Book 2 Chapter 8 Gods Peace in the Heart

When Nekhludoff returned he found that the office had been
arranged as a bedroom for him. A high bedstead, with a feather
bed and two large pillows, had been placed in the room. The bed
was covered with a dark red doublebedded silk quilt, which was
elaborately and finely quilted, and very stiff. It evidently
belonged to the trousseau of the foreman's wife. The foreman
offered Nekhludoff the remains of the dinner, which the latter
refused, and, excusing himself for the poorness of the fare and
the accommodation, he left Nekhludoff alone.

The peasants' refusal did not at all bother Nekhludoff. On the
contrary, though at Kousminski his offer had been accepted and he
had even been thanked for it, and here he was met with suspicion
and even enmity, he felt contented and joyful.

It was close and dirty in the office. Nekhludoff went out into
the yard, and was going into the garden, but he remembered: that
night, the window of the maid-servant's room, the side porch, and
he felt uncomfortable, and did not like to pass the spot
desecrated by guilty memories. He sat down on the doorstep, and
breathing in the warm air, balmy with the strong scent of fresh
birch leaves, he sat for a long time looking into the dark garden
and listening to the mill, the nightingales, and some other bird
that whistled monotonously in the bush close by. The light
disappeared from the foreman's window; in the cast, behind the
barn, appeared the light of the rising moon, and sheet lightning
began to light up the dilapidated house, and the blooming,
over-grown garden more and more frequently. It began to thunder
in the distance, and a black cloud spread over one-third of the
sky. The nightingales and the other birds were silent. Above the
murmur of the water from the mill came the cackling of geese, and
then in the village and in the foreman's yard the first cocks
began to crow earlier than usual, as they do on warm, thundery
nights. There is a saying that if the cocks crow early the night
will be a merry one. For Nekhludoff the night was more than
merry; it was a happy, joyful night. Imagination renewed the
impressions of that happy summer which he had spent here as an
innocent lad, and he felt himself as he had been not only at that
but at all the best moments of his life. He not only remembered
but felt as he had felt when, at the age of 14, he prayed that
God would show him the truth; or when as a child he had wept on
his mother's lap, when parting from her, and promising to be
always good, and never give her pain; he felt as he did when he
and Nikolenka Irtenieff resolved always to support each other in
living a good life and to try to make everybody happy.