"Yes, this was Katusha."
The relations between Nekhludoff and Katusha had been the
following: Nekhludoff first saw Katusha when he was a student in his third
year at the University, and was preparing an essay on land tenure
during the summer vacation, which he passed with his aunts. Until
then he had always lived, in summer, with his mother and sister
on his mother's large estate near Moscow. But that year his
sister had married, and his mother had gone abroad to a
watering-place, and he, having his essay to write, resolved to
spend the summer with his aunts. It was very quiet in their
secluded estate and there was nothing to distract his mind; his
aunts loved their nephew and heir very tenderly, and he, too, was
fond of them and of their simple, old-fashioned life.
During that summer on his aunts' estate, Nekhludoff passed
through that blissful state of existence when a young man for the
first time, without guidance from any one outside, realises all
the beauty and significance of life, and the importance of the
task allotted in it to man; when he grasps the possibility of
unlimited advance towards perfection for one's self and for all
the world, and gives himself to this task, not only hopefully,
but with full conviction of attaining to the perfection he
imagines. In that year, while still at the University, he had
read Spencer's Social Statics, and Spencer's views on landholding
especially impressed him, as he himself was heir to large
estates. His father had not been rich, but his mother had
received 10,000 acres of land for her dowry. At that time he
fully realised all the cruelty and injustice of private property
in land, and being one of those to whom a sacrifice to the
demands of conscience gives the highest spiritual enjoyment, he
decided not to retain property rights, but to give up to the
peasant labourers the land he had inherited from his father. It
was on this land question he wrote his essay.
He arranged his life on his aunts' estate in the following
manner. He got up very early, sometimes at three o'clock, and
before sunrise went through the morning mists to bathe in the
river, under the hill. He returned while the dew still lay on the
grass and the flowers. Sometimes, having finished his coffee, he
sat down with his books of reference and his papers to write his
essay, but very often, instead of reading or writing, he left
home again, and wandered through the fields and the woods. Before
dinner he lay down and slept somewhere in the garden. At dinner
he amused and entertained his aunts with his bright spirits, then
he rode on horseback or went for a row on the river, and in the
evening he again worked at his essay, or sat reading or playing
patience with his aunts.