Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/28

 shaving and toilet appurtenances, and a plaid, all of them ordered and bought in the best shops, departed for the province to take the place of an official on the governor's special business, which his father had procured for him.

In the province Iván Ilích at once arranged the same easy and pleasant position for himself that he had enjoyed in the law school. He served, made a career for himself, and at the same time passed his time pleasantly and decently; now and then he journeyed to the counties at the command of the authorities, bore himself with dignity both toward those who stood above him and those who stood beneath him, and with precision and incorruptible honesty, which he could not help but be proud of, carried out the business entrusted to him, especially in matters of the dissenters.

In matters of his service he was, in spite of his youth and proneness to light merriment, extremely reserved, official, and even severe; but in matters of society he was often playful and witty, and always good-hearted, decent, and a "bon enfant," as was said of him by his chief and his chief's wife, at whose house he was a close friend.

There was also in the province a liaison with one of the ladies, who obtruded herself on the dandyish jurist; and there was a modiste, and drinking bouts with visiting aids-de-camp, and drives to a distant street after supper; there was also a subserviency to the chief, and even to the wife of the chief, but all this bore upon itself such an elevated tone of decency that it could not be called by any bad words: it all only fitted in with the French saying, "Il faut que jeunesse se passe." Everything took place with clean hands, in clean shirts, with French words, and, above all else, in the very highest society, consequently with the approval of most distinguished persons.

Thus Iván Ilích served for five years, and a change was made in the service. There appeared new institutions of law, and new men were needed.