登陆注册
5563000000025

第25章

Yes, the Lord be thanked. And here is your favorite pink soap and towels from your aunts," she said, putting the soap on the table and hanging the towels over the back of a chair.

"There is everything here," said Tikhon, defending the visitor's independence, and pointing to Nekhludoff's open dressing case filled with brushes, perfume, fixatoire, a great many bottles with silver lids and all sorts of toilet appliances.

"Thank my aunts, please. Oh, how glad I am to be here," said Nekhludoff, his heart filling with light and tenderness as of old.

She only smiled in answer to these words, and went out. The aunts, who had always loved Nekhludoff, welcomed him this time more warmly than ever. Dmitri was going to the war, where he might be wounded or killed, and this touched the old aunts.

Nekhludoff had arranged to stay only a day and night with his aunts, but when he had seen Katusha he agreed to stay over Easter with them and telegraphed to his friend Schonbock, whom he was to have joined in Odessa, that he should come and meet him at his aunts' instead.

As soon as he had seen Katusha Nekhludoff's old feelings toward her awoke again. Now, just as then, he could not see her white apron without getting excited; he could not listen to her steps, her voice, her laugh, without a feeling of joy; he could not look at her eyes, black as sloes, without a feeling of tenderness, especially when she smiled; and, above all, he could not notice without agitation how she blushed when they met. He felt he was in love, but not as before, when this love was a kind of mystery to him and he would not own, even to himself, that he loved, and when he was persuaded that one could love only once; now he knew he was in love and was glad of it, and knew dimly what this love consisted of and what it might lead to, though he sought to conceal it even from himself. In Nekhludoff, as in every man, there were two beings: one the spiritual, seeking only that kind of happiness for him self which should tend towards the happiness of all; the other, the animal man, seeking only his own happiness, and ready to sacrifice to it the happiness of the rest of the world. At this period of his mania of self-love brought on by life in Petersburg and in the army, this animal man ruled supreme and completely crushed the spiritual man in him.

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.

同类推荐
  • 青囊奥语

    青囊奥语

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 太上洞玄灵宝天尊说大通经

    太上洞玄灵宝天尊说大通经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 女开科传

    女开科传

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Roundabout Papers

    Roundabout Papers

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 丛桂草堂医案

    丛桂草堂医案

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 民间小侦探

    民间小侦探

    刘芒的本意是做个小侦探,平日里替富婆们找丢失的哈士奇小猫咪大乌龟之类的,可直到一个老奶奶找上了他,从此陷入了无数离奇古怪的案子当中……侦探的人生,无须解释!群聊:577313841
  • 兽妃不当宠

    兽妃不当宠

    世人皆道,将军府嫡长女其貌不扬,更是无知暴躁。却不知,那副丑陋的皮相下又是何等的倾城妖娆。他是神秘的地下皇帝,却甘愿折服于她的裙摆之下。他以师父之名将她囚禁于身旁,她说:“师父,待我长发及腰你娶我,可好?”“待你长开,为师必定以这天下为聘。”当他不再是原来的他,她与他又该在这茫茫人海中何去何从……
  • 流浪战舰昆仑号

    流浪战舰昆仑号

    温室效应失控,永久冻土融化。处于进化盲支的远古孢子大爆发,变异的真菌聚合体太岁如同洪流一般碾压了人类文明,绝境中的地球人开启了星际流浪的新纪元。绝望之中的人类发射了十二艘战舰逃离地球,开启了人类的流浪时代。昆仑号上的人类开发出了“金刚”,以机甲对抗太岁。但是,昆仑真的只是战舰的名字?为什么战舰上会流传着无量量劫的传说?茫茫深空,真的存在历经混沌的……圣人?
  • ET少女

    ET少女

    颠沛流离到地球的外星少女孟樱珞,十年寻找只为找到初遇的那一人,是神秘乖僻的他,还是温暖如斯的他?
  • War of the End of the World

    War of the End of the World

    The War of the End of the World is one of the great modern historical novels. Inspired by a real episode in Brazilian history, Mario Vargas Llosa tells the story of an apocalyptic movement, led by a mysterious prophet, in which prostitutes, beggars and bandits establish Canudos, a new republic, a libertarian paradise.
  • 偶练浅梦安然

    偶练浅梦安然

    暮于落叶萧萧,那一年的你们,仍是少年模样,本无光的世界,却因你们的一颦一笑,默然点亮。以为会永远生活在一个黑色空间,然后自甘堕落……但感谢你们,我的少年,一直陪在身边。
  • 一陆珦北

    一陆珦北

    她以为:在他们见面的那一刻起,对他一见钟情时,她这辈子都不会放下他。他以为:默默守护了那么久,她一辈子都可能不会察觉。
  • 书法秘诀

    书法秘诀

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 神话传奇

    神话传奇

    神话由远古族群的人们集体创造并且流传下来,神话分为创世神话、始祖神话、洪水神话、战争神话、发明创造神话。本书选取了中国最著名,最为重要的神话呈现给读者。
  • 我的遗愿名单

    我的遗愿名单

    “在你死之前,有什么遗愿吗?我替你完成。”艾斯“我不想老爹为了救我而死……”佐为“让我与围棋之神对弈……”郭靖“我要大宋正道永昌……”燕归人“苦境兵燹休止……”雨果“如果不能登上撒冷,我的人生将毫无意义……”波罗斯“一场势均力敌的战斗……”为了挽回遗憾,江华走上了帮人完成遗愿的道路……