to take the place of confidential clerk to the Governor which his father had obtained for him.
In the provinces Ivan Il'ich contrived to make his position as easy and pleasant as it had been in the schools of jurisprudence. He worked hard, made a career for himself, and at the same time amused himself pleasantly and respectably. Occasionally, he was despatched by the Government on tours of investigation, always observing a dignified bearing towards both high and low, always remarkable for a scrupulous and incorruptible integrity of which he could not fail to be proud, and satisfactorily accomplishing every commission entrusted to him, more especially those relating to the dissenters.
Despite his youth and a natural bias towards light gaiety, in all business relations connected with the service he was extraordinarily firm, official, and even severe; but in society he was frequently sportive and witty, and always good-humoured, gentlemanly, and bon enfant, as his chief and his chiefs wife, with whom he was always at home, used to say.
There was a liaison with one of the ladies who had been attracted to the elegant jurist in the provinces; there was also a little milliner; there were also drinking-parties with casual wing-adjutants, and excursions into a certain remote street after supper; there were also some underhand services rendered to the chief, and even to the wife of the chief; but all this was carried off with such an air of good breeding that it was impossible to give it a bad name, so it was all put down as a necessary part of the French postulate, il faut que jeunesse se passe. It was
