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"I'll tell you, then," he said with heat, "I imagine the

mainspring of all our actions is, after all, self-interest. Now

in the local institutions I, as a nobleman, see nothing that

could conduce to my prosperity, and the roads are not better and

could not be better; my horses carry me well enough over bad

ones. Doctors and dispensaries are no use to me. An arbitrator of

disputes is no use to me. I never appeal to him, and never shall

appeal to him. The schools are no good to me, but positively

harmful, as I told you. For me the district institutions simply

mean the liability to pay fourpence halfpenny for every three

acres, to drive into the town, sleep with bugs, and listen to all

sorts of idiocy and loathsomeness, and self-interest offers me no

inducement."

"Excuse me," Sergey Ivanovitch interposed with a smile,

"self-interest did not induce us to work for the emancipation of

the serfs, but we did work for it."