m.

The aunts, who always loved Nekhludoff, received him this time with
greater joy than usual. Dmitri was going to active service, where he
might be wounded or killed. This affected the aunts.

Nekhludoff had arranged his trip so that he might spend twenty-four
hours with his aunts, but, seeing Katiousha, decided to remain over
Easter Sunday, which was two days later, and wired to his friend and
commander Shenbok, whom he was to meet at Odessa, to come to his
aunts.

From the very first day Nekhludoff experienced the old feeling toward
Katiousha. Again he could not see without agitation the white apron of
Katiousha; he could not listen without joy to her steps, her voice,
her laugh; he could not, without emotion, look into her black eyes,
especially when she smiled; he could not, above all, see, without
confusion, how she blushed when they met. He felt that he was in love,
but not as formerly, when this love was to him a mystery, and he had
not the courage to confess it to himself; when he was convinced that
one can love only once. Now he loved knowingly, rejoiced at it, and
confusedly knowing, though he concealed it from himself, what it
consisted of, and what might come of it.

In Nekhludoff, as in all people, there were two beings; one spiritual,
who sought only such happiness for himself as also benefited others;
and the animal being, seeking his own happiness for the sake of which
he is willing to sacrifice that of the world. During this period of
his insane egotism, called forth by the life in the army and in St.
Petersburg, the animal man dominated him and completely suppressed the
spiritual man. But, seeing Katiousha, and being again imbued with the
feelings he formerly experienced toward her, the spiritual man raised
his head and began to assert his rights. And during the two days
preceding Easter an incessant struggle was going on within Nekhludoff
of which he was quite unconscious.

In the depth of his soul he knew that he had to depart; that his stay
at his aunts was unnecessary, that nothing good could come of it, but
it was so joyous and pleasant that he did not heed it, and remained.

On the eve of Easter Sunday, the priest and deacon who, as they
afterward related, with difficulty covered the three miles from the
church to the aunts' manor, arrived on a sleigh to perform the morning
services.

Nekhludoff, with his aunts and the servants, went through the motions,
without ceasing to look on Kati