But he yielded to his impulses only in so far as they did not limit his freedom.

As soon as he had yielded to any influence and became conscious of its leading on to labour and struggle, he instinctively hastened to free himself from the feeling or activity into which he was being drawn and to regain his freedom.

In this way he experimented with society-life, the civil service, farming, music--to which at one time he intended to devote his life--and even with the love of women in which he did not believe.

He meditated on the use to which he should devote that power of youth which is granted to man only once in a lifetime: that force which gives a man the power of making himself, or even--as it seemed to him--of making the universe, into anything he wishes: should it be to art, to science, to love of woman, or to practical activities?
It is true that some people are devoid of this impulse, and on entering life at once place their necks under the first yoke that offers itself and honestly labour under it for the rest of their lives.

But Olenin was too strongly conscious of the presence of that all-powerful God of Youth--of that capacity to be entirely transformed into an aspiration or idea--the capacity to wish and to do--to throw oneself headlong into a bottomless abyss without knowing why or wherefore.