lf-opinionated, but on the
contrary continually let himself be carried away. He had come to the
conclusion that there is no such thing as love, yet his heart always
overflowed in the presence of any young and attractive woman. He had
long been aware that honours and position were nonsense, yet
involuntarily he felt pleased when at a ball Prince Sergius came up and
spoke to him affably. But he yielded to his impulses only in so far as
they did not limit his freedom. As soon as he had yielded to any
influence and became conscious of its leading on to labour and
struggle, he instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling or
activity into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom. In
this way he experimented with society-life, the civil service, farming,
music--to which at one time he intended to devote his life--and even
with the love of women in which he did not believe. He meditated on the
use to which he should devote that power of youth which is granted to
man only once in a lifetime: that force which gives a man the power of
making himself, or even--as it seemed to him--of making the universe,
into anything he wishes: should it be to art, to science, to love of
woman, or to practical activities? It is true that some people are
devoid of this impulse, and on entering life at once place their necks
under the first yoke that offers itself and honestly labour under it
for the rest of their lives. But Olenin was too strongly conscious of
the presence of that all-powerful God of Youth--of that capacity to be
entirely transformed into an aspiration or idea--the capacity to wish
and to do--to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss without
knowing why or wherefore. He bore this consciousness within himself,
was proud of it and, without knowing it, was happy in that
consciousness. Up to that time he had loved only himself, and could not
help loving himself, for he expected nothing but good of himself and
had not yet had time to be disillusioned. On leaving Moscow he was in
that happy state of mind in which a young man, conscious of past
mistakes, suddenly says to himself, 'That was not the real thing.' All
that had gone before was accidental and unimportant. Till then he had
not really tried to live, but now with his departure from Moscow a new
life was beginning--a life in which there would be no mistakes, no
remorse, and certainly nothing but happiness.

It is always the case on a long journey that t