Chapter 2 - Page 2

existed for him. He believed in nothing and admitted nothing. But
although he believed in nothing he was not a morose or blase young
man, nor self-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 till the first two or
three stages have been passed imagination continues to dwell on
the place left behind, but with the first