e rises
somewhat later, and instead of sitting by the open window and gazing
into the courtyard, he turns over the pages of a book or periodical.
Instead of dining at midday and supping at nine o'clock, he takes
dejeuner at twelve and dines at five. He spends less time in sitting in
the verandah and pacing up and down with his hands behind his back,
for he can vary the operation of time-killing by occasionally writing
a letter, or by standing behind his wife at the piano while she plays
selections from Mozart and Beethoven. But these peculiarities are merely
variations in detail. If there is any essential difference between the
lives of Victor Alexandr'itch and of Ivan Ivan'itch, it is in the fact
that the former never goes out into the fields to see how the work is
done, and never troubles himself with the state of the weather, the
condition of the crops, and cognate subjects. He leaves the management
of his estate entirely to his steward, and refers to that personage all
peasants who come to him with complaints or petitions. Though he takes
a deep interest in the peasant as an impersonal, abstract entity, and
loves to contemplate concrete examples of the genus in the works of
certain popular authors, he does not like to have any direct relations
with peasants in the flesh. If he has to speak with them he always feels
awkward, and suffers from the odour of their sheepskins. Ivan Ivan'itch
is ever ready to talk with the peasants, and give them sound, practical
advice or severe admonitions; and in the old times he was apt, in
moments of irritation, to supplement his admonitions by a free use of
his fists. Victor Alexandr'itch, on the contrary, never could give any
advice except vague commonplace, and as to using his fist, he would have
shrunk from that, not only from respect to humanitarian principles, but
also from motives which belong to the region of aesthetic sensitiveness.

This difference between the two men has an important influence on their
pecuniary affairs. The stewards of both steal from their masters; but
that of Ivan Ivan'itch steals with difficulty, and to a very limited
extent, whereas that of Victor Alexandr'itch steals regularly and
methodically, and counts his gains, not by kopecks, but by roubles.
Though the two estates are of about the same size and value, they give
a very different revenue. The rough, practical man has a much larger
income than his elegant, well-educated neighbour, and at the same ti