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. And up to Easter,
during two whole days, an unconscious, ceaseless inner struggle
went on in him.
He knew in the depths of his soul that he ought to go away, that
there was no real reason for staying on with his aunts, knew that
no good could come of it; and yet it was so pleasant, so
delightful, that he did not honestly acknowledge the facts to
himself and stayed on. On Easter eve, the priest and the deacon
who came to the house to say mass had had (so they said) the
greatest difficulty in getting over the three miles that lay
between the church and the old ladies' house, coming across the
puddles and the bare earth in a sledge.
Nekhludoff attended the mass with his aunts and the servants, and
kept looking at Katusha, who was near the door and brought in the
censers for the priests. Then having given the priests and his
aunts the Easter kiss, though it was not midnight and therefore
not Easter yet, he was already going to bed when he heard the old
servant Matrona Pavlovna preparing to go to the church to get the
koulitch and paski [Easter cakes] blest after the midnight
service. "I shall go too," he thought.
The road to the church was impassable either in a sledge or on
wheels, so Nekhludoff, who behaved in his aunts' house just as he
did at home, ordered the old horse, "the brother's horse," to be
saddled, and instead of going to bed he put on his gay uniform, a
pair of tight-fitting riding breeches and his overcoat, and got
on the old over-fed and heavy horse, which neighed continually
all the way as he rode in the dark through the puddles and snow
to the church.