Resurrection

"Yes, this was Katusha."

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. But that year his

sister had married, and his mother had gone abroad to a

watering-place, and he, having his essay to write, resolved to

spend the summer with his aunts. It was very quiet in their

secluded estate and there was nothing to distract his mind; his

aunts loved their nephew and heir very tenderly, and he, too, was

fond of them and of their simple, old-fashioned life.

During that summer on his aunts' estate, Nekhludoff passed

through that blissful state of existence when a young man for the

first time, without guidance from any one outside, realises all

the beauty and significance of life, and the importance of the

task allotted in it to man; when he grasps the possibility of

unlimited advance towards perfection for one's self and for all

the world, and gives himself to this task, not only hopefully,

but with full conviction of attaining to the perfection he

imagines. In that year, while still at the University, he had

read Spencer's Social Statics, and Spencer's views on landholding

especially impressed him, as he himself was heir to large

estates. His father had not been rich, but his mother had

received 10,000 acres of land for her dowry. At that time he

fully realised all the cruelty and injustice of private property

in land, and being one of those to whom a sacrifice to the

demands of conscience gives the highest spiritual enjoyment, he

decided not to retain property rights, but to give up to the

peasant labourers the land he had inherited from his father. It

was on this land question he wrote his essay.

He arranged his life on his aunts' estate in the following

manner. He got up very early, sometimes at three o'clock, and

before sunrise went through the morning mists to bathe in the

river, under the hill. He returned while the dew still lay on the

grass and the flowers. Sometimes, having finished his coffee, he

sat down with his books of reference and his papers to write his

essay, but very often, instead of reading or writing, he left

home again, and wandered through the fields and the woods. Before

dinner he lay down and slept somewhere in the garden. At dinner

he amused and entertained his aunts with his bright spirits, then

he rode on horseback or went for a row on the river, and in the

evening he again worked at his essay, or sat reading or playing

patience with his aunts.