Resurrection

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."