lled forth by the fact that here,
for the first time, he learned to what poverty the peasants had been
reduced and though he knew that it was unwise, he could not help
distributing such money as he had, which was considerable.
As soon as it became known that the master was distributing money,
large crowds of people from the entire surrounding country came to him
asking to be helped. He had no means of determining the respective
needs of the individuals, and yet he could not help giving these
evidently poor people money. Again, to distribute money
indiscriminately was absurd. His only way out of the difficulty was to
depart, which he hastened to do.
On the third day of his visit to Panov, Nekhludoff, while looking over
the things in the house, in one of the drawers of his aunt's
chiffonnier, found a picture representing a group of Sophia Ivanovna,
Catherine Ivanovna, himself, as student, and Katiousha--neat, fresh,
beautiful and full of life. Of all the things in the house Nekhludoff
removed this picture and the letters. The rest he sold to the miller
for a tenth part of its value.
Recalling now the feeling of pity over the loss of his property which
he had experienced in Kusminskoie, Nekhludoff wondered how he could
have done so. Now he experienced the gladness of release and the
feeling of novelty akin to that experienced by an explorer who
discovers new lands.
CHAPTER VI.
It was evening when Nekhludoff arrived in the city, and as he drove
through the gas-lit streets to his house, it looked to him like a new
city. The odor of camphor still hung in the air through all the rooms,
and Agrippina, Petrovna and Kornei seemed tired out and dissatisfied,
and even quarreled about the packing of the things, the use of which
seemed to consist chiefly in being hung out, dried and packed away
again. His room was not occupied, but was not arranged for his coming,
and the trunks blocked all the passages, so that his coming interfered
with those affairs which, by some strange inertia, were taking place
in this house. This evident foolishness, to which he had once been a
party, seemed so unpleasant to Nekhludoff, after the impressions he
had gained of the want in the villages, that he decided to move to a
hotel the very next day, leaving the packing to Agrippina until the
arrival of his sister.
He left the house in the morning, hired two modest and not over-clean
furnished rooms near the prison, and went to his la
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