Chapter 6 part one - three

When Maslova, exhausted by the many walks escorted by the soldiers, reached the state courthouse, the nephew of her two adoptive mothers, Dmitry Ivanitch Nekh, who had seduced her Prince Rudoff was lying on a high box-spring bed with an eiderdown mattress and the sheets were crumpled.He was wearing a clean Dutch linen pajamas with the collar open and the pleats pressed to a crisp, and he was smoking a cigarette.He stared blankly ahead, thinking about what he had to do today and what happened yesterday. Yesterday he spent an evening at the rich and powerful Korchagin's.Everyone thought he should marry the young lady of the family.He remembered what happened last night, sighed, threw away the cigarette butt in his hand, and wanted to take another cigarette out of the silver cigarette case, but suddenly changed his mind, hung two bare white legs from the bed, and found it with his feet. slippers.He picked up a silk dressing gown and put it on his fat shoulders, walked with heavy steps, and hurried to the bathroom next to the bedroom.The bathroom is filled with the scents of nectar, toilet water, pomade and perfume.There he brushed his overfilled teeth with premium tooth powder and rinsed his mouth with fragrant mouthwash.Then scrub your body up and down and dry yourself with several different towels.He washed his hands with soap, brushed his long nails carefully, washed his face and fat neck in the huge marble wash-basin, and went to the third room off the bedroom, where a shower was ready for him.He rinsed his plump, fair, muscular body with cold water, dried it with a soft towel, put on a clean shirt and shoes polished as bright as a mirror, sat down at the dressing table, and combed his curly hair with two brushes Curly black beard and curly hair thinning in front of his head.

Everything he used, shirts, coats, leather shoes, ties, pins, cufflinks, everything was the most expensive and elegant, elegant, generous, sturdy, and expensive. Nekhludoff took a tie and a brooch from the many ties and brooches (he had previously been interested in choosing ties and brooches, but now he didn't care much about them), took his clean clothes from the chair, and put them on. it is good.Now, although he was not in high spirits, he was still neat and fragrant.He went into the rectangular dining room.The parquet floor in the dining room, which had been polished yesterday by three peasants and sawn shiny, was furnished with a large bar of oak oak and a large movable dining table. The legs of the table are carved into open lion claws, which is very magnificent.On the table was a thin, starched tablecloth embroidered with the family coat of arms in huge monograms, and on it stood a silver coffee-pot of fragrant coffee, a silver sugar bowl, a silver jug ​​of boiled cream, and Basket full of fresh white bread, rusks and biscuits.Next to the cutlery were letters, newspapers, and a new French magazine, Les Leuerres.Nekhludoff was just about to open the letter when a stout old woman entered quietly through the door leading into the corridor.She was dressed in mourning, with a lace headband covering her broad hair.Her name was Agraphena, and she had been Nekhludoff's mother's maid.Not long ago, my mother died in this house, and she stayed as the young master's housekeeper.

-------- ① A French magazine on literature, art and politics published in Paris since 1829, which is very popular among Russian intellectuals.The original text here is French.Where the original texts below are written in French, they will all be imitated in Song style, and will not be annotated one by one. Agrafena stayed abroad with Nekhludoff's mother for ten years, and she had the demeanor and style of a lady.She had lived with the Nekhludoffs since she was a child, and had known Dmitri Ivanitch since his nickname was Mitenka. "Good morning, Dmitry Ivanitch!" "How do you do, Agraphena! What's new?" Nekhludoff asked jokingly.

"There is a letter, I don't know whether it is from the Duchess or the Duchess. It has been a long time since their maid delivered it, and she is still waiting in my room," said Agrafena. He handed the letter to Nekhludoff with a knowing smile on his face. "Well, wait a minute," said Nekhludoff, taking the letter, and noticing the smile on Agraphena's face, he could not help frowning. Agrafena smiled and said that the letter was from Princess Korchagin.She thought Nekhludoff was ready to marry her.The meaning of Agrafena's smile displeased Nekhludoff. "Then I'll tell her to wait a little longer," Agrafena picked up the misplaced small brush for sweeping crumbs, put it back in the old place, and quietly walked out of the dining room.

Nekhludoff opened the smelly letter that Agraphena had handed him, took out a piece of thick gray paper with curved edges, saw the thin and sparse writing on it, and read: "Since I have assumed the responsibility to remind you of your affairs at any time, I will inform you now that you should appear in court today, April 28, so you cannot, in your usual rash manner, as promised yesterday, to accompany you We will go to the exhibition with Kolosov, unless you are willing to pay a fine of three hundred rubles to the state court, which is the same amount that you were reluctant to buy the horse, for not showing up on time. When you left yesterday, I remembered This matter. Please don't forget it.

