III

Svetlogoúb had lived through a great deal during the three months of his solitary confinement. From his very childhood he had unconsciously felt the injustice of the exceptional position he held as a rich man; and though he tried to stifle this feeling, often when he came in contact with the poverty of the common people⁠—or sometimes even when he was particularly happy and comfortable himself⁠—he felt rather ashamed of his relation to the people: to peasants, old men, women, and children, who were born, grew up and died, not only without knowing the pleasures he enjoyed, but without even understanding them, and never free from toil and hardship. When he had finished his studies at the University⁠—in order to liberate himself from the consciousness of this injustice⁠—he organized a school in the village on his estate: a model school, a Cooperative Store, and a Home for the aged poor. Yet, strange to say, when occupied with all this, he felt even more ashamed than when he was at supper with his comrades or when he purchased an expensive riding horse. He felt that it was not the right thing, and, even worse than that: there seemed to be something bad about it, something morally impure.