CHAPTER III
Having dressed, Stepan Arkadyevitch sprinkled himself with perfume, straightened the sleeves of his shirt, according to his usual routine put into his various pockets cigarettes, his letter-case, matches, his watch with its double chain and locket, and, shaking out his handkerchief, feeling clean, well-perfumed, healthy, and physically happy in spite of his unhappiness, went out somewhat unsteadily to the dining-room, where his coffee was already waiting for him, and next the coffee his letters and the papers from the court-house.
He read his letters. One was very disagreeable,—from a merchant who was negotiating for the purchase of a forest on his wife's estate. It was necessary to sell this forest, but now nothing could be done about it until a reconciliation was effected with his wife. Most unpleasant it was to think that his pecuniary interests in this approaching transaction were complicated with his reconciliation to his wife. And the thought that he might be influenced by this interest, that his desire for a reconciliation with his wife was on account of the sale of the forest, this thought mortified him.
Having finished his letters Stepan Arkadyevitch took up the papers from the court-house, rapidly turned over the leaves of two deeds, made several notes with a big pencil, and then pushing them away, took his coffee. While he was drinking it he opened a morning journal still damp, and began to read.
Stepan Arkadyevitch subscribed to a liberal paper, and read it. It was not extreme in its views, but advocated those principles which the majority held. And though he was not really interested in science or art or politics, he strongly adhered to such views on all these subjects as the majority, including his paper, advocated, and he changed them only when the majority changed them; or more correctly, he did not change them, but they themselves imperceptibly changed in him.
Stepan Arkadyevitch never chose principles or opin-
