Resurrection - Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (interesting novels in english .TXT) 📗

Katusha in a

white dress with a tucked bodice, blue sash, and red bow in her

black hair.

 

Everything seemed festive, solemn, bright, and beautiful: the

priest in his silver cloth vestments with gold crosses; the

deacon, the clerk and chanter in their silver and gold surplices;

the amateur choristers in their best clothes, with their

well-oiled hair; the merry tunes of the holiday hymns that

sounded like dance music; and the continual blessing of the

people by the priests, who held candles decorated with flowers,

and repeated the cry of “Christ is risen!” “Christ is risen!” All

was beautiful; but, above all, Katusha, in her white dress, blue

sash, and the red bow on her black head, her eyes beaming with

rapture.

 

Nekhludoff knew that she felt his presence without looking at

him. He noticed this as he passed her, walking up to the altar.

He had nothing to tell her, but he invented something to say and

whispered as he passed her: “Aunt told me that she would break

her fast after the late mass.” The young blood rushed up to

Katusha’s sweet face, as it always did when she looked at him.

The black eyes, laughing and full of joy, gazed naively up and

remained fixed on Nekhludoff.

 

“I know,” she said, with a smile.

 

At this moment the clerk was going out with a copper coffeepot

[coffeepots are often used for holding holy water in Russia] of

holy water in his hand, and, not noticing Katusha, brushed her

with his surplice. Evidently he brushed against Katusha through

wishing to pass Nekhludoff at a respectful distance, and

Nekhludoff was surprised that he, the clerk, did not understand

that everything here, yes, and in all the world, only existed for

Katusha, and that everything else might remain unheeded, only not

she, because she was the centre of all. For her the gold

glittered round the icons; for her all these candles in

candelabra and candlesticks were alight; for her were sung these

joyful hymns, “Behold the Passover of the Lord” “Rejoice, O ye

people!” All—all that was good in the world was for her. And it

seemed to him that Katusha was aware that it was all for her when

he looked at her well-shaped figure, the tucked white dress, the

wrapt, joyous expression of her face, by which he knew that just

exactly the same that was singing in his own soul was also

singing in hers.

 

In the interval between the early and the late mass Nekhludoff

left the church. The people stood aside to let him pass, and

bowed. Some knew him; others asked who he was.

 

He stopped on the steps. The beggars standing there came

clamouring round him, and he gave them all the change he had in

his purse and went down. It was dawning, but the sun had not yet

risen. The people grouped round the graves in the churchyard.

Katusha had remained inside. Nekhludoff stood waiting for her.

 

The people continued coming out, clattering with their nailed

boots on the stone steps and dispersing over the churchyard. A

very old man with shaking head, his aunts’ cook, stopped

Nekhludoff in order to give him the Easter kiss, his old wife

took an egg, dyed yellow, out of her handkerchief and gave it to

Nekhludoff, and a smiling young peasant in a new coat and green

belt also came up.

 

“Christ is risen,” he said, with laughing eyes, and coming close

to Nekhludoff he enveloped him in his peculiar but pleasant

peasant smell, and, tickling him with his curly beard, kissed him

three times straight on the mouth with his firm, fresh lips.

 

While the peasant was kissing Nekhludoff and giving him a dark

brown egg, the lilac dress of Matrona Pavlovna and the dear black

head with the red bow appeared.

 

Katusha caught sight of him over the heads of those in front of

her, and he saw how her face brightened up.

 

She had come out with Matrona Pavlovna on to the porch, and

stopped there distributing alms to the beggars. A beggar with a

red scab in place of a nose came up to Katusha. She gave him

something, drew nearer him, and, evincing no sign of disgust, but

her eyes still shining with joy, kissed him three times. And

while she was doing this her eyes met Nekhludoff’s with a look as

if she were asking, “Is this that I am doing right?” “Yes, dear,

yes, it is right; everything is right, everything is beautiful. I

love!”

 

They came down the steps of the porch, and he came up to them.

 

He did not mean to give them the Easter kiss, but only to be

nearer to her. Matrona Pavlovna bowed her head, and said with a

smile, “Christ is risen!” and her tone implied, “To-day we are

all equal.” She wiped her mouth with her handkerchief rolled into

a ball and stretched her lips towards him.

 

“He is, indeed,” answered Nekhludoff, kissing her. Then he looked

at Katusha; she blushed, and drew nearer. “Christ is risen,

Dmitri Ivanovitch.” “He is risen, indeed,” answered Nekhludoff,

and they kissed twice, then paused as if considering whether a

third kiss were necessary, and, having decided that it was,

kissed a third time and smiled.

 

“You are going to the priests?” asked Nekhludoff.

 

“No, we shall sit out here a bit, Dmitri Ivanovitch,” said

Katusha with effort, as if she had accomplished some joyous task,

and, her whole chest heaving with a deep sigh, she looked

straight in his face with a look of devotion, virgin purity, and

love, in her very slightly squinting eyes.

