He had been just as rude with the Sviazhskys, leaving them without saying good-bye.

But he would never go to see them again either.

He did not care about that now.

The business of reorganizing the farming of his land absorbed him as completely as though there would never be anything else in his life.

He read the books lent him by Sviazhsky, and copying out what he had not got, he read both the economic and socialistic books on the subject, but, as he had anticipated, found nothing bearing on the scheme he had undertaken.