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"I am going to see an advocate, close to here round the corner." "Oh, yes, of course. You have got something to do with the prisons have turned into a prisoners' mediator, I hear," said Schonbock, laughing. "The Korchagins told me. They have left town already. What does it all mean? Tell me." "Yes, yes, it is quite true," Nekhludoff answered; "but I cannot tell you about it in the street."
The old ladies had never met people of this kind, and did not know that Schonbock owed 200,000 roubles which he was never going to pay, and that therefore 25 roubles more or less did not matter a bit to him. Schonbock stayed only one day, and he and Nekhludoff both, left at night. They could not stay away from their regiment any longer, for their leave was fully up.
Nekhludoff had arranged to stay only a day and night with his aunts, but when he had seen Katusha he agreed to stay over Easter with them and telegraphed to his friend Schonbock, whom he was to have joined in Odessa, that he should come and meet him at his aunts' instead. As soon as he had seen Katusha Nekhludoff's old feelings toward her awoke again.
This was that Schonbock who had been in the house of Nekhludoff's aunts that day, and whom Nekhludoff had quite lost out of sight, but about whom he had heard that in spite of his debts he had somehow managed to remain in the cavalry, and by some means or other still kept his place among the rich. His gay, contented appearance corroborated this report. "What a good thing that I have caught you.
Nekhludoff remembered having heard that this Schonbock, just because, he had spent all he had, had attained by some special influence the post of guardian to a rich old man who was squandering his property and was now evidently living by this guardianship.
"Ah, I see how it is you have taken such a sudden fancy to your aunts that you have been living nearly a week with them," Schonbock remarked when he had seen Katusha. "Well, I don't wonder should have done the same. She's charming."
The next day the gay, handsome, and brilliant Schonbock joined Nekhludoff at his aunts' house, and quite won their hearts by his refined and amiable manner, his high spirits, his generosity, and his affection for Dmitri. But though the old ladies admired his generosity it rather perplexed them, for it seemed exaggerated.
At the stage which Nekhludoff's selfish mania had now reached he could think of nothing but himself. He was wondering whether his conduct, if found out, would be blamed much or at all, but he did not consider what Katusha was now going through, and what was going to happen to her. He saw that Schonbock guessed his relations to her and this flattered his vanity.
"Ah, Schonbock!" he exclaimed joyfully; but he knew the next moment that there was nothing to be joyful about.
The laugh with which the advocate met Nekhludoff's remark that trials could have no meaning if the judges might enforce the laws or not, according to their notion, and the tone with which he pronounced the words "philosophy" and "general questions" proved to Nekhludoff how very differently he and the advocate and, probably, the advocate's friends, looked at things; and he felt that in spite of the distance that now existed between himself and his former companions, Schonbock, etc., the difference between himself and the circle of the advocate and his friends was still greater.
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