His eyes filled with tears as he was saying all this to himself,
good and bad tears: good because they were tears of joy at the
awakening of the spiritual being within him, the being which had
been asleep all these years; and bad tears because they were
tears of tenderness to himself at his own goodness.
He felt hot, and went to the window and opened it. The window
opened into a garden. It was a moonlit, quiet, fresh night; a
vehicle rattled past, and then all was still. The shadow of a
tall poplar fell on the ground just opposite the window, and all
the intricate pattern of its bare branches was clearly defined on
the clean swept gravel. To the left the roof of a coach-house
shone white in the moonlight, in front the black shadow of the
garden wall was visible through the tangled branches of the
trees.
Nekhludoff gazed at the roof, the moonlit garden, and the shadows
of the poplar, and drank in the fresh, invigorating air.
"How delightful, how delightful; oh, God, how delightful," he
said, meaning that which was going on in his soul.