his ownership in favor of the peasants,
as he did ten years ago with the two hundred acres, or, by tacit
acquiescence, confess that all his former ideas were erroneous and

false.
He could not carry out the first, because he possessed no resources
outside of the land. He did not wish to go into service, and yet he had
luxurious habits of life which he thought he could not abandon. Indeed,
there was no necessity of abandoning these habits, since he had lost the
strength of conviction as well as the resolution, the vanity and the
desire to astonish people that he had possessed in his youth. The other
alternative--to reject all the arguments against private ownership of
land which he gathered from Spencer's Social Statics, and of which he
found confirmation in the works of Henry George--he could follow
even less.
For this reason the steward's letter was disagreeable to him.

CHAPTER IV.
Having breakfasted, Nekhludoff went to the cabinet to see for what
hour he was summoned to appear at court, and to answer the Princess'
note. In the work-room stood an easel with a half-finished painting
turned face downward, and on the wall hung studies in drawing. On
seeing that painting, on which he had worked two years, and those
drawings, he called to mind the feeling of impotence, which he
experienced of late with greatest force, to make further advance in the
art. He explained this feeling by the development of a fine aesthetic
taste, and yet this consciousness caused him unpleasant sensations.
Seven years before he had retired from active service he decided that
his true vocation in life was painting, and from the height of his artistic
activity he looked down upon all other occupations. And now it
appeared that he had no right to do so, and every recollection of it was
disagreeable to him. He looked on all the luxurious appointments of the
work-room with heavy heart, and walked into the cabinet in ill humor.
The cabinet was a high room, profusely ornamented, and containing
every imaginable device of comfort and necessity.

He produced from one of the drawers of a large table the summons, and,
ascertaining that he must appear at eleven o'clock, he sat down and
wrote to the Princess, thanking her for the invitation, and saying that he
should try to call for dinner. The tone of the note seemed to him too
intimate, and he tore it up; he wrote another, but that was too formal,
almost offensive. Again he tore it up, and touched a button on the wall.
A servant, morose, with flowing side-whiskers and in a gray apron,
entered.
"Please send for a carriage."
"Yes, sir."
"And tell the Korchagins' maid that I thank them; I will try to call."
"Yes, sir."
"It is impolite, but I cannot write. But I will see her to-day," thought
Nekhludoff, and started to dress himself.
When he emerged from the house a carriage with rubber tires awaited
him.
"You had scarcely left Prince Korchagin's house yesterday when I
called for you," said the driver, half-turning his stout, sun-burned neck
in the white collar of his shirt, "and the footman said that you had just
gone."
"Even the drivers know of my relations to the Korchagins," thought
Nekhludoff, and the unsolved question which continually occupied his
mind of late--whether or not he ought to marry Princess
Korchagin--again occurred to him, and, like most questions that he was
called upon to decide at that time, it remained unsolved.
He had many reasons for, and as many against, marriage. There was the
pleasure of domestic life, which made it possible to lead a moral life, as
he called married life; then, and principally, the family and children
would infuse his present aimless life with a purpose. This was for

marriage generally. On the other hand there was, first, the loss of
freedom which all elderly bachelors fear so much; and, second,