Chapter 31 Part 1 - Twenty Eight

"Disgraceful and detestable, detestable and disgraceful," Nekhludoff thought to himself as he walked home along the familiar streets.The heaviness with which he had talked with Missy just now had not been relieved.He felt that, on the face of it—if it may be called that—he had done her no fault: he had never said anything binding to her, nor had he proposed to her, but he Felt that in fact he was connected with her, had promised her.But today he felt in his heart that he could not marry her. "Shameful and odious, and odious and shameful," he repeated to himself, not only of his relationship with Missy, but of everything. "Everything is abominable and disgraceful," he repeated to himself as he went to his own gate.

"I won't eat dinner," he said to Kearney, the servant who followed him into the dining room (where the cutlery and tea were already prepared), "you go." "Yes," Kearney said, but instead of leaving, he began to clear the table.Nekhludoff looked at Kearney and found him annoying.He hoped that no one would disturb him and let him be quiet for a while, but everyone seemed to be against him and clung to him.When Kearny left with the tableware, Nekhludoff was just about to go to the samovar to pour tea when he heard Agrafena's footsteps. He hurried into the living room and closed the door behind him so as not to meet her. .This living room is where his mother died three months ago.Now, entering this well-lit room, and seeing the two lamps with reflectors, one illuminating his father's portrait and the other his mother's, he could not help thinking of his fellow Mother's last period of relationship.He found the relationship unnatural and repulsive.It is also shameful and detestable.It occurred to him that at the end of her illness he could have wished she had died.He said to himself that he hoped that she would get rid of the pain as soon as possible, but in fact, he hoped that he would get rid of her as soon as possible, so as not to see her in pain.

Desiring to recall his fond memories of her, he looked at her portrait, which had been painted by a famous artist for five thousand rubles.She was wearing a black velvet dress that bared her breasts.The painter clearly intended to fully depict the high breasts, the skin between the breasts, and the beautiful shoulders and neck.This is really shameful and detestable.To paint his mother as a half-naked beauty smacks of embarrassment and profanity.It is especially embarrassing for Nietzsche (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900), a German philosopher, but this woman was lying in this room three months ago. Bad taste.The smell permeated not only this room, but the whole house, and could not be eliminated.It seemed to him that he could still smell that smell.Then he remembered how, on the day before her death, she took his strong white hand with her thin, blackened hand, looked into his eyes and said, "Mikhail, if there is anything wrong with me, you Don't blame me," she said, with tears welling up in her pained eyes. "What an abomination!" he said again to himself, looking at the half-naked beauty with marble shoulders and arms and a triumphant smile.The bare breasts in the portrait reminded him of another, much younger woman whom he had seen a few days earlier with bare breasts and shoulders.That woman is Missy.She had called him there that night on an excuse, so that he could see her in her ball gown when she went to the ball.He thought of her tender shoulders and arms, and couldn't help feeling a little disgusted.Then there's her rough, lecherous father, with his shameful past and cruelty, and his wisecracking mother of dubious reputation.It's all abhorrent and shameful at the same time.It is shameful and detestable, detestable and shameful.

"No, no, you have to get rid of it... you have to get rid of the hypocrisy with the Korchagins and Maria, get rid of the inheritance, get rid of everything that is unreasonable... Yes, to live freely.To go abroad, to Rome, to learn to paint..." He thought of the talent he doubted he had. "Oh, that's all right, as long as I can live freely.First to Constantinople, then to Rome, but must hasten to resign as a juror.You'll have to discuss the case with a lawyer. " Then suddenly a very real image of the female prisoner appeared in his mind, and her squinting black eyes appeared.How she wept during the defendant's final statement!He hastily stubbed out his finished cigarette in the ashtray, lit another, and began pacing up and down the room.So on opposites.See "Two Points". , Scene after scene of the scenes he spent with her appeared in front of his eyes.He thought of the last time he had seen her, of the animal desires that had ruled him then, and of the depression that followed their fulfillment.He thought of the snow-white dress and the light blue sash, and of the morning prayer. "Oh, I love her, I did have a beautiful and pure love for her that night, and I was in love with her before that, when I first stayed at my aunt's house and wrote my dissertation. Fall in love with her deeply!" Then he remembered what kind of person he was back then.He was full of vigor and vitality, full of youthful vitality.Thinking of this made him feel very sad.

There was a huge difference between the man he was then and the man he is now.The difference was at least as great, if not greater, than the difference between Katyusha in the church and the whore who accompanied the merchant on trial this morning for drinking.Back then he was full of life, free and unrestrained, and his future was limitless, but now he feels that he is caught in the trap of a stupid, empty, peaceful, and mediocre life, with no way out in sight, and he doesn't even want to get rid of this bondage.He thought of the time when he had prided himself on his candor, sworn to always tell the truth, and lived up to it, and now he had sunk completely into the quagmire of hypocrisy, into the utterly false quagmire of what everyone around him believed to be the truth.There was no way out of this quagmire of hypocrisy, at least he couldn't see any way out.He was stuck in it, getting deeper and deeper, unable to extricate himself, and even proud of himself.

How to settle with Maria, with her husband, without being ashamed to look him and his children in the eye?How can I honestly end my relationship with Missy?On the one hand, he thinks that private ownership of land is unreasonable, and on the other hand, he inherits the territory left by his mother. How should this contradiction be resolved?How to atone for my sins in front of Katyusha?We can't leave her behind no matter where! "I can't leave a woman I loved behind, and I can't just pay for a lawyer to save her from hard labor that she shouldn't have to do. You can't use money to atone for her sins, just like I gave her a sum of money back then, thinking that as a duty."

