le the master for their own ends.

The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre's intentions, but
remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go into the
general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory.

Despite Count Bezukhov's enormous wealth, since he had come into an
income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year,
Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him
an allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the
following budget:

About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about
30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house,
and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in
pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to
the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a
new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last
two years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was
spent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the
chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests,
or of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first
task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or
inclination--practical business.

He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But
he felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these
consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with
them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state
of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of
paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor,
to which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that
steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by
showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank,
and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation.

The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling
the forests in the province of Kostroma, the land lower down the river,
and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which
operations according to him were connected with such complicated
measures--the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so
on--that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied:

"Yes, yes, do