Book 2 Chapter 1 Property in Land

Nekhludoff reached Kousminski about noon. Trying to simplify his
life in every way, he did not telegraph, but hired a cart and
pair at the station. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen
coat, with a belt below his long waist. He was glad to talk to
the gentleman, especially because while they were talking his
broken-winded white horse and the emaciated spavined one could go
at a foot-pace, which they always liked to do.

The driver spoke about the steward at Kousminski without knowing
that he was driving "the master." Nekhludoff had purposely not
told him who he was.

"That ostentatious German," said the driver (who had been to town
and read novels) as he sat sideways on the box, passing his hand
from the top to the bottom of his long whip, and trying to show
off his accomplishments--"that ostentatious German has procured
three light bays, and when he drives out with his lady---oh, my!
At Christmas he had a Christmas-tree in the big house. I drove
some of the visitors there. It had 'lectric lights; you could
not see the like of it in the whole of the government. What's it
to him, he has cribbed a heap of money. I heard say he has bought
an estate."

Nekhludoff had imagined that he was quite indifferent to the way
the steward managed his estate, and what advantages the steward
derived from it. The words of the long-waisted driver, however,
were not pleasant to hear.

A dark cloud now and then covered the sun; the larks were soaring
above the fields of winter corn; the forests were already covered
with fresh young green; the meadows speckled with grazing cattle
and horses. The fields were being ploughed, and Nekhludoff
enjoyed the lovely day. But every now and then he had an
unpleasant feeling, and, when he asked himself what it was caused
by, he remembered what the driver had told him about the way the
German was managing Kousminski. When he got to his estate and set
to work this unpleasant feeling vanished.