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

a University student who was coaching him,

and Missy’s cousin, Michael Sergeivitch Telegin, generally called

Misha; opposite him, Katerina Alexeevna, a 40-year-old maiden

lady, a Slavophil; and at the foot of the table sat Missy

herself, with an empty place by her side.

 

“Ah! that’s right! Sit down. We are still at the fish,” said old

Korchagin with difficulty, chewing carefully with his false

teeth, and lifting his bloodshot eyes (which had no visible lids

to them) to Nekhludoff.

 

“Stephen!” he said, with his mouth full, addressing the stout,

dignified butler, and pointing with his eyes to the empty place.

Though Nekhludoff knew Korchagin very well, and had often seen

him at dinner, to-day this red face with the sensual smacking

lips, the fat neck above the napkin stuck into his waistcoat, and

the whole overfed military figure, struck him very disagreeably.

Then Nekhludoff remembered, without wishing to, what he knew of

the cruelty of this man, who, when in command, used to have men

flogged, and even hanged, without rhyme or reason, simply because

he was rich and had no need to curry favour.

 

“Immediately, your excellency,” said Stephen, getting a large

soup ladle out of the sideboard, which was decorated with a

number of silver vases. He made a sign with his head to the

handsome footman, who began at once to arrange the untouched

knives and forks and the napkin, elaborately folded with the

embroidered family crest uppermost, in front of the empty place

next to Missy. Nekhludoff went round shaking hands with every

one, and all, except old Korchagin and the ladies, rose when he

approached. And this walk round the table, this shaking the hands

of people, with many of whom he never talked, seemed unpleasant

and odd. He excused himself for being late, and was about to sit

down between Missy and Katerina Alexeevna, but old Korchagin

insisted that if he would not take a glass of vodka he should at

least take a bit of something to whet his appetite, at the side

table, on which stood small dishes of lobster, caviare, cheese,

and salt herrings. Nekhludoff did not know how hungry he was

until he began to eat, and then, having taken some bread and

cheese, he went on eating eagerly.

 

“Well, have you succeeded in undermining the basis of society?”

asked Kolosoff, ironically quoting an expression used by a

retrograde newspaper in attacking trial by jury. “Acquitted the

culprits and condemned the innocent, have you?”

 

“Undermining the basis—undermining the basis,” repeated Prince

Korchagin, laughing. He had a firm faith in the wisdom and

learning of his chosen friend and companion.

 

At the risk of seeming rude, Nekhludoff left Kolosoff’s question

unanswered, and sitting down to his steaming soup, went on

eating.

 

“Do let him eat,” said Missy, with a smile. The pronoun him she

used as a reminder of her intimacy with Nekhludoff. Kolosoff went

on in a loud voice and lively manner to give the contents of the

article against trial by jury which had aroused his indignation.

Missy’s cousin, Michael Sergeivitch, endorsed all his statements,

and related the contents of another article in the same paper.

Missy was, as usual, very distinguee, and well, unobtrusively

well, dressed.

 

“You must be terribly tired,” she said, after waiting until

Nekhludoff had swallowed what was in his mouth.

 

“Not particularly. And you? Have you been to look at the

pictures?” he asked.

 

“No, we put that off. We have been playing tennis at the

Salamatoffs’. It is quite true, Mr. Crooks plays remarkably

well.”

 

Nekhludoff had come here in order to distract his thoughts, for

he used to like being in this house, both because its refined

luxury had a pleasant effect on him and because of the atmosphere

of tender flattery that unobtrusively surrounded him. But to-day

everything in the house was repulsive to him—everything:

beginning with the doorkeeper, the broad staircase, the flowers,

the footman, the table decorations, up to Missy herself, who

to-day seemed unattractive and affected. Kolosoff’s self-assured,

trivial tone of liberalism was unpleasant, as was also the

sensual, self-satisfied, bull-like appearance of old Korchagin,

and the French phrases of Katerina Alexeevna, the Slavophil. The

constrained looks of the governess and the student were

unpleasant, too, but most unpleasant of all was the pronoun him

that Missy had used. Nekhludoff had long been wavering between

two ways of regarding Missy; sometimes he looked at her as if by

moonlight, and could see in her nothing but what was beautiful,

fresh, pretty, clever and natural; then suddenly, as if the

bright sun shone on her, he saw her defects and could not help

seeing them. This was such a day for him. To-day he saw all the

wrinkles of her face, knew which of her teeth were false, saw the

way her hair was crimped, the sharpness of her elbows, and, above

all, how large her thumb-nail was and how like her father’s.

 

“Tennis is a dull game,” said Kolosoff; “we used to play lapta

when we were children. That was much more amusing.”

