When he was dressed, Stepan Arkadyevitch sprinkled some scent on

himself, pulled down his shirt-cuffs, distributed into his

pockets his cigarettes, pocketbook, matches, and watch with its

double chain and seals, and shaking out his handkerchief, feeling

himself clean, fragrant, healthy, and physically at ease, in

spite of his unhappiness, he walked with a slight swing on each

leg into the dining-room, where coffee was already waiting for

him, and beside the coffee, letters and papers from the office.

He read the letters. One was very unpleasant, from a merchant

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who was buying a forest on his wife's property. To sell this

forest was absolutely essential; but at present, until he was

reconciled with his wife, the subject could not be discussed.

The most unpleasant thing of all was that his pecuniary interests

should in this way enter into the question of his reconciliation

with his wife. And the idea that he might be led on by his

interests, that he might seek a reconciliation with his wife on

account of the sale of the forest--that idea hurt him.

When he had finished his letters, Stepan Arkadyevitch moved the

office-papers close to him, rapidly looked through two pieces of

business, made a few notes with a big pencil, and pushing away

the papers, turned to his coffee. As he sipped his coffee, he

opened a still damp morning paper, and began reading it.

Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an

extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority.

And in spite of the fact that science, art, and politics had no

special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these

subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he

only changed them when the majority changed them--or, more

strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly

changed of themselves within him.

Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his

views; these political opinions and views had come to him of

themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and

coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him,

living in a certain society--owing to the need, ordinarily

developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental

activity--to have views was just as indispensable as to have a

hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to

conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle,

it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but

from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life. The

liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong, and

certainly Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly

short of money. The liberal party said that marriage is an

institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction;

and family life certainly afforded Stepan Arkadyevitch little

gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which was

so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather

allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep

in check the barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan

Arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service without

his legs aching from standing up, and could never make out what

was the object of all the terrible and high-flown language about

another world when life might be so very amusing in this world.

And with all this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was

fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself

on his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first

founder of his family--the monkey. And so Liberalism had become

a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch's, and he liked his newspaper, as

he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in

his brain. He read the leading article, in which it was

maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an

outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all

conservative elements, and that the government ought to take

measures to crush the revolutionary hydra; that, on the contrary,

"in our opinion the danger lies not in that fantastic

revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy of traditionalism

clogging progress," etc., etc. He read another article, too, a

financial one, which alluded to Bentham and Mill, and dropped

some innuendoes reflecting on the ministry. With his

characteristic quickwittedness he caught the drift of each

innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom and on what ground it

was aimed, and that afforded him, as it always did, a certain

satisfaction. But today that satisfaction was embittered by

Matrona Philimonovna's advice and the unsatisfactory state of the

household. He read, too, that Count Beist was rumored to have

left for Wiesbaden, and that one need have no more gray hair, and

of the sale of a light carriage, and of a young person seeking a

situation; but these items of information did not give him, as

usual, a quiet, ironical gratification. Having finished the

paper, a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up,

shaking the crumbs of the roll off his waistcoat; and, squaring

his broad chest, he smiled joyously: not because there was

anything particularly agreeable in his mind--the joyous smile

was evoked by a good digestion.




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