in reality truthful,
and how he was now steeped in falsehood--falsehood which was
recognized as truth by all those around him.

And there was no escape from this falsehood; at all events, he did not
see any escape. He had sunk in it, became accustomed to it, and
indulged himself in it.

The questions that absorbed him now were: How to break loose from
Maria Vasilievna and her husband, so that he might be able to look
them in the face? How, without falsehood, to disentangle his relations
with Missy? How to get out of the inconsistency of considering the
private holding of land unjust and keeping his inheritance? How to
blot out his sin against Katiousha? "I cannot abandon the woman whom I
have loved and content myself with paying money to the lawyer to save
her from penal servitude, which she does not even deserve." To blot
out the sin, as he did then, when he thought that he was atoning for
his wrong by giving her money! Impossible!

He vividly recalled the moment when he ran after her in the corridor,
thrust money in her bosom, and ran away from her. "Oh, that money!"
With the same horror and disgust he recalled that moment. "Oh, how
disgusting!" he said aloud, as he did then. "Only a scoundrel and
rascal could do it! And I am that scoundrel, that rascal!" he said
aloud. "It is possible that I--" and he stopped in the middle of the
room--"Is it possible that I am really a scoundrel? Who but I?" he
answered himself. "And is this the only thing?" he continued, still
censuring himself. "Are not my relations toward Maria Vasilievna base
and detestable? And my position with regard to property? Under the
plea that I inherited it from my mother I am using wealth, the
ownership of which I consider unlawful. And the whole of this idle,
abominable life? And to crown all, my conduct toward Katiousha?
Scoundrel! Villain! Let people judge me as they please--I can deceive
them, but I cannot deceive myself."

And he suddenly understood that the disgust which he had lately felt
toward everybody, and especially to-day toward the Prince and Maria
Vasilievna, and Missy, and Kornei, was disgust with himself. And in
this confession of his own baseness there was something painful, and
at the same time joyous and calming.

In the course of his life Nekhludoff often experienced what he called
a "cleansing of the soul." This happened when, after a long period of
retardation, or, perhaps, entire cessation of his inner life, he
suddenly b