Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/549

tion, current in Russia and confirmed by Pássek, Slyeptsóv, and others, that all one has to do is to come to the Caucasus, in order to be overwhelmed with rewards. Everybody expects and demands this of us; and here I have been two years, have taken part in two expeditions, and have not received anything yet. I have so much egotism that I will not leave this place until I am made a major with the Vladímir and Anna around my neck. I have got so far into this, that nothing will mortify me so much as to have Gnilokíshkin get this promotion, and me not get one. Then again, how can I show up in Russia before my elder, the merchant Kotélnikov, to whom I sell my grain, before my Moscow aunt, and before all those gentlemen, after two years in the Caucasus, without any advancement? It is true, I do not care to know these gentlemen, and, no doubt, they care very little for me; and yet a man is so built that, although he does not care one bit for such gentlemen, he wastes the best years, the whole happiness of his life, and his whole future on account of them."