Book 1 Chapter 12 Twelve Years Before

He arranged his life on his aunts' estate in the following
manner. He got up very early, sometimes at three o'clock, and
before sunrise went through the morning mists to bathe in the
river, under the hill. He returned while the dew still lay on the
grass and the flowers. Sometimes, having finished his coffee, he
sat down with his books of reference and his papers to write his
essay, but very often, instead of reading or writing, he left
home again, and wandered through the fields and the woods. Before
dinner he lay down and slept somewhere in the garden. At dinner
he amused and entertained his aunts with his bright spirits, then
he rode on horseback or went for a row on the river, and in the
evening he again worked at his essay, or sat reading or playing
patience with his aunts.

His joy in life was so great that it agitated him, and kept him
awake many a night, especially when it was moonlight, so that
instead of sleeping he wandered about in the garden till dawn,
alone with his dreams and fancies.

And so, peacefully and happily, he lived through the first month
of his stay with his aunts, taking no particular notice of their
half-ward, half-servant, the black-eyed, quick-footed Katusha.
Then, at the age of nineteen, Nekhludoff, brought up under his
mother's wing, was still quite pure. If a woman figured in his
dreams at all it was only as a wife. All the other women, who,
according to his ideas he could not marry, were not women for
him, but human beings.