Nekhludoff, with his passionate nature, gave himself thoroughly
to the new way of life so approved of by all those around, and he
entirely stifled the inner voice which demanded something
different. This began after he moved to St. Petersburg, and
reached its highest point when he entered the army.
Military life in general depraves men. It places them in
conditions of complete idleness, i.e., absence of all useful
work; frees them of their common human duties, which it replaces
by merely conventional ones to the honour of the regiment, the
uniform, the flag; and, while giving them on the one hand
absolute power over other men, also puts them into conditions of
servile obedience to those of higher rank than themselves.
But when, to the usual depraving influence of military service
with its honours, uniforms, flags, its permitted violence and
murder, there is added the depraving influence of riches and
nearness to and intercourse with members of the Imperial family,
as is the case in the chosen regiment of the Guards in which all
the officers are rich and of good family, then this depraving
influence creates in the men who succumb to it a perfect mania of
selfishness. And this mania of selfishness attacked Nekhludoff
from the moment he entered the army and began living in the way
his companions lived. He had no occupation whatever except to
dress in a uniform, splendidly made and well brushed by other
people, and, with arms also made and cleaned and handed to him by
others, ride to reviews on a fine horse which had been bred,
broken in and fed by others. There, with other men like himself,
he had to wave a sword, shoot off guns, and teach others to do
the same. He had no other work, and the highly-placed persons,
young and old, the Tsar and those near him, not only sanctioned
his occupation but praised and thanked him for it.
After this was done, it was thought important to eat, and
particularly to drink, in officers' clubs or the salons of the
best restaurants, squandering large sums of money, which came
from some invisible source; then theatres, ballets, women, then
again riding on horseback, waving of swords and shooting, and
again the squandering of money, the wine, cards, and women. This
kind of life acts on military men even more depravingly than on
others, because if any other than a military man lead such a life
he cannot help being ashamed of it in the depth of his heart. A
military man is, on the contrary, proud of a life of this kind
especially at war time, and Nekhludoff had entered the army just
after war with the Turks had been declared. "We are prepared to
sacrifice our lives at the wars, and therefore a gay, reckless
life is not only pardonable, but absolutely necessary for us, and
so we lead it."