At the time when Maslova, exhausted by the long walk, was approaching
with the armed convoy the building in which court was held, the same
nephew of the ladies that brought her up, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch
Nekhludoff, who deceived her, lay on his high, soft, spring
feather-bed, in spotless Holland linen, smoking a cigarette. He was
gazing before him, contemplating the events of the previous day and
considering what he had before him for that day. As he thought of the
previous evening, spent at the Korchagins, a wealthy and influential
family, whose daughter, rumor had it, he was to marry, he sighed, and
throwing away the butt of his cigarette, he was on the point of taking
another from the silver cigarette holder, but changed his mind. Half
rising, he slipped his smooth, white feet into the slippers, threw a
silk morning gown over his broad shoulders, and with quick and heavy
stride, walked into the adjoining dressing-room, which was permeated
with the artificial odors of elixirs, perfumes, cosmetics. There he
washed his partly gold-filled teeth with a tooth-powder, rinsed them
with a perfumed mouth-wash, then began to sponge himself and dry his
body with Turkish towels. After washing his hands with perfumed soap,
carefully brushing his trimmed nails and washing his face and stout
neck in a marble basin, he walked into a third room, where a
shower-bath was ready. Here he received a cold-water douche, and after
rubbing his white and muscular body with coarse towels and donning his
white linen, he seated himself before the mirror and began to brush
his short, curly beard and the thinning curls of his forehead.
Everything used by him--the linen, clothing, shoes, scarfs,
scarf-pins, cuff-buttons, were of the very best quality, simple,
tasteful and expensive.
He then picked out the first of a dozen scarfs and pins that came into
his hand--it was no more novel and amusing, as it used to be--and he
was quite indifferent as to which he put on. He dressed himself in his
brushed clothes which lay on the chair and went out, though not quite
refreshed, yet clean and fragrant. In the oblong dining-room, the
inlaid floor of which had been polished by three of his men the day
before, and containing a massive oaken sideboard and a similar
extension table, the legs of which were carved in the shape of lion's
paws, giving it a pompous appearance, breakfast stood ready for him. A
fine, starched cloth with large monograms was spread on the table, on
which stood a silver coffee-pot, containing fragrant, steaming coffee,
a sugar bowl and cream pitcher to match, fresh rolls and various kinds
of biscuits. Beside them lay the last number of the "Revue des deux
Mondes," newspapers and his mail. Nekhludoff was about to open the
letters, when a middle-aged woman, with a lace head-gear over her
unevenly parted hair, glided into the room. This was Agrippina
Petrovna, servant of his mother, who died in this very house. She was
now stewardess to the son.
Agrippina Petrovna had traveled many years abroad with Nekhludoff's
mother, and had acquired the manners of a lady. She had lived in the
house of the Nekhludoffs since childhood, and knew Dmitri Ivanovitch
when he was called by the diminutive Mitenka.
"Good-morning, Dmitri Ivanovitch."
"How do you do, Agrippina Petrovna? What's the news?" asked
Nekhludoff, jesting.
"A letter from the old Princess, or the young one, perhaps. The maid
brought it long ago, and is now waiting in my room," said Agrippina
Petrovna, handing him the letter with a significant smile.
"Very well; I will attend to it immediately," said Nekhludoff, taking
the letter and then, noticing the smile on Agrippina's face, he
frowned.
The smile on Agrippina's face signified that the letter came from
Princess Korchagin, whom, according to Agrippina Petrovna, he was to
marry. And this supposition, expressed by her smile, displeased
Nekhludoff.
"Then I will bid her wait," and Agrippina Petrovna glided out of the
dining-room, first replacing the crumb-brush, which lay on the table,
in its holder.
Nekhludoff opened the perfumed letter and began to read:
"In fulfillment of the duty I assumed of being your memory,"
the letter ran, "I call to your mind that you have been
summoned to serve as juror to-day, the 28th of April, and
that, therefore, you cannot accompany us and Kolosoff to the
art exhibition, as you promised yesterday in your customary
forgetfulness; à moins que vous ne soyez disposé à payer à
la cour d'assises les 300 rubles d'amende que vous vous
refusez pour votre cheval, for your failure to appear in
time. I remembered it yesterday, when you had left. So keep
it in mind.
"PRINCESS M. KORCHAGIN."
On the other side was a postscript:
"Maman vous fait dire que votre couvert vous attendra jusqu'
à la nuit. Venez absolument à quelle heure que cela soit. M. K."
Nekhludoff knit his brows. The note was the continuation of a skillful
strategem whereby the Princess sought, for the last two months, to
fasten him with invisible bonds. But Nekhludoff, besides the usual
irresoluteness before marriage of people of his age, and who are not
passionately in love, had an important reason for withholding his
offer of marriage for the time being. The reason was not that ten
years before he had ruined and abandoned Katiousha, which incident he
had entirely forgotten, but that at this very time he was sustaining
relations with a married woman, and though he now considered them at
an end, they were not so considered by her.
In the presence of women, Nekhludoff was very shy, but it was this
very shyness that determined the married woman to conquer him. This
woman was the wife of the commander of the district in which
Nekhludoff was one of the electors. She led him into relations with
her which held him fast, and at the same time grew more and more
repulsive to him. At first Nekhludoff could not resist her wiles,
then, feeling himself at fault, he could not break off the relations
against her will. This was the reason why Nekhludoff considered that
he had no right, even if he desired, to ask for the hand of Korchagin.
A letter from the husband of that woman happened to lay on the table.
Recognizing the handwriting and the stamp, Nekhludoff flushed and
immediately felt an influx of that energy which he always experienced
in the face of danger. But there was no cause for his agitation; the
husband, as commander of the district where Nekhludoff's estates were
situated, informed the latter of a special meeting of the local
governing body, and asked him to be present without fail, and donner
un coup d'épaule in the important measures to be submitted concerning
the schools and roads, and that the reactionary party was expected to
offer strong opposition.
The commander was a liberal-minded man, entirely absorbed with the
struggles, and knew nothing about his wretched family life.
Nekhludoff recalled all the tortures this man had occasioned him; how
on one occasion he thought that the husband had discovered all, and he
was preparing to fight a duel with him, intending to use a blank
cartridge, and the ensuing scene where she, in despair, ran to the
pond, intending to drown herself, while he ran to search for her. "I
cannot go now, and can undertake nothing until I have heard from her,"
thought Nekhludoff. The preceding week he had written to her a
decisive letter, acknowledging his guilt, and expressing his readiness
to redeem it in any manner she should suggest, but for her own good,
considered their relations ended. It is to this letter that he
expected a reply. He considered it a favorable sign that no reply
came. If she had not consented to a separation, she would have
answered long ago, or would have come personally, as she often did
before. Nekhludoff had heard that an army officer was courting her,
and while he was tormented by jealousy, he was at the same time
gladdened by the hope of release from the oppressive lie.
The other letter was from the steward in charge of his estates.
Nekhludoff was requested to return and establish his right to the
inheritance and also to decide on the future management of the
estates; whether the same system of letting out to the peasants, which
prevailed during the lifetime of his mother, was to be continued, or,
as the steward had strongly advised the deceased Princess, and now
advised the young Prince, to augment the stock and work all the land
himself. The steward wrote that the land could thus best be exploited.
He also apologized for his failure to send the three thousand rubles
due on the first of the month, which he would send by the next mail,
explaining it by the difficulty of collecting the rents from the
peasants whose bad faith had reached a point where it became necessary
to resort to the courts to collect them. This letter was partly
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.