"Where are those dreams?" the young man now asked himself as he walked home
after his round of visits. "Here more than a year has passed since I have
been seeking for happiness in this course, and what have I found? It is
true, I sometimes feel that I can be contented with myself; but this is a
dry, doubtful kind of content. Yet, no; I am simply dissatisfied! I am
dissatisfied because I find no happiness here; and I desire, I passionately
long for, happiness. I have not experienced delight, I have cut myself off
from all that gives it. Wherefore? for what end? Does that make it easier
for any one?
"My aunt was right when she wrote that it is easier to find happiness than
to give it to others. Have my peasants become any richer? Have they learned
any thing? or have they shown any moral improvement? Not the least. They
are no better off, but it grows harder and harder every day for me. If I
saw any success in my undertakings, if I saw any signs of gratitude, ...
but, no! I see falsely directed routine, vice, untruthfulness,
helplessness. I am wasting the best years of my life."
Thus he said to himself, and he recollected that his neighbors, as he heard
from his nurse, called him "a mere boy;" that he had no money left in the
counting-room; that his new threshing-machine, which he had invented, much
to the amusement of the peasants, only made a noise, and did not thresh
any thing when it had been set in motion for the first time in presence of
numerous spectators, who had gathered at the threshing-floor; that from day
to day he had to expect the coming of the district judge for the list of
goods and chattels, which he had neglected to make out, having been
engrossed in various new enterprises on his estate.
And suddenly there arose before him, just as vividly as, before, that walk
through the forest and his ideal of rural life had arisen,--just as vividly
there appeared his little university room at Moscow, where he used to sit
half the night before a solitary candle, with his chum and his favorite boy
friend.
They used to read for five hours on a stretch, and study such stupid
lessons in civil law; and when they were done with them, they would send
for supper, open a bottle of champagne, and talk about the future which
awaited them.
How entirely different the young student had thought the future would be!
Then the future was full of enjoyment, of varied occupation, brilliant with
success, and beyond a peradventure sure to bring them both to what seemed
to them the greatest blessing in the world,--to fame.
"He will go on, and go on rapidly, in that path," thought Nekhliudof of his
friend; "but I"....
But by this time he was already mounting the steps to his house; and near
it were standing a score of peasants and house-servants, waiting with
various requests to the prince. And this brought him back from dreams to
the reality.
Among the crowd was a ragged and blood-stained peasant-woman, who was
lamenting and complaining of her father-in-law, who had been beating her.
There were two brothers, who for two years past had been going on shares in
their domestic arrangements, and now looked at each other with hatred and
despair. There was also an unshaven, gray-haired domestic serf, with hands
trembling from the effects of intoxication; and this man was brought to the
prince by his son, a gardener, who complained of his disorderly conduct.
There was a peasant, who had driven his wife out of the house because she
had not worked any all the spring. There was also the wife, a sick woman,
who sobbed, but said nothing, as she sat on the grass by the steps,--only
showed her inflamed and swollen leg, carelessly wrapped up in a filthy rag.
Nekhliudof listened to all the petitions and complaints; and after he had
given advice to one, blamed others, and replied to still others, he began
to feel a sort of whimsical sensation of weariness, shame, weakness, and
regret. And he went to his room.