potatoe seed, and they were almost all in debt to the
office. Thus, the rent charged the peasants for lands beyond the
fields was four times as great as it could bring on a five per cent.
basis.

Nekhludoff knew all that before, but he was now learning it as
something new, and only wondered why he and all those who stood in a
similar position could fail to see the enormity of such relations. The
arguments of the clerk that not one-fourth of the value of the stock
could be realized on a sale, that the peasants would permit the land
to run to waste, only strengthened his determination and confirmed
him in his belief that he was doing a good deed by giving the land to
the peasants, and depriving himself of the greater part of his income.
Desiring to dispose of the land forthwith, he asked the manager to
call together the peasants of the three villages surrounded by his
lands the very next day, for the purpose of declaring to them his
intention and agreeing with them as to the price.

With a joyful consciousness of his firmness, in spite of the arguments
of the manager, and his readiness to make sacrifices for the peasants,
Nekhludoff left the office, and, reflecting on the coming arrangement,
he strolled around the house, through the flower-garden, which lay
opposite the manager's house, and was neglected this year; over the
lawn-tennis ground, overgrown with chicory, and through the alleys
lined with lindens, where it had been his wont to smoke his cigar, and
where, three years before, the pretty visitor, Kirimova, flirted with
him. Having made an outline of a speech, which he was to deliver to
the peasants the following day, Nekhludoff went to the manager's
house, and after further deliberating upon the proper disposition of
the stock, he calmly and contentedly retired to a room prepared for
him in the large building.

In this clean room, the walls of which were covered with views of
Venice, and with a mirror hung between two windows, there was placed a
clean spring bedstead and a small table with water and matches. On a
large table near the mirror lay his open traveling-bag with toilet
articles and books which he brought with him; one Russian book on
criminology, one in German, and a third in English treating of the
same subject. He intended to read them in spare moments while
traveling through the villages, but as he looked on them now he felt
that his mind was far from these subjects. Something entirely
different