occupied him.

In one corner of the room there stood an ancient arm-chair with
incrustations, and the sight of this chair standing in his mother's
bed-room suddenly raised in his soul an unexpected feeling. He
suddenly felt sorry for the house that would decay, the gardens which
would be neglected, the woods which would be cut down, and all the
cattle-houses, courts, stables, sheds, machinery, horses, cows which
had been accumulated with such effort, although not by him. At first
it seemed to him easy to abandon all that, but now he was loth to part
with it, as well as the land and one-half of the income which would be
so useful now. And immediately serviceable arguments come to his aid,
by which it appeared that it was not wise to give the land to the
peasants and destroy his estate.

"I have no right to own the land. And if I do not own the land, I
cannot keep the property intact. Besides, I will now go to Siberia,
and for that reason I need neither the house nor the estate,"
whispered one voice. "All that is true," whispered another voice, "but
you will not pass all your life in Siberia. If you should marry, you
may have children. And you must hand over the estate to them in the
same condition in which you found it. There are duties toward the
land. It is easy to give away the land, to destroy everything; but it
is very hard to accumulate it. Above all, you must mark out a plan of
your life, and dispose of your property accordingly. And, then, are
you acting as you do in order to satisfy conscientious scruples, or
for the praise you expect of people?" Nekhludoff asked himself, and
could not help acknowledging that the talk that it would occasion
influenced his decision. And the more he thought the more questions
raised themselves, and the more perplexing they appeared. To rid
himself of these thoughts he lay down on the fresh-made bed, intending
to go over them again the next day with a clearer mind. But he could
not fall asleep for a long time. Along with the fresh air, through the
open window, came the croaking of frogs, interrupted by the whistling
of nightingales, one of which was in a lilac bush under the window.
Listening to the nightingales and the frogs, Nekhludoff recalled the
music of the inspector's daughter; and, thinking of that music, he
recalled Maslova--how, like the croaking of a frog, her lips trembled
when she said, "You must drop that." Then the German manager descended
to the frogs. He should h