The farther Olenin travelled from Central Russia the farther he left his memories behind, and the nearer he drew to the Caucasus the lighter his heart became.

"I'll stay away for good and never return to show myself in society," was a thought that sometimes occurred to him.
"These people whom I see here are NOT people.

None of them know me and none of them can ever enter the Moscow society I was in or find out about my past.

And no one in that society will ever know what I am doing, living among these people." And quite a new feeling of freedom from his whole past came over him among the rough beings he met on the road whom he did not consider to be PEOPLE in the sense that his Moscow acquaintances were.

The rougher the people and the fewer the signs of civilization the freer he felt.