Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/295

Rh abandon that which I have gained with such labour? I won't buy any more but I must mortgage those. Getting them cost me such labour! I shall mortgage them so as to buy an estate with the money. I shall become a landowner, because one can do a great deal of good in that position.'

And the feelings which had taken possession of him when he was at Skudronzhoglo's rose up in his heart again, and he recalled the latter's charming clever talk about the fruitfulness and usefulness of work on the land as he sat in the warm evening light. The country suddenly seemed to him delightful, as though he had been able at the moment to feel all its charms.

'We are foolish, we race after vanity!' he said at last. 'Really it is from idleness! Everything is near, everything is at hand, but we run to the ends of the earth. Is not life as good if one is buried in the wilds? Pleasure is really to be found in work. Skudronzhoglo is right. And nothing is sweeter than the fruit of one's own labours. … Yes, I will work, I will settle in the country, and I will work honestly so as to have a good influence on others. Why, I am not utterly good-for-nothing, am I? I have the very abilities for making a good manager; I have the qualities of carefulness, promptitude, good sense and even perseverance. I have only to make up my mind. Only now I feel truly and clearly that there is a duty which a man ought to perform on earth, without tearing