this purpose he had decided not to work the land himself, but, by
renting it at a low price to the peasants, to make it possible for
them to live independent of the landlord. Often, while comparing the
position of the landlord with that of the owner of serfs, Nekhludoff
found a parallel in the renting of the land to the peasants, instead
of working it by hired labor, to what the slave-owners did when they
substituted tenancy for serfdom. That did not solve the question, but
it was a step toward its solution; it was a transition from a grosser
to a less gross form of ownership of man. He also intended to act
thus.

Nekhludoff arrived at Kusminskoie about noon. In everything
simplifying his life, he did not wire from the station of his arrival,
but hired a two-horse country coach. The driver was a young fellow in
a nankeen regulation coat, belted below the waist, sitting sidewise on
the box. He was the more willing to carry on a conversation because
the broken-down, lame, emaciated, foaming shaft-horse could then walk,
which these horses always preferred.

The driver spoke about the manager of the Kusminskoie estate, not
knowing that he was carrying its master, Nekhludoff purposely
refrained from enlightening him.

"A dandy German," he said, turning half around, cracking his long whip
now over the heads, now under the horses. "There is nothing here to
compare with his fine team of three bay horses. You ought to see him
driving out with his wife! I took some guests to his house last
Christmas--he had a fine tree. You couldn't find the like of it in the
whole district! He robbed everybody, right and left. But what does he
care? He is bossing everybody. They say he bought a fine estate."