The peasants said they would talk it over and bring an answer, and left in a state of excitement.  Their loud talk was audible as they went along the road, and up to late in the night the sound of voices came along the river from the village.

The next day the peasants did not go to work, but spent it in considering the landlord’s offer.  The commune was divided into two parties—­one which regarded the offer as a profitable one to themselves and saw no danger in agreeing with it, and another which suspected and feared the offer it did not understand.  On the third day, however, all agreed, and some were sent to Nekhludoff to accept his offer.  They were influenced in their decision by the explanation some of the old men gave of the landlord’s conduct, which did away with all fear of deceit.  They thought the gentleman had begun to consider his soul, and was acting as he did for its salvation.  The alms which Nekhludoff had given away while in Panovo made his explanation seem likely.  The fact that Nekhludoff had never before been face to face with such great poverty and so bare a life as the peasants had come to in this place, and was so appalled by it, made him give away money in charity, though he knew that this was not reasonable.  He could not help giving the money, of which he now had a great deal, having received a large sum for the forest he had sold the year before, and also the hand money for the implements and stock in Kousminski.  As soon as it was known that the master was giving money in charity, crowds of people, chiefly women, began to come to ask him for help.  He did not in the least know how to deal with them, how to decide, how much, and whom to give to.  He felt that to refuse to give money, of which he had a great deal, to poor people was impossible, yet to give casually to those who asked was not wise.  The last day he spent in Panovo, Nekhludoff looked over the things left in his aunts’ house, and in the bottom drawer of the mahogany wardrobe, with the brass lions’ heads with rings through them, he found many letters, and amongst them a photograph of a group, consisting of his aunts, Sophia Ivanovna and Mary Ivanovna, a student, and Katusha.  Of all the things in the house he took only the letters and the photograph.  The rest he left to the miller who, at the smiling foreman’s recommendation, had bought the house and all it contained, to be taken down and carried away, at one-tenth of the real value.

Recalling the feeling of regret at the loss of his property which he had felt in Kousminski, Nekhludoff was surprised how he could have felt this regret.  Now he felt nothing but unceasing joy at the deliverance, and a sensation of newness something like that which a traveller must experience when discovering new countries.

CHAPTER X.

NEKHLUDOFF RETURNS TO TOWN.