Princess Mary Korchagin. " Two more sentences were added on the back of the letter: "Mother wants me to tell you that there will be dinner waiting for you until late at night. Please come, sooner or later. Ma Ke" Nekhludoff frowned.This letter was another of Princess Korchagin's subtle attacks on him for two months, in order to bind him more and more closely to herself by invisible ties.All men who are not very young and not in love are often hesitant and hesitant when it comes to marriage.Apart from this, however, Nekhludoff had another important reason which prevented him from proposing right away, even if he had made up his mind.The reason was not that he had seduced Katyusha and abandoned her ten years earlier.He had completely forgotten about it, and even if he remembered it, he would not regard it as an obstacle to marriage.The reason for this was that he had had an affair with a married woman, and though it was now over on his part, she did not consider it to be a clean break.

Nekhludoff was shy when he saw women.It was because of his shyness that this married woman wanted to conquer him.This woman was the wife of the chief nobleman of the county in which Nekhludoff was elected.At last she led Nekhludoff into the trap.Nekhludoff became more and more infatuated with her every day, and at the same time loathed her more and more.Nekhludoff at first could not resist her temptation, and later felt guilty in her presence, so that he could not break off the relationship without her consent.It was for this reason that Nekhludoff considered that he had no right to propose to Miss Korchagin even if he wanted to.

On the table was a letter from the woman's husband.Nekhludoff blushed and shuddered at the sight of his handwriting and the postmark.Every time he faced danger, he always felt this way.However, his nervousness was unnecessary: ​​the husband, the chief nobleman of the county where Nekhludoff's main estate is located, informed Nekhludoff that an extraordinary meeting of the Zemstvo would be held at the end of May, and he asked Nekhludoff to Be sure to be there so you can support him when discussing big current issues like schools and roads, as reactionary opposition is expected. The chief aristocrat was a liberal. He and a few like-minded people fought against the reactionary forces that had gradually risen after Alexander III's accession to the throne.

-------- ①The Russian Tsar, in power from 1881 to 1894, because his father was killed by Narodnaya Volya, he implemented a reign of terror and encouraged the rise of reactionary forces. Nekhludoff thought of all the troubles that had arisen from this man.He remembered the time when he thought the woman's husband knew about it, and he was getting ready to fight her in a duel in which he would shoot into the sky.I still remember that she had a big fight with him. In desperation, she ran to the pond in the garden, trying to drown herself, and he quickly chased after her. "I cannot go to her now, nor can I do anything until she answers me," thought Nekhludoff.A week before he had written her a letter, in a firm tone, confessing his guilt, willing to atone in any way, but arguing that for her happiness their relationship must be broken.He was waiting for her reply now, but he didn't.Not much reply is also a good sign.If she did not agree to sever the relationship, she would have written a long time ago, and maybe she would come in person like last time.Nekhludoff heard that an officer was now courting her, which made him sour, but at the same time he was glad and relieved that he could no longer lie and cheat.

Another letter was from the steward of his estate.The steward said in his letter that he, Nekhludoff, had to go back to his hometown in person in order to go through the formalities of the transfer of property, and at the same time to decide on the mode of farming: whether to continue to manage the agriculture as it was during the princess's lifetime, or to adopt the method that the steward had previously proposed to the prince. The madam suggested that the method to be proposed to the Duke and Young Master now is to increase the number of farm tools and take back all the land leased to farmers for cultivation.The steward thought it would be much more cost-effective to farm by himself.In addition, the steward apologized for the delay of a few days in sending the three thousand rubles that had been scheduled for the beginning of the month, and that the money would be sent with the next postal train.The reason for the delay was that the peasant refused to pay the rent. He could not collect all the rent, so he had to resort to the government to force the peasant to pay.Nekhludoff was both pleased and displeased by this letter.Happily he realizes that he owns a lot of property.What is not happy is that he was originally a loyal believer of Spencer, and as a large landowner, he was particularly impressed by the argument that "justice does not allow private ownership of land" put forward by Spencer in "Social Statics".With the integrity and determination of his youth, he not only paid lip service to the view that land should not be private property, but wrote a dissertation on the subject at the university, and actually put a small piece of land (which did not belong to him) mother's, but he inherited directly from his father's name) to the peasants.He would not take land against his convictions.Now he has inherited his mother's inheritance and has become a big landowner. He must choose between two roads: either give up the property in his name as he did with the two hundred dessiatines left by his father ten years ago; The whole idea is absurd.

He cannot take the first road, because he has no means of subsistence but land.He was unwilling to be an official, and he could not give up the luxurious life he was used to.Besides, there is no need for him to give up this kind of life, because the belief, determination, vanity and desire to make a big splash in his youth are gone now.As for the second way, he could not deny the "irrationality of private ownership of land," which he drew from Spenser's "Social Statics" and later found brilliant proof in Henry George's work. can't do it. -------- ① Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) - British sociologist, agnostic, idealist philosopher. ②The original text is English. ③ Henry George (1839-1897) - American economist and social activist. For this reason the steward's letter displeased him.