this year; and now the reasons for this failure, and this animosity, were perfectly clear to him. The pleasure which he found in work itself, the resulting acquaintance with the muzhiks, the envy which seized him when he saw them and their lives, the desire to lead such a life himself, which on that night had been not visionary but real, now that he had thought over all the details necessary to carry out his desire,—all this taken together had so changed his views in regard to the management of his estate, that he could not take the same interest in it as before, and he could not help seeing how these unpleasant relations with the laborers met him at every new undertaking.
The herd of improved cows, like Pava; all the fertilized lands plowed with European plows; nine equal fields set round with young trees; the ninety desyatins, covered with dressing well plowed in; the deep drills and other improvements,—all was excellent as far as it concerned only himself or himself and the people who were in sympathy with him.
But now he clearly saw—and his work, his treatise on rural economy, in which the principal element was found to be the laborer, helped him to this conclusion—that his present way of carrying on his estate was only a cruel and wicked struggle between him and the laborers, in which on one side, on his side, was a constant effort to change everything to what he thought a better model, while on the other side was the natural order of things.
In this struggle, he saw that on his side there were effort and lofty purpose, and on the other no effort or purpose, and that the result was that the estate went from bad to worse; beautiful tools were destroyed, beautiful cattle and lands ruined. The principal objection was the energy absolutely wasted in this matter; but he could not help thinking now, when his thought was laid bare, that the aim of his energies was itself unworthy. In reality, where lay this quarrel? He insisted on having every penny of his own,—and he could not help insisting on it, because he was
