Nekhludoff's marriage decision

Nekhludoff's marriage decision is the central moral crisis of Resurrection, the moment when his awakening conscience forces him to confront the full weight of his past sin and to seek atonement through a radical, socially impossible act. The decision does not arrive as a single flash of insight but emerges through a painful, layered process of recognition, shame, and spiritual struggle, and it ultimately becomes the test of whether his repentance is genuine or merely another form of self-deception.

Recognition and the First Stirrings of Conscience

The decision begins not as a noble intention but as a shock of recognition. In the courtroom, when Nekhludoff hears the prisoner give her name as "Lubov" and then correct it to "Katerina," he is seized by the certainty that this is Katusha, the girl he had loved and betrayed. The memory of their first innocent love—the games in the meadow, the kiss behind the lilac bush, the Easter morning when she looked at him with "devotion, virgin purity, and love"—floods back, and with it the unbearable contrast between the pure young man he had been and the depraved officer he became. He remembers how he had given her a 100-rouble note after the seduction, thrusting it into her apron and running away "groaning and frowning as if he had hurt himself," and how he had then deliberately forgotten her, pleased to hear his aunts say she had "gone to the bad" because it seemed to acquit him. Now, seeing her in the prisoners' dock, condemned for a crime he knows she did not commit, he feels the "pitiless hand of the Master" holding him, and he can no longer escape.

The Inner Struggle and the Decision to Confess

The decision to marry Maslova crystallizes during the night after the trial, in a scene of intense spiritual crisis. Returning home, Nekhludoff paces his room, overwhelmed by the "shameful and horrid" web of lies in which he lives—his empty affair with Mary Vasilievna, his ambiguous courtship of Princess Mary Korchagin, his comfortable acceptance of an inheritance he believes to be unjust. He forces himself to recall the moment he thrust the money at Katusha, and the memory fills him with "horror and disgust." He cries aloud, "Only a scoundrel, a knave, could do such a thing. And I am that knave, that scoundrel!" Yet this acknowledgment, painful as it is, brings a strange relief. He resolves to break every lie: to tell Missy the truth, to confess to Mary Vasilievna's husband, to give up his land, and above all, to go to Katusha, ask her forgiveness, and "marry her if necessary." He prays, "Lord, help me, teach me, come enter within me and purify me of all this abomination," and feels the God within him awaken, filling him with "the freedom, fulness and joy of life."

The First Proposal and Maslova's Refusal

When Nekhludoff finally visits Maslova in prison and tells her he has come to ask forgiveness, she meets him with a cold, luring smile and asks for ten roubles. He is horrified to see that the Katusha he loved seems dead, replaced by a prostitute who regards him only as a source of money. Yet he persists, telling her he will marry her. Her response is a furious explosion of pain: "You've got pleasure out of me in this life, and want to save yourself through me in the life to come. You are disgusting to me—your spectacles and the whole of your dirty fat mug. Go, go!" She accuses him of trying to buy his own salvation at her expense, and the accusation strikes home. Nekhludoff is shaken, but he does not retreat. He recognizes that her anger is the voice of a soul that has been crushed, and he resolves to continue serving her whether she accepts his offer or not.

The Second Proposal and the Change in Maslova

Over the following months, as Maslova is transferred to the political prisoners and begins to change under the influence of Mary Pavlovna Schetinina and Valdemar Simonson, Nekhludoff's feeling toward her deepens. He no longer sees his offer as a sacrifice but as a simple duty, and his love becomes "pity and tenderness" not only for her but for everyone. When he visits her in the hospital, she is calmer, though she still refuses his offer of marriage. He tells her, "Whatever happens, whatever comes of it, my resolve remains unchanged. I will do what I have said; wherever they take you I shall be with you." She does not answer directly, but her face lights up, and he feels that an important change is going on in her soul.

The Final Decision and the Release

The crisis reaches its resolution when Simonson tells Nekhludoff that he loves Maslova and wishes to marry her. Nekhludoff, though he feels a pang of jealousy and a sense that his sacrifice has been diminished, gives his consent, recognizing that Simonson's love is genuine and that Maslova's happiness may lie with him. When he brings her the news that her sentence has been commuted to exile, she tells him she has decided to go with Simonson. Her eyes meet his, and he understands that she is refusing him not because she does not love him, but because she loves him too much to let him sacrifice his life for hers. She says, "You must live, too," and her smile is both sad and triumphant. Nekhludoff realizes that she has made her own moral choice, and that his decision to marry her, though never fulfilled in fact, has been fulfilled in spirit: it has awakened him to a new life, and it has helped her to find her own path to redemption.