A brilliant career lay before Eugene Irtenev. He had all that was necessary for this: an admirable education at home, high honours when he graduated in law at Petersburg University, connections in the highest society through his recently deceased father, and he had himself already begun service in one of the Ministries under the protection of the Minister. He also had a fortune; even a large one, though insecure. His father had lived abroad and in Petersburg, allowing his sons, Eugene, and Andrew, the elder who was in the Horse Guards, 6,000 rubles a year each, while he himself and his wife spent a great deal. He only used to visit his estate for a couple of months in summer and did not concern himself with its direction, entrusting it all to an unscrupulous manager who also failed to attend to it, but in whom he had complete confidence.
After the father's death, when the brothers began to divide the property, there were found to be so many debts that their lawyer even advised them to refuse the inheritance and retain only an estate left them by their grand-mother, which was valued at 100,000 rubles. But a neighbouring landed-proprietor who had done business with old Irtenev, that is to say, who had promissory notes from him and had come to Petersburg on that account, said that in spite of the debts they could straighten out affairs so as to retain a large fortune—it would only be necessary to sell the forest and some outlying land, retaining the rich Semënov estate with 4,000 desyatinas of black-earth, the sugar-factory, and 200 desyatinas of water-meadows—if one devoted oneself to the management and, settling on the estate, farmed it wisely and economically.
And so, having visited the estate in spring (his father had died in Lent), Eugene looked into everything, resolved to retire from the Civil Service, settle in the country with his mother, and undertake the management, with the object of preserving the main estate. He arranged with his brother, with whom he was very friendly, that he would pay him 4,000 rubles a year, or alternatively would pay him 80,000 in a lump sum, while Andrew, on his part, handed over to him his share of the inheritance.
So he arranged matters and, having settled down with his mother in the big house, ardently and yet cautiously began managing the estate.
It is generally supposed that Conservatives are usually old people, and those in favour of change are the young. That is not quite correct. The most usual Conservatives are young people: those who want to live but who do not think, and have not time to think, about how to live and who therefore take as a model for themselves a way of life that they have seen.
Thus it was with Eugene. Having settled in the village, his aim and ideal was to restore the form of life that had existed, not in his father's time—his father had been a bad manager—but in his grandfather's. And now in the house, the garden, in the estate-management—of course with changes suited to the times—he tried to resurrect the general spirit of his grandfather's life—everything on a large scale—good order, method, and everybody satisfied; but so to arrange things entailed much work. It was necessary to meet the demands of the creditors and the banks, and for that purpose to sell some land and arrange renewals of credit. It was also necessary to get money to carry on (partly by farming out land, and partly by hiring labour) the immense operations on the Semënov estate, with its 400 desyatinas of ploughland and its sugar-factory, and to deal with the garden so that it should not seem to be neglected or in decay.
There was much work to do, but Eugene had plenty of strength—physical and mental. He was twenty-six, of medium height, strongly built, with muscles developed by gymnastics. He was full-blooded and very red over his whole neck, with bright teeth and lips and hair soft and curly, though not thick. His only physical defect was shortsightedness, which he had himself developed by using spectacles, so that he could not now do without a pince-nez, which had already formed a line at the top of his nose-ridge.
Such he was physically. For his spiritual portrait it might be said that the better anyone knew him the better they liked him. His mother had always loved him more than she loved anyone else; and now, after her husband's death, she concentrated on him not only her whole affection but her whole life. Nor was it only his mother who so loved him. All his comrades at the high-school and the university not merely liked him very much, but respected him. He had this effect on all who met him. It was impossible not to believe what he said, impossible to suspect any deception or falseness in one who had such an open, honest face and, in particular, such eyes.
In general his personality helped him much in his affairs. A creditor who would have refused another, trusted him. The clerk, the village Elder, or a peasant, who would have played a dirty trick and cheated someone else, forgot to deceive under the pleasant impression of intercourse with this kindly, agreeable, and above all candid man.
It was the end of May. Eugene had somehow managed, in town, to get the vacant land freed from the mortgage, so as to sell it to a merchant, and had borrowed money from that same merchant to replenish his stock, that is to say, to procure horses, bulls, carts and, chiefly, to begin to build a necessary farm-house. The matter had been arranged. The timber was being carted, the carpenters were already at work, and manure for the estate was being brought on eighty carts. But everything still hung by a thread.