It is a night of spring, with a white mist above the melting snow, the ice tinkling and breaking in the river. Nekhlúdof twice summons Katusha, and twice she evades him, but in the end it is done. Never has the charm and romance of passion been more wonderfully rendered, but Tolstoy makes us feel this seduction terrible as a murder.
And the worst detail of all, the one that Nekhlúdof remembers with burning cheeks, is that, when he left, he paid Katusha by thrusting into the pocket of her apron a hundred-rouble note.
The trial proceeds. Máslova, though manifestly innocent, is condemned by a technical error and sentenced to Siberia. Nekhlúdof determines to appeal, and, moved by his remorse, he decides also to make himself known to her and ask her forgiveness.
In the meanwhile we are introduced to the household of the Korchágins, whose daughter Nekhlúdof is expected to marry. We see the contrast between the wretched lives of the prisoners, who suffer and have always suffered from every form of privation, and the debasing luxury of the Korchágins, which produces, not happiness but only ennui and fatigue. We see the contrast between the conventionality and tiresomeness of Nekhlúdof's relations with the young princess and the pure poetry of those earlier relations with Katusha. The mariage de convenance is evident in all its weariness.
These scenes are closely linked with the main purpose of the book: what Tolstoy wishes is to make his reader feel that the whole penal system is wrong and false, partly because the people who come under it are mainly the victims of a cruel form of society, and partly because those who condemn them are, in their own way of life, no better but probably far worse. The Korchágins have to their credit a long series of evil deeds, floggings and judicial murders, gluttony and sexual offences.
Nekhlúdof sees that, compared with these people, Máslova and the rest are almost innocent, and grows more and more disgusted with the life of his set. He makes himself known to Máslova.
Tolstoy has no sentimentality, and he cannot pretend that the horrible life which his heroine has led has not made any essential difference; on the contrary, it is her profound moral corruption which is, as Nekhlúdof at once realises, the most hideous consequence of his sin. When she first recognises his interest, she has no special feelings towards him, but only wishes to make use of him in order to extract from him money for drink. But, when he asks her forgiveness, she overwhelms him with foul abuse. She cannot believe in his real penitence, but thinks that, just as he once used her for his physical pleasure, so now he wishes to make use of her to save what she calls his "dirty soul."
Tolstoy now tells us the story of the seduction as it appeared to her, and adds details of a terrible and haunting pathos. The poor deserted girl realised that she was about to become a mother; she was aware that the train in which her lover travelled would pass through the station at a certain hour, and determined to make an appeal to him, but she lost her way in the darkness and arrived too late. She was not able to speak though she saw him through the lighted carriage window; in the night and storm, and darkness, injuring his child which she bore, she rushed along by the train as far as she could go, and saw it carry him away faster and faster. In that hour something vital—belief in God and in man—snapped in Katusha. Unable to free herself, she sank lower and lower into vice, until she arrived where Nekhlúdof found her. When he implores her forgiveness she is roused to fury because he tortures her by reminding her of her lost innocence, and forces her to realise all the abominable degradation she has endured. Nekhlúdof is, however, true to his repentance; he insists that he is willing to marry her if she will consent, but, if not, he will follow her to Siberia, and do all in his power to alleviate her lot.
As soon as she realises that this is being done genuinely, for her and not for "other-worldliness," she is touched and moved.