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Updated: June 10, 2025
Nekhludoff was dissatisfied with himself without knowing why, but all the time he felt sad and ashamed of something. From Kousminski Nekhludoff went to the estate he had inherited from his aunts, the same where he first met Katusha. He meant to arrange about the land there in the way he had done in Kousminski.
His aunts, elegantly dressed, their family doctor, and a neighbour were already there. Everything seemed so very ordinary, but in Nekhludoff a storm was raging. He understood nothing of what was being said and gave wrong answers, thinking only of Katusha. The sound of her steps in the passage brought back the thrill of that last kiss and he could think of nothing else.
His aunt, Mary Ivanovna, was afraid Dmitri would form an intimacy with Katusha; but her fears were groundless, for Nekhludoff, himself hardly conscious of it, loved Katusha, loved her as the pure love, and therein lay his safety his and hers. He not only did not feel any desire to possess her, but the very thought of it filled him with horror.
As soon as she had learned to know Mary Pavlovna, Katusha noticed that, whatever the conditions she found herself in, Mary Pavlovna never thought of herself, but was always anxious to serve, to help some one, in matters small or great. One of her present companions, Novodvoroff, said of her that she devoted herself to philanthropic amusements. And this was true.
When he returned from church Nekhludoff broke the fast with his aunts and took a glass of spirits and some wine, having got into that habit while with his regiment, and when he reached his room fell asleep at once, dressed as he was. He was awakened by a knock at the door. He knew it was her knock, and got up, rubbing his eyes and stretching himself. "Katusha, is it you? Come in," said he.
At this period of his mania of self-love brought on by life in Petersburg and in the army, this animal man ruled supreme and completely crushed the spiritual man in him. But when he saw Katusha and experienced the same feelings as he had had three years before, the spiritual man in him raised its head once more and began to assert its rights.
Nekhludoff went to visit his aunts because their estate lay near the road he had to travel in order to join his regiment, which had gone forward, because they had very warmly asked him to come, and especially because he wanted to see Katusha.
From that day a life of chronic sin against human and divine laws commenced for Katusha Maslova, a life which is led by hundreds of thousands of women, and which is not merely tolerated but sanctioned by the Government, anxious for the welfare of its subjects; a life which for nine women out of ten ends in painful disease, premature decrepitude, and death.
This confirmation of the refusal in cold blood at once quenched all the doubts in Nekhludoff's bosom, and brought back the serious, triumphant emotion he had felt in relation to Katusha. "Katusha, what I have said I will again repeat," he uttered, very seriously. "I ask you to marry me.
The relations between Nekhludoff and Katusha had been the following: Nekhludoff first saw Katusha when he was a student in his third year at the University, and was preparing an essay on land tenure during the summer vacation, which he passed with his aunts. Until then he had always lived, in summer, with his mother and sister on his mother's large estate near Moscow.
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