Resurrection

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.