The Cossacks | Page 4

as he had yielded to any
influence and became conscious of its leading on to labour and struggle,
he instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling or activity
into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom. In this way
he experimented with society-life, the civil service, farming, music--to
which at one time he intended to devote his life--and even with the love
of women in which he did not believe. He meditated on the use to
which he should devote that power of youth which is granted to man
only once in a lifetime: that force which gives a man the power of
making himself, or even--as it seemed to him--of making the universe,
into anything he wishes: should it be to art, to science, to love of
woman, or to practical activities? It is true that some people are devoid
of this impulse, and on entering life at once place their necks under the
first yoke that offers itself and honestly labour under it for the rest of

their lives. But Olenin was too strongly conscious of the presence of
that all-powerful God of Youth--of that capacity to be entirely
transformed into an aspiration or idea--the capacity to wish and to
do--to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss without knowing
why or wherefore. He bore this consciousness within himself, was
proud of it and, without knowing it, was happy in that consciousness.
Up to that time he had loved only himself, and could not help loving
himself, for he expected nothing but good of himself and had not yet
had time to be disillusioned. On leaving Moscow he was in that happy
state of mind in which a young man, conscious of past mistakes,
suddenly says to himself, 'That was not the real thing.' All that had
gone before was accidental and unimportant. Till then he had not really
tried to live, but now with his departure from Moscow a new life was
beginning--a life in which there would be no mistakes, no remorse, and
certainly nothing but happiness.
It is always the case on a long journey that till the first two or three
stages have been passed imagination continues to dwell on the place
left behind, but with the first morning on the road it leaps to the end of
the journey and there begins building castles in the air. So it happened
to Olenin.
After leaving the town behind, he gazed at the snowy fields and felt
glad to be alone in their midst. Wrapping himself in his fur coat, he lay
at the bottom of the sledge, became tranquil, and fell into a doze. The
parting with his friends had touched him deeply, and memories of that
last winter spent in Moscow and images of the past, mingled with
vague thoughts and regrets, rose unbidden in his imagination.
He remembered the friend who had seen him off and his relations with
the girl they had talked about. The girl was rich. "How could he love
her knowing that she loved me?" thought he, and evil suspicions
crossed his mind. "There is much dishonesty in men when one comes
to reflect." Then he was confronted by the question: "But really, how is
it I have never been in love? Every one tells me that I never have. Can
it be that I am a moral monstrosity?" And he began to recall all his
infatuations. He recalled his entry into society, and a friend's sister with

whom he spent several evenings at a table with a lamp on it which lit
up her slender fingers busy with needlework, and the lower part of her
pretty delicate face. He recalled their conversations that dragged on like
the game in which one passes on a stick which one keeps alight as long
as possible, and the general awkwardness and restraint and his
continual feeling of rebellion at all that conventionality. Some voice
had always whispered: "That's not it, that's not it," and so it had proved.
Then he remembered a ball and the mazurka he danced with the
beautiful D----. "How much in love I was that night and how happy!
And how hurt and vexed I was next morning when I woke and felt
myself still free! Why does not love come and bind me hand and foot?"
thought he. "No, there is no such thing as love! That neighbour who
used to tell me, as she told Dubrovin and the Marshal, that she loved
the stars, was not IT either." And now his farming and work in the
country recurred to his mind, and in those recollections also there was
nothing to dwell on with pleasure. "Will they talk long of my
departure?" came into his head; but who "they" were he did not