So he recalled the scene clearly: he chased her in the corridor, put the money in her hand, and ran away. "Oh, that money!" Recalling the scene at that time, he felt the same fear and loathing in his heart as at that time. "Alas, the original meaning of sincerity is honesty without deceit, truth without falsehood. Mencius regarded sincerity as nature and human beings, how despicable!" He also cursed out loud as he did back then. "Only a rogue, a rogue, can do such a thing! I... I am a rogue, a rogue!" he exclaimed. "Am I really..." He paused, "Am I really a rogue? If I'm not a rogue, who else is?" he asked himself. "Is this the only thing?" He continued to expose himself. "Isn't your relationship with Maria, your relationship with her husband, mean and indecent? And your attitude to property? You use money that you don't think is justified on the pretext that it was your mother's bequest." Possession. Your whole life has been idle and vile. And what you have done to Katyusha is the best. Rascal, scoundrel! I can be judged as I will be judged, I can deceive them, But I can't lie to myself."

It suddenly dawned on him that the hatred he had towards people recently, especially today towards the Duke, Duchess Shafia, Missy and Kearney, was in the final analysis a hatred towards himself.Strange to say, this feeling of self-depravity is both painful and comforting. Nekhludoff performed many "purifications of the soul" in his life.His so-called "purification of the soul" refers to such a state of mind: he has lived for a period of time, and suddenly feels that his inner life is dull, or even completely stagnant.He proceeds to remove from the soul the accumulated dirt which is the cause of stagnation in the inner life.

After this awakening, Nekhludoff always made some daily rules that must be followed, such as keeping a diary, and started a new life that he hoped to stick to, which is what he himself called "opening a new book". One page"①.But each time he was always tempted by the earthly source of inequality, but did not advocate its abolition.Advocating the establishment of a state in the hands of the people, imperceptibly sinks, often deeper than before. -------- ①The original text is English. He had done this several times to cleanse his soul and lift his spirits.That summer, when he went to his aunt's house, it happened to be the first time he did such a thing.This awakening revived and refreshed him, and lasted for a considerable time.Later Mingjiao was divided into feudal ethics with rectification of names as its main content.Confucius in the pre-Qin period argued that during times of war, he resigned from his civil service, joined the army, and was willing to sacrifice himself for the country. He also had such an awakening once.But soon the soul was filled with dirt again.Later, there was another awakening, which was when he resigned from the military and went abroad to study painting.

It had been a long time since he had purified his soul, so he had never been so dirty mentally, and the demands of his conscience were too incompatible with the life he was leading.Seeing this contradiction, he couldn't help being frightened. The gap was so great and the accretion was so great that at first he lost faith in purification. "Haven't you tried self-cultivation, hoping to become noble, but in vain?" said the devil in his heart, "then why try again? You are not alone, everyone is like this, life That's it," said the devil.But the free-spirited man has awakened in Nekhludoff, who is real, powerful and eternal.Nekhludoff could not but believe him.Whatever the distance between the life he leads and his ideals, anything is possible for a man of awakened spirit.

"I will break through the web of hypocrisy that binds my spirit, no matter what it may cost. I will confess everything, speak the truth, and do the honest thing," he said to himself resolutely. "I'm going to tell Missy honestly, "Revisiting the Trade Unions, the Present Situation, and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin" (1921, I'm a libertine and unworthy of marrying her, and I've only caused her trouble for a while. I want to tell the truth to Maria (Chief Noble Wife). However, I have nothing to say to her. I want to tell her husband that I am a scoundrel. I cheated him. I want to dispose of the inheritance properly. I want to tell her , to Katyusha, I am a scoundrel, I have committed a crime against her, and I will ease her pain as much as possible. Yes, I will go to her and ask her to forgive me. Yes, I will ask her forgiveness like a child ’” He stopped. “I’ll marry her if necessary.” He stood still, folded his arms on his chest as he had done in childhood, raised his eyes and looked up to the sky and said: "Lord, help me, guide me, come to my heart, and remove all dirt from my body!" He prayed, asking God to help him, to come into his heart and cleanse him of all dirt.His request was immediately granted.The God who existed in his heart awakened in his consciousness.He feels the existence of God, and therefore not only feels freedom, courage, and life science, but also feels the full power of goodness.All the best that any man can do, he felt he could do now. There were tears in his eyes as he said these words to himself, good tears and bad tears.The good tears were because the spiritual man who had been dormant in his heart for all these years had finally awakened; the bad tears were because he felt self-pity and thought he had some virtue. He felt hot all over.He went to the window and opened it.The windows open onto the garden.It was a clear, still moonlit night, and there was a rumble of carriages in the street, and then silence.There is a tall poplar tree outside the window, its bare branches criss-cross, casting its shadow clearly on the clean sandy ground of the square.On the left is the roof of the barn, white in the bright moonlight.In front of it was a field of intertwined branches, and a low black wall could be seen under the cover of the branches.Nekhludoff looked at the moonlit garden and the roof, at the shadows of the poplars, and breathed in the refreshing air. "That's great! Oh, that's great, my God, that's great!" he kept cheering at the change in his soul.