Resurrection, Leo Tolstoy [top 5 books to read .txt] 📗

not to himself, to acquire and to keep. It had seemed easy to give up all this, but now it was hard, not only to give this, but even to let the land and lose half his income. And at once a consideration, which proved that it was unreasonable to let the land to the peasants, and thus to destroy his property, came to his service. “I must not hold property in land. If I possess no property in land, I cannot keep up the house and farm. And, besides, I am going to Siberia, and shall not need either the house or the estate,” said one voice. “All this is so,” said another voice, “but you are not going to spend all your life in Siberia. You may marry, and have children, and must hand the estate on to them in as good a condition as you received it. There is a duty to the land, too. To give up, to destroy everything is very easy; to acquire it very difficult. Above all, you must consider your future life, and what you will do with yourself, and you must dispose of your property accordingly. And are you really firm in your resolve? And then, are you really acting according to your conscience, or are you acting in order to be admired of men?” Nekhlúdoff asked himself all this, and had to acknowledge that he was influenced by the thought of what people would say about him. And the more he thought about it the more questions arose, and the more unsolvable they seemed.

In hopes of ridding himself of these thoughts by falling asleep, and solving them in the morning when his head would be fresh, he lay down on his clean bed. But it was long before he could sleep. Together with the fresh air and the moonlight, the croaking of the frogs entered the room, mingling with the trills of a couple of nightingales in the park and one close to the window in a bush of lilacs in bloom. Listening to the nightingales and the frogs, Nekhlúdoff remembered the inspector’s daughter, and her music, and the inspector; that reminded him of Máslova, and how her lips trembled, like the croaking of the frogs, when she said, “You must just leave it.” Then the German steward began going down to the frogs, and had to be held back, but he not only went down but turned into Máslova, who began reproaching Nekhlúdoff, saying, “You are a prince, and I am a convict.” “No, I must not give in,” thought Nekhlúdoff, waking up, and again asking himself, “Is what I am doing right? I do not know, and no matter, no matter, I must only fall asleep now.” And he began himself to descend where he had seen the inspector and Máslova climbing down to, and there it all ended.

II

The next day Nekhlúdoff awoke at nine o’clock. The young office clerk who attended on “the master” brought him his boots, shining as they had never shone before, and some cold, beautifully clear spring water, and informed him that the peasants were already assembling.

Nekhlúdoff jumped out of bed, and collected his thoughts. Not a trace of yesterday’s regret at giving up and thus destroying his property remained now. He remembered this feeling of regret with surprise; he was now looking forward with joy to the task before him, and could not help being proud of it. He could see from the window the old tennis ground, overgrown with dandelions, on which the peasants were beginning to assemble. The frogs had not croaked in vain the night before; the day was dull. There was no wind; a soft warm rain had begun falling in the morning, and hung in drops on leaves, twigs, and grass. Besides the smell of the fresh vegetation, the smell of damp earth, asking for more rain, entered in at the window. While dressing, Nekhlúdoff several times looked out at the peasants gathered on the tennis ground. One by one they came, took off their hats or caps to one another, and took their places in a circle, leaning on their sticks. The steward, a stout, muscular, strong young man, dressed in a short pea-jacket, with a green stand-up collar, and enormous buttons, came to say that all had assembled, but that they might wait until Nekhlúdoff had finished his breakfast⁠—tea and coffee, whichever he pleased; both were ready.

“No, I think I had better go and see them at once,” said Nekhlúdoff, with an unexpected feeling of shyness and shame at the thought of the conversation he was going to have with the peasants. He was going to fulfil a wish of the peasants, the fulfilment of which they did not even dare to hope for⁠—to let the land to them at a low price, i.e., to confer a great boon; and yet he felt ashamed of something. When Nekhlúdoff came up to the peasants, and the fair, the curly, the bald, the grey heads were bared before him, he felt so confused that he could say nothing. The rain continued to come down in small drops, that remained on the hair, the beards, and the fluff of the men’s rough coats. The peasants looked at “the master,” waiting for him to speak, and he was so abashed that he could not speak. This confused silence was broken by the sedate, self-assured German steward, who considered himself a good judge of the Russian peasant, and who spoke Russian remarkably well. This strong, overfed man, and Nekhlúdoff himself, presented a striking contrast to the peasants, with their thin, wrinkled faces and the shoulder blades protruding beneath their coarse coats.

“Here’s the Prince wanting to do you a favor, and to let the land to you; only you are not worthy of it,” said the steward.

“How are we not worthy of it, Vasíli Kárlovitch? Don’t we work for you? We were well satisfied with the