“Say you will come.”

Nekhludoff promised.

That night, when Nekhludoff was alone in his room, and lay down after putting out his candle, he could not sleep.  He thought of Maslova, of the decision of the Senate, of his resolve to follow her in any case, of his having given up the land.  The face of Mariette appeared to him as if in answer to those thoughts—­her look, her sigh, her words, “When shall I see you again?” and her smile seemed vivid as if he really saw her, and he also smiled.  “Shall I be doing right in going to Siberia?  And have I done right in divesting myself of my wealth?” And the answers to the questions on this Petersburg night, on which the daylight streamed into the window from under the blind, were quite indefinite.  All seemed mixed in his head.  He recalled his former state of mind, and the former sequence of his thoughts, but they had no longer their former power or validity.

“And supposing I have invented all this, and am unable to live it through—­supposing I repent of having acted right,” he thought; and unable to answer he was seized with such anguish and despair as he had long not felt.  Unable to free himself from his perplexity, he fell into a heavy sleep, such as he had slept after a heavy loss at cards.

CHAPTER XXV.

LYDIA SHOUSTOVA’S HOME.

Nekhludoff awoke next morning feeling as if he had been guilty of some iniquity the day before.  He began considering.  He could not remember having done anything wrong; he had committed no evil act, but he had had evil thoughts.  He had thought that all his present resolutions to marry Katusha and to give up his land were unachievable dreams; that he should be unable to bear it; that it was artificial, unnatural; and that he would have to go on living as he lived.

He had committed no evil action, but, what was far worse than an evil action, he had entertained evil thoughts whence all evil actions proceed.  An evil action may not be repeated, and can be repented of; but evil thoughts generate all evil actions.

An evil action only smooths the path for other evil acts; evil thoughts uncontrollably drag one along that path.

When Nekhludoff repeated in his mind the thoughts of the day before, he was surprised that he could for a moment have believed these thoughts.  However new and difficult that which he had decided to do might be, he knew that it was the only possible way of life for him now, and however easy and natural it might have been to return to his former state, he knew that state to be death.

Yesterday’s temptation seemed like the feeling when one awakes from deep sleep, and, without feeling sleepy, wants to lie comfortably in bed a little longer, yet knows that it is time to rise and commence the glad and important work that awaits one.

On that, his last day in Petersburg, he went in the morning to the Vasilievski Ostrov to see Shoustova.  Shoustova lived on the second floor, and having been shown the back stairs, Nekhludoff entered straight into the hot kitchen, which smelt strongly of food.  An elderly woman, with turned-up sleeves, with an apron and spectacles, stood by the fire stirring something in a steaming pan.