Book 2 Chapter 31 Nekhludoffs Sister and Her Husband

The gang of prisoners, with Maslova among them, was to start on
the 5th July. Nekhludoff arranged to start on the same day.

The day before, Nekhludoff's sister and her husband came to town
to see him.

Nekhludoff's sister, Nathalie Ivanovna Rogozhinsky, was 10 years
older than her brother. She had been very fond of him when he was
a boy, and later on, just before her marriage, they grew very
close to each other, as if they were equals, she being a young
woman of 25, he a lad of 15. At that time she was in love with
his friend, Nikolenka Irtenieff, since dead. They both loved
Nikolenka, and loved in him and in themselves that which is good,
and which unites all men. Since then they had both been depraved,
he by military service and a vicious life, she by marriage with a
man whom she loved with a sensual love, who did not care for the
things that had once been so dear and holy to her and to her
brother, nor even understand the meaning of those aspirations
towards moral perfection and the service of mankind, which once
constituted her life, and put them down to ambition and the wish
to show off; that being the only explanation comprehensible to
him.

Nathalie's husband had been a man without a name and without
means, but cleverly steering towards Liberalism or Conservatism,
according to which best suited his purpose, he managed to make a
comparatively brilliant judicial career. Some peculiarity which
made him attractive to women assisted him when he was no longer
in his first youth. While travelling abroad he made Nekhludoff's
acquaintance, and managed to make Nathalie, who was also no
longer a girl, fall in love with him, rather against her mother's
wishes who considered a marriage with him to be a misalliance for
her daughter. Nekhludoff, though he tried to hide it from
himself, though he fought against it, hated his brother-in-law.