When the judges had risen, the advocates, the jury, and thewitnesses also rose, with the pleasant feeling that part of thebusiness was finished, and began moving in different directions. wig palace
Nekhludoff went into the jury's room, and sat down by the window. wig palace
CHAPTER XII. wiggum p.i
TWELVE YEARS BEFORE.
"Yes, this was Katusha."
The relations between Nekhludoff and Katusha had been thefollowing:
Nekhludoff first saw Katusha when he was a student in his thirdyear at the University, and was preparing an essay on land tenureduring the summer vacation, which he passed with his aunts. Untilthen he had always lived, in summer, with his mother and sisteron his mother's large estate near Moscow. But that year hissister had married, and his mother had gone abroad to awatering-place, and he, having his essay to write, resolved tospend the summer with his aunts. It was very quiet in theirsecluded estate and there was nothing to distract his mind; hisaunts loved their nephew and heir very tenderly, and he, too, wasfond of them and of their simple, old-fashioned life.
During that summer on his aunts' estate, Nekhludoff passedthrough that blissful state of existence when a young man for thefirst time, without guidance from any one outside, realises allthe beauty and significance of life, and the importance of thetask allotted in it to man; when he grasps the possibility ofunlimited advance towards perfection for one's self and for allthe world, and gives himself to this task, not only hopefully,but with full conviction of attaining to the perfection heimagines. In that year, while still at the University, he hadread Spencer's Social Statics, and Spencer's views on landholdingespecially impressed him, as he himself was heir to largeestates. His father had not been rich, but his mother hadreceived 10,000 acres of land for her dowry. At that time hefully realised all the cruelty and injustice of private propertyin land, and being one of those to whom a sacrifice to thedemands of conscience gives the highest spiritual enjoyment, hedecided not to retain property rights, but to give up to thepeasant labourers the land he had inherited from his father. Itwas on this land question he wrote his essay.