Resurrection

After that Nekhludoff did not see Katusha for more than three

years. When he saw her again he had just been promoted to the

rank of officer and was going to join his regiment. On the way he

came to spend a few days with his aunts, being now a very

different young man from the one who had spent the summer with

them three years before. He then had been an honest, unselfish

lad, ready to sacrifice himself for any good cause; now he was

depraved and selfish, and thought only of his own enjoyment. Then

God's world seemed a mystery which he tried enthusiastically and

joyfully to solve; now everything in life seemed clear and

simple, defined by the conditions of the life he was leading.

Then he had felt the importance of, and had need of intercourse

with, nature, and with those who had lived and thought and felt

before him--philosophers and poets. What he now considered

necessary and important were human institutions and intercourse

with his comrades. Then women seemed mysterious and

charming--charming by the very mystery that enveloped them; now

the purpose of women, all women except those of his own family

and the wives of his friends, was a very definite one: women were

the best means towards an already experienced enjoyment. Then

money was not needed, and he did not require even one-third of

what his mother allowed him; but now this allowance of 1,500

roubles a month did not suffice, and he had already had some

unpleasant talks about it with his mother.

Then he had looked on his spirit as the I; now it was his healthy

strong animal I that he looked upon as himself.

And all this terrible change had come about because he had ceased

to believe himself and had taken to believing others. This he had

done because it was too difficult to live believing one's self;

believing one's self, one had to decide every question not in

favour of one's own animal life, which is always seeking for easy

gratifications, but almost in every case against it. Believing

others there was nothing to decide; everything had been decided

already, and decided always in favour of the animal I and against

the spiritual. Nor was this all. Believing in his own self he was

always exposing himself to the censure of those around him;

believing others he had their approval. So, when Nekhludoff had

talked of the serious matters of life, of God, truth, riches, and

poverty, all round him thought it out of place and even rather

funny, and his mother and aunts called him, with kindly irony,

notre cher philosophe. But when he read novels, told improper

anecdotes, went to see funny vaudevilles in the French theatre

and gaily repeated the jokes, everybody admired and encouraged

him. When he considered it right to limit his needs, wore an old

overcoat, took no wine, everybody thought it strange and looked

upon it as a kind of showing off; but when he spent large sums on

hunting, or on furnishing a peculiar and luxurious study for

himself, everybody admired his taste and gave him expensive

presents to encourage his hobby. While he kept pure and meant to

remain so till he married his friends prayed for his health, and

even his mother was not grieved but rather pleased when she found

out that he had become a real man and had gained over some French

woman from his friend. (As to the episode with Katusha, the

princess could not without horror think that he might possibly

have married her.) In the same way, when Nekhludoff came of age,

and gave the small estate he had inherited from his father to the

peasants because he considered the holding of private property in

land wrong, this step filled his mother and relations with dismay

and served as an excuse for making fun of him to all his

relatives. He was continually told that these peasants, after

they had received the land, got no richer, but, on the contrary,

poorer, having opened three public-houses and left off doing any

work. But when Nekhludoff entered the Guards and spent and

gambled away so much with his aristocratic companions that Elena

Ivanovna, his mother, had to draw on her capital, she was hardly

pained, considering it quite natural and even good that wild oats

should be sown at an early age and in good company, as her son

was doing. At first Nekhludoff struggled, but all that he had

considered good while he had faith in himself was considered bad

by others, and what he had considered evil was looked upon as

good by those among whom he lived, and the struggle grew too

hard. And at last Nekhludoff gave in, i.e., left off believing

himself and began believing others. At first this giving up of

faith in himself was unpleasant, but it did not long continue to

be so. At that time he acquired the habit of smoking, and

drinking wine, and soon got over this unpleasant feeling and even

felt great relief.