Nekhludoff and Missy

The relationship between Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff and Princess Mary Korchagin, known as Missy, is a carefully managed social performance within the highest circles of the Petersburg and Moscow aristocracy. It is not a romance born of passion but a courtship orchestrated by family and convention, in which Missy's mother, Princess Sophia Vasilievna, and the family's intimate, Agraphena Petrovna, all expect a proposal. Nekhludoff himself is acutely aware of this maneuvering; he recognizes that Missy's note reminding him of his jury duty is "a continuation of that skilful manoeuvring which the Princess Korchagin had already practised for two months in order to bind him closer and closer with invisible threads." The relationship is thus a web of hints, smiles, and social obligations, where every gesture is freighted with unspoken intent.

Nekhludoff's Ambivalence and the Inner Conflict

Nekhludoff's feelings toward Missy are profoundly ambivalent, swinging between two opposing views. At times, he sees her as if "by moonlight," finding her "beautiful, fresh, pretty, clever and natural." He values her "good breeding" and the fact that she "thought more of him than of anybody else," which he interprets as a recognition of his superior merits. Yet he also experiences moments of harsh clarity, when "the bright sun shone on her" and he sees only her defects: the wrinkles on her face, the false teeth, the crimped hair, and the sharp elbows. This duality reflects his own inner division between the "spiritual man" and the "animal man." The prospect of marriage to Missy represents a conventional, morally comfortable life, one that would give "an aim to his now empty life" through hearth and home. Against this, he feels the "fear, common to bachelors past their first youth, of losing freedom," and a deeper, unacknowledged guilt over his past with Katerina Maslova. He compares himself to the ass in the fable, unable to choose between two haycocks, and finds a convenient excuse to delay any decision: he cannot propose until he has broken off his liaison with Mary Vasilievna, the wife of the marshal of nobility.

The Social Performance and Nekhludoff's Growing Disgust

The relationship is enacted through a series of social rituals that Nekhludoff finds increasingly hollow. At the Korchagin dinner party following the trial, he is struck by the "repulsive" nature of everything around him: the "self-assured, trivial tone of liberalism" of Kolosoff, the "sensual, self-satisfied, bull-like appearance" of old Prince Korchagin, and even Missy herself, who now seems "unattractive and affected." He notices the pronoun "him" she uses, a marker of their supposed intimacy, and finds it unpleasant. When Missy presses him to explain his troubled mood, he is evasive, and she, in turn, is wounded. He feels ashamed of hurting her, yet knows that "the least weakness on his part would mean disaster, i.e., would bind him to her." This scene crystallizes his alienation: he is performing a role in a world whose values he has come to despise. The visit to Princess Sophia Vasilievna's boudoir only deepens his disgust, as he sees through her flattery and the falseness of the entire aristocratic milieu.

The Break and the Moral Awakening

The decisive break comes not through a confrontation but through Nekhludoff's internal moral revolution. After the trial and his first, painful interview with Maslova, he experiences a "cleansing of the soul." In this new state, he resolves to "break this lie which binds me and confess everything, and will tell everybody the truth, and act the truth." This includes telling Missy that he is "a profligate and cannot marry her, and have only uselessly upset her." The marriage that once seemed so probable now appears "quite impossible." He feels himself "unworthy not only of marrying, but even of being intimate with her." The relationship with Missy is thus not merely abandoned; it is repudiated as part of the false, luxurious, and idle life he has resolved to leave behind. The final, silent farewell occurs at the railway station, where Nekhludoff, now traveling third-class to Siberia, sees Missy with her family. They exchange only a few words, and he feels "depressed and uncomfortable" with his sister Nathalie, who has become a "slave" to her husband, just as Missy was a creature of her social world. The relationship with Missy is a casualty of Nekhludoff's resurrection, a necessary sacrifice to his new, painful, and authentic life.