12
The relations between Nekhlyudov and Katusha had been as follows:
The first time Nekhlyudov saw Katusha was as a third-year student at the university when he stayed for the summer with his aunts, working on his thesis about the ownership of land. Usually he spent the summer vacation 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 to a watering-place abroad; so, having his thesis to prepare, he decided to spend the summer with his aunts. It was very quiet with them in the depths of the country, there were no distractions, his aunts had a very soft spot for their nephew and heir, and he was fond of them and of their simple old-fashioned way of living.
During that summer at his aunts’ Nekhlyudov experienced that rapturous state of exaltation when a young man discovers for himself, without any outside recommendation, all the beauty and significance of life, and the importance of the task allotted in life to every man; when he sees the endless perfectibility of himself and the whole universe; and devotes himself not only hopefully but in complete confidence to attaining the perfection he dreams of. That year at the university he had read Spencer’s Social Statics, and Spencer’s theory of land tenure had made a strong impression on him, all the more so because he was himself heir to large estates. His father had not been rich but his mother had received over twenty-five thousand acres of land for her dowry. It was then that he realized for the first time all the cruelty and injustice of private ownership of land, and, being one of those to whom a sacrifice to the demands of conscience affords the highest spiritual enjoyment, he had resolved to relinquish his property rights and had given away to the peasants the land he had inherited from his father. And it was on this subject that he was writing his thesis.
His life that year with his aunts in the country ran on these lines: He would get up very early, sometimes as early as three o’clock, and before sunrise go to bathe in the river at the foot of a hill; often the morning mists had not yet lifted, and he would return while the dew still lay on the grass and flowers. Sometimes after his coffee he would sit down to work on this thesis, or look up references for his thesis, but very often instead of reading or writing he would leave the house again and wander through the fields and woods. Before dinner he took a nap somewhere in the garden; at table he amused and entertained his aunts with his gaiety; then he went riding or for a row on the river, and in the evening he read again or sat with his aunts, playing patience. Often at night, on a moonlight night especially, he could not sleep, simply because he was filled to overflowing with the joy of life, and instead of going to bed he would roam the garden, sometimes till daybreak, with his dreams and thoughts.
Thus, happy and tranquil, he spent the first month at his aunts’, never noticing their half ward, half servant, the black-eyed, swift-footed Katusha.
Brought up under his mother’s wing, Nekhlyudov at nineteen was still an innocent boy. If a woman figured in his dreams at all it was only as a wife. All the women who, according to his ideas, could not be his wife, were not women but just people. But on Ascension day of that summer a neighbour happened to call with her children – two young daughters and a high-school boy – together with a young artist of peasant stock who was staying with them.
After tea they went to play catch in the newly mown meadow in front of the house. They took Katusha with them. Presently Nekhlyudov found himself paired off with Katusha. He always enjoyed looking at Katusha, but it never entered his head that there could be any special friendship between them.
‘I’ll never catch those two unless they slip and fall,’ said the jolly young painter, whose turn it was to catch the others and who could run very fast on his short, bandy but strong peasant legs.
‘You – of course you won’t catch us!’
‘One, two, three!’
They clapped hands three times. Hardly suppressing her laughter, Katusha quickly changed places with Nekhlyudov, and with her strong, rough little hand pressing his large one, she started running to the left, her starched skirts rustling.
Nekhlyudov could run fast, and not wanting to be caught by the artist he raced as fast as he could. When he looked round he saw the artist chasing Katusha but she kept well ahead, her lithe young legs moving rapidly. In front was a clump of lilac bushes, behind which nobody was running, and Katusha, looking back at Nekhlyudov, made a sign with her head for him to join her there. He understood and ran behind the bushes. But he did not know that there was a narrow ditch there, overgrown with nettles; he stumbled and fell in, stinging his hands in the nettles and getting them wet with the evening dew; but he picked himself up at once, laughing at himself, and ran on to an open space.
