And so Nekhludoff did not succeed in getting an interview that

day, and returned home. As he went along the streets, excited at

the idea of meeting her, he no longer thought about the Law

Courts, but recalled his conversations with the Procureur and the

inspector's assistant. The fact that he had been seeking an

interview with her, and had told the Procureur, and had been in

two prisons, so excited him that it was long before he could calm

down. When he got home he at once fetched out his diary, that had

long remained untouched, read a few sentences out of it, and then

wrote as follows: "For two years I have not written anything in my diary, and

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thought I never should return to this childishness. Yet it is not

childishness, but converse with my own self, with this real

divine self which lives in every man. All this time that I slept

there was no one for me to converse with. I was awakened by an

extraordinary event on the 28th of April, in the Law Court, when

I was on the jury. I saw her in the prisoners' dock, the Katusha

betrayed by me, in a prisoner's cloak, condemned to penal

servitude through a strange mistake, and my own fault. I have

just been to the Procureur's and to the prison, but I was not

admitted. I have resolved to do all I can to see her, to confess

to her, and to atone for my sin, even by a marriage. God help me.

My soul is at peace and I am full of joy."




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