When Nekhludoff had finished his coffee, he went to his study to look at the summons, and find out what time he was to appear at the court, before writing his answer to the princess.  Passing through his studio, where a few studies hung on the walls and, facing the easel, stood an unfinished picture, a feeling of inability to advance in art, a sense of his incapacity, came over him.  He had often had this feeling, of late, and explained it by his too finely-developed aesthetic taste; still, the feeling was a very unpleasant one.  Seven years before this he had given up military service, feeling sure that he had a talent for art, and had looked down with some disdain at all other activity from the height of his artistic standpoint.  And now it turned out that he had no right to do so, and therefore everything that reminded him of all this was unpleasant.  He looked at the luxurious fittings of the studio with a heavy heart, and it was in no cheerful mood that he entered his study, a large, lofty room fitted up with a view to comfort, convenience, and elegant appearance.  He found the summons at once in a pigeon hole, labelled “immediate,” of his large writing table.  He had to appear at the court at 11 o’clock.

Nekhludoff sat down to write a note in reply to the princess, thanking her for the invitation, and promising to try and come to dinner.  Having written one note, he tore it up, as it seemed too intimate.  He wrote another, but it was too cold; he feared it might give offence, so he tore it up, too.  He pressed the button of an electric bell, and his servant, an elderly, morose-looking man, with whiskers and shaved chin and lip, wearing a grey cotton apron, entered at the door.

“Send to fetch an isvostchik, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And tell the person who is waiting that I send thanks for the invitation, and shall try to come.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It is not very polite, but I can’t write; no matter, I shall see her today,” thought Nekhludoff, and went to get his overcoat.

When he came out of the house, an isvostchik he knew, with india-rubber tires to his trap, was at the door waiting for him.  “You had hardly gone away from Prince Korchagin’s yesterday,” he said, turning half round, “when I drove up, and the Swiss at the door says, ‘just gone.’” The isvostchik knew that Nekhludoff visited at the Korchagins, and called there on the chance of being engaged by him.

“Even the isvostchiks know of my relations with the Korchagins,” thought Nekhludoff, and again the question whether he should not marry Princess Korchagin presented itself to him, and he could not decide it either way, any more than most of the questions that arose in his mind at this time.

It was in favour of marriage in general, that besides the comforts of hearth and home, it made a moral life possible, and chiefly that a family would, so Nekhludoff thought, give an aim to his now empty life.