Maslova's decision to go with Simonson

Katerina Maslova's decision to go with Valdemar Simonson rather than accept Dmitri Nekhludoff's offer of marriage is the culminating moral choice of her journey, one that simultaneously completes her inner transformation, releases Nekhludoff from his burden of guilt, and affirms her own hard-won dignity. The decision is made in the prison office of a Siberian town, immediately after Nekhludoff brings her the news that her sentence has been commuted from hard labor to exile in a less distant district. The moment crystallizes the long arc of her suffering and her gradual awakening to a new sense of self-worth.

The Circumstances of the Decision

When Nekhludoff enters the prison office, he finds Maslova changed: her face is hard and unpleasant, as it had been when she reproached him earlier. She flushes and turns pale, her fingers nervously twisting a corner of her jacket. She looks up at him, then casts down her eyes. Nekhludoff tells her that a mitigation has arrived and that as soon as the original document comes she may leave and settle wherever she likes. Before he can finish, she interrupts him hurriedly and speaks with a rapid, prepared clarity: "What have I to consider? Where Valdemar Simonson goes, there I shall follow." She raises her eyes to his and pronounces the words quickly and distinctly, as if she had long rehearsed them. When Nekhludoff asks if she loves Simonson, she deflects the question: "Loving or not loving, what does it matter? I have given up all that. And then Valdemar Simonson is quite an exceptional man." She insists that Nekhludoff must forgive her if she is not doing what he wishes, and adds, with a look from her unfathomable, squinting eyes, "You must live, too."

The Inner Logic of the Choice

Maslova's decision is not impulsive but the culmination of a long inner struggle. Throughout the journey to Siberia, she has been undergoing a profound moral transformation. She has stopped drinking, smoking, and coquetting; she entered the hospital because she knew Nekhludoff wished it. Yet she has consistently refused his offer of marriage, repeating the proud words she once uttered and knowing that a marriage with her would be a misfortune for him. She loves him still—she has loved him again since their second prison interview—but she will not let him sacrifice himself. Her choice of Simonson is, in her own mind, a way of setting Nekhludoff free. She tells him, with tears glistening in her black eyes, "You have done so much for me as it is. If it had not been for you—" and her voice trembles. When Nekhludoff says, "What a good woman you are," she answers through her tears, "I good?" and a pathetic smile lights up her face. The smile and the tears reveal that she is sacrificing her own desire for his sake, just as she believes he was sacrificing himself for hers.

Simonson's Role and the New Bond

Simonson's proposal, made to Nekhludoff earlier that same evening, has prepared the ground. Simonson, a vegetarian and a principled ascetic who considers himself a "phacocyte"—a cell whose function is to help the weak and sickly parts of the social organism—loves Maslova not out of magnanimity or guilt but simply because of the love he bears her. He tells Nekhludoff, "I love her as a splendid, unique, human being who has suffered much. I want nothing from her. I have only an awful longing to help her, to lighten her position." His voice trembles as he speaks. Maslova, with a woman's instinct, has long known that Simonson loves her, and the fact that such a man could love her raises her in her own estimation. She feels that he considers her an exceptional woman with peculiarly high moral qualities, and she tries with all her might to become as good as possible. The bond between them is not passionate but founded on mutual respect and a shared sense of moral purpose.

The Parting with Nekhludoff

The interview ends with a farewell that is also a release. Maslova says, not "Good-bye" but "Forgive me," so low that Nekhludoff can hardly hear her. Their eyes meet, and he understands by the strange look of her squinting eyes and the pathetic smile that she loves him still and is sacrificing herself for his sake. She presses his hand, turns quickly, and leaves the room. Nekhludoff, left alone, feels a terrible weariness and sits down on a wooden bench, falling into a deep, heavy sleep. The decision closes the chapter of his obligation to her: he is no longer needed, and this both saddens and shames him. Yet it also opens a new phase in his own spiritual journey, one that will lead him, that same night, to a transformative reading of the Gospels.

Significance

Maslova's choice to go with Simonson rather than marry Nekhludoff is the decisive act of her moral agency. It completes the arc that began with her fall, her degradation, her imprisonment, and her gradual awakening through the influence of the political exiles—especially Mary Pavlovna Schetinina and Simonson himself. By refusing Nekhludoff's sacrifice, she asserts her own worth and refuses to be an object of pity or a means of his salvation. By choosing Simonson, she chooses a life of shared principle and quiet devotion rather than one of unequal obligation. The decision is both a renunciation and an affirmation: she renounces the comfort and status that marriage to a prince would bring, and she affirms her own capacity to love and to be loved on terms of equality. It is, in the deepest sense, her resurrection.