 

In the love between a man and a woman there always comes a moment

when this love has reached its zenith—a moment when it is

unconscious, unreasoning, and with nothing sensual about it. Such

a moment had come for Nekhludoff on that Easter eve. When he

brought Katusha back to his mind, now, this moment veiled all

else; the smooth glossy black head, the white tucked dress

closely fitting her graceful maidenly form, her, as yet,

un-developed bosom, the blushing cheeks, the tender shining black

eyes with their slight squint heightened by the sleepless night,

and her whole being stamped with those two marked features,

purity and chaste love, love not only for him (he knew that), but

for everybody and everything, not for the good alone, but for all

that is in the world, even for that beggar whom she had kissed.

 

He knew she had that love in her because on that night and

morning he was conscious of it in himself, and conscious that in

this love he became one with her. Ah! if it had all stopped

there, at the point it had reached that night. “Yes, all that

horrible business had not yet happened on that Easter eve!” he

thought, as he sat by the window of the jurymen’s room.

 

CHAPTER XVI.

 

THE FIRST STEP.

 

When he returned from church Nekhludoff broke the fast with his

aunts and took a glass of spirits and some wine, having got into

that habit while with his regiment, and when he reached his room

fell asleep at once, dressed as he was. He was awakened by a

knock at the door. He knew it was her knock, and got up, rubbing

his eyes and stretching himself.

 

“Katusha, is it you? Come in,” said he.

 

She opened the door.

 

“Dinner is ready,” she said. She still had on the same white

dress, but not the bow in her hair. She looked at him with a

smile, as if she had communicated some very good news to him.

 

“I am coming,” he answered, as he rose, taking his comb to

arrange his hair.

 

She stood still for a minute, and he, noticing it, threw down his

comb and made a step towards her, but at that very moment she

turned suddenly and went with quick light steps along the strip

of carpet in the middle of the passage.

 

“Dear me, what a fool I am,” thought Nekhludoff. “Why did I not

stop her?” What he wanted her for he did not know himself, but he

felt that when she came into his room something should have been

done, something that is generally done on such occasions, and

that he had left it undone.

 

“Katusha, wait,” he said.

 

“What do you want?” she said, stopping.

 

“Nothing, only—” and, with an effort, remembering how men in his

position generally behave, he put his arm round her waist.

 

She stood still and looked into his eyes.

 

“Don’t, Dmitri Ivanovitch, you must not,” she said, blushing to

tears and pushing away his arm with her strong hard hand.

Nekhludoff let her go, and for a moment he felt not only confused

and ashamed but disgusted with himself. He should now have

believed himself, and then he would have known that this

confusion and shame were caused by the best feelings of his soul

demanding to be set free; but he thought it was only his

stupidity and that he ought to behave as every one else did. He

caught her up and kissed her on the neck.

 

This kiss was very different from that first thoughtless kiss

behind the lilac bush, and very different to the kiss this

morning in the churchyard. This was a dreadful kiss, and she felt

it.

 

“Oh, what are you doing?” she cried, in a tone as if he had

irreparably broken something of priceless value, and ran quickly

away.

 

He came into the dining-room. His aunts, elegantly dressed, their

family doctor, and a neighbour were already there. Everything

seemed so very ordinary, but in Nekhludoff a storm was raging. He

understood nothing of what was being said and gave wrong answers,

thinking only of Katusha. The sound of her steps in the passage

brought back the thrill of that last kiss and he could think of

nothing else. When she came into the room he, without looking

round, felt her presence with his whole being and had to force

himself not to look at her.

 

After dinner he at once went into his bedroom and for a long time

walked up and down in great excitement, listening to every sound

in the house and expecting to hear her steps. The animal man

inside him had now not only lifted its head, but had succeeded in

trampling under foot the spiritual man of the days of his first

visit, and even of that every morning. That dreadful animal man

alone now ruled over him.

 

Though he was watching for her all day he could not manage to

meet her alone. She was probably trying to evade him. In the

evening, however, she was obliged to go into the room next to

his. The doctor had been asked to stay the night, and she had to

make his bed. When he heard her go in Nekhludoff followed her,

treading softly and holding his breath as if he were going to

commit a crime.

 

She was putting a clean pillow-case on the pillow, holding it by

two of its corners with her arms inside the pillow-case. She

turned round and smiled, not a happy, joyful smile as before, but

in a frightened, piteous way. The smile seemed to tell him that

what he was doing was wrong. He stopped for a moment. There was

still the possibility of a struggle. The voice of his real love

for her, though feebly, was still speaking of her, her feelings,

her life. Another voice was saying, “Take care I don’t let the

opportunity for your own happiness, your own enjoyment, slip by!”

And this second voice completely stifled the first. He