Nekhludoff’s first feeling on rising the following morning was that he had committed something abominable the preceding evening.
He began to recall what had happened. There was nothing abominable; he had done nothing wrong. He had only thought that all his present intentions—that of marrying Katiousha, giving the land to the peasants—artificial, unnatural, and that he must continued to live as he had lived before.
He could recall no wrong act, but he remembered what was worse than a wrong act—there were the bad thoughts in which all bad acts have their origin. Bad acts may not be repeated; one may repent of them, while bad thoughts give birth to bad acts.
A bad act only smooths the way to other bad acts, while bad thoughts irresistibly lead toward them.
Recalling his thoughts of the day before, Nekhludoff wondered how he could have believed them. How so novel and difficult might be that which he intended to do, he knew that it was the only life possible to him now, and that, however easy it might be for him to return to his old mode of life, he knew that that was death, not life. This temptation of the day before was similar to that of a man who, after a night’s sound sleep, feels like taking his ease on the soft mattress for a while, although he knows that it is time to be up and away on an important affair.
From “The Awakening: The Resurrection” by Leon Tolstoy
In this intricate novel, Leon Tolstoy describes the horrors of the Russian society of the nineteenth century. A genius, he watches the scenes unfold before him, narrating them with sharp visual acuity for the details and venturing into the hidden corners of the characters’ minds. As the author describes, a mere thought—good, bad, or indifferent—is not just a simple idea but can often be the predecessor of the act that will soon follow. There is not such a thing as a benign thought, for all of them carry some inherent risks. Yet, what would be our lives without taking any chances?