Katusha, radiant with happiness, her shining eyes black as sloes, was flying towards him. They met and caught hold of each other’s hands.
‘I bet you got stung,’ she said, adjusting her straying hair with her free hand. She was panting and smiling, looking straight up at him.
‘I didn’t know there was a ditch there,’ he said, smiling too and not letting go of her hand.
She drew nearer and without knowing how it happened he bent his face towards her; she did not draw back, he pressed her hand tighter and kissed her on the lips.
‘Well I declare!’ she said, and freeing her hand with a quick movement she ran away from him.
Running up to a lilac bush, she broke off two branches of white lilac which was already beginning to drop, and tapping her burning face with them and looking round at him she went to rejoin the other players, swinging her arms briskly in front of her.
From that moment relations between Nekhlyudov and Katusha were changed and the sort of connexion was established which often exists between an innocent young man and an equally innocent young girl, who are attracted to one another.
The instant Katya entered the room, or if he saw her white apron from a distance, it was as if the sun had come out: everything seemed more interesting, gayer, and life held more meaning and was happier. And she felt the same. But it was not only Katusha’s presence or the fact that she was near that had this effect on Nekhlyudov: the mere thought that Katusha existed, and for her that Nekhlyudov existed, produced the same effect. If Nekhlyudov received an unpleasant letter from his mother, or could not get on with his thesis, or if he felt sad for no reason, the way young people do – he had only to think that there was a Katusha and he would be seeing her, and all his troubles would vanish.
Katusha had much to do about the house but she managed to get through it, and her spare time she would spend reading. Nekhlyudov gave her Dostoyevsky and Turgenyev, whom he had just finished reading himself. She liked Turgenyev’s A Quiet Nook best. They talked in snatches, when they met in a passage, on the veranda or in the yard, and occasionally in the room which Katusha shared with his aunts’ old maid, Matriona Pavlovna, and where Nekhlyudov sometimes went to drink unsweetened tea and suck bits of sugar. And it was these talks in Matriona Pavlovna’s presence which were the most enjoyable. When they were alone it was worse. Their eyes at once began to say something very different and far more important than what their lips were saying ; their mouths seemed shuttered, and a strange unaccountable fear made them part hurriedly.
Such were the relations between Nekhlyudov and Katusha right to the end of his first visit to his aunts. The aunts noticed, took alarm and even wrote abroad to Princess Helena Ivan-ovna, Nekhlyudov’s mother. Aunt Marya Ivanovna was afraid lest Nekhlyudov should form an illicit liaison with Katusha. But there was no danger of that. Though he did not know it, Nekhlyudov loved Katusha with an innocent love, and his love was his main shield against his downfall and against hers. He not only had no desire to possess her physically but the very thought of such a possibility filled him with horror. There was much more foundation for the fears of the romantic Sophia Ivanovna that Dmitri, with his uncompromising, determined character, having fallen in love with the girl, might take it into his head to marry her without ever considering her birth or station in life.
Had Nekhlyudov at that time clearly understood his feelings for Katusha, and especially had they tried to argue and tell him that he could not and must not link his destiny with a girl in her position, it might very easily have happened that, being entirely straightforward, he would have come to the conclusion that there could be no possible reason against his marrying a girl, no matter who she was, so long as he loved her. But his aunts did not mention their fears to him, and so he left, still unaware of his love for Katusha.
He was sure that his feeling for Katusha was simply one of the manifestations of the joy of life that filled his whole being and was shared by that sweet, light-hearted girl. Yet for all that, when he was going away and Katusha, standing on the porch with his aunts, saw him off with her black eyes that had a slight cast full of tears, he was conscious of leaving behind him something beautiful and precious, which could never be repeated. And he grew very sad.
‘Good-bye, Dmitri Ivanovich,’ she said in her agreeable, caressing voice, and, keeping back the tears which filled her eyes, ran into the hall, where she could cry her fill.