Maslova might be sent off with the first gang of prisoners, therefore Nekhludoff got ready for his departure. But there was so much to be done that he felt that he could not finish it, however much time he might have. It was quite different now from what it had been. Formerly he used to be obliged to look for an occupation, the interest of which always centred in one person, i.e., Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff, and yet, though every interest of his life was thus centred, all these occupations were very wearisome. Now all his occupations related to other people and not to Dmitri Ivanovitch, and they were all interesting and attractive, and there was no end to them. Nor was this all.
Formerly Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff's occupations always made him feel vexed and irritable; now they produced a joyful state of mind. The business at present occupying Nekhludoff could be divided under three headings. He himself, with his usual pedantry, divided it in that way, and accordingly kept the papers referring to it in three different portfolios. The first referred to Maslova, and was chiefly that of taking steps to get her petition to the Emperor attended to, and preparing for her probable journey to Siberia.
The second was about his estates. In Panovo he had given the land to the peasants on condition of their paying rent to be put to their own communal use. But he had to confirm this transaction by a legal deed, and to make his will, in accordance with it. In Kousminski the state of things was still as he had first arranged it, i.e., he was to receive the rent; but the terms had to be fixed, and also how much of the money he would use to live on, and how much he would leave for the peasants' use. As he did not know what his journey to Siberia would cost him, he could not decide to lose this revenue altogether, though he reduced the income from it by half.