 

“Oh, no, you never tried it; it’s awfully interesting,” said

Missy, laying, it seemed to Nekhludoff, a very affected stress on

the word “awfully.” Then a dispute arose in which Michael

Sergeivitch, Katerina Alexeevna and all the others took part,

except the governess, the student and the children, who sat

silent and wearied.

 

“Oh, these everlasting disputes!” said old Korchagin, laughing,

and he pulled the napkin out of his waistcoat, noisily pushed

back his chair, which the footman instantly caught hold of, and

left the table.

 

Everybody rose after him, and went up to another table on which

stood glasses of scented water. They rinsed their mouths, then

resumed the conversation, interesting to no one.

 

“Don’t you think so?” said Missy to Nekhludoff, calling for a

confirmation of the statement that nothing shows up a man’s

character like a game. She noticed that preoccupied and, as it

seemed to her, dissatisfied look which she feared, and she wanted

to find out what had caused it.

 

“Really, I can’t tell; I have never thought about it,” Nekhludoff

answered.

 

“Will you come to mamma?” asked Missy.

 

“Yes, yes,” he said, in a tone which plainly proved that he did

not want to go, and took out a cigarette.

 

She looked at him in silence, with a questioning look, and he

felt ashamed. “To come into a house and give the people the

dumps,” he thought about himself; then, trying to be amiable,

said that he would go with pleasure if the princess would admit

him.

 

“Oh, yes! Mamma will be pleased. You may smoke there; and Ivan

Ivanovitch is also there.”

 

The mistress of the house, Princess Sophia Vasilievna, was a

recumbent lady. It was the eighth year that, when visitors were

present, she lay in lace and ribbons, surrounded with velvet,

gilding, ivory, bronze, lacquer and flowers, never going out, and

only, as she put it, receiving intimate friends, i.e., those who

according to her idea stood out from the common herd.

 

Nekhludoff was admitted into the number of these friends because

he was considered clever, because his mother had been an intimate

friend of the family, and because it was desirable that Missy

should marry him.

 

Sophia Vasilievna’s room lay beyond the large and the small

drawing-rooms. In the large drawing-room, Missy, who was in front

of Nekhludoff, stopped resolutely, and taking hold of the back of

a small green chair, faced him.

 

Missy was very anxious to get married, and as he was a suitable

match and she also liked him, she had accustomed herself to the

thought that he should be hers (not she his). To lose him would

be very mortifying. She now began talking to him in order to get

him to explain his intentions.

 

“I see something has happened,” she said. “Tell me, what is the

matter with you?”

 

He remembered the meeting in the law court, and frowned and

blushed.

 

“Yes, something has happened,” he said, wishing to be truthful;

“a very unusual and serious event.”

 

“What is it, then? Can you not tell me what it is?” She was

pursuing her aim with that unconscious yet obstinate cunning

often observable in the mentally diseased.

 

“Not now. Please do not ask me to tell you. I have not yet had

time fully to consider it,” and he blushed still more.

 

“And so you will not tell me?” A muscle twitched in her face and

she pushed back the chair she was holding. “Well then, come!” She

shook her head as if to expel useless thoughts, and, faster than

usual, went on in front of him.

 

He fancied that her mouth was unnaturally compressed in order to

keep back the tears. He was ashamed of having hurt her, and yet

he knew that the least weakness on his part would mean disaster,

i.e., would bind him to her. And to-day he feared this more than

anything, and silently followed her to the princess’s cabinet.

 

CHAPTER XXVII.

 

MISSY’S MOTHER.

 

Princess Sophia Vasilievna, Missy’s mother, had finished her very

elaborate and nourishing dinner. (She had it always alone, that

no one should see her performing this unpoetical function.) By

her couch stood a small table with her coffee, and she was

smoking a pachitos. Princess Sophia Vasilievna was a long, thin

woman, with dark hair, large black eyes and long teeth, and still

pretended to be young.

 

Her intimacy with the doctor was being talked about. Nekhludoff

had known that for some time; but when he saw the doctor sitting

by her couch, his oily, glistening beard parted in the middle, he

not only remembered the rumours about them, but felt greatly

disgusted. By the table, on a low, soft, easy chair, next to

Sophia Vasilievna, sat Kolosoff, stirring his coffee. A glass of

liqueur stood on the table. Missy came in with Nekhludoff, but

did not remain in the room.

 

“When mamma gets tired of you and drives you away, then come to

me,” she said, turning to Kolosoff and Nekhludoff, speaking as if

nothing had occurred; then she went away, smiling merrily and

stepping noiselessly on the thick carpet.

 

“How do you do, dear friend? Sit down and talk,” said Princess

Sophia Vasilievna, with her affected but very naturally-acted

smile, showing her fine, long teeth—a splendid imitation of what

her own had once been. “I hear that you have come from the Law

Courts very much depressed. I think it must be very trying to a

person with a heart,” she added in French.

 

“Yes, that is so,” said Nekhludoff. “One often feels one’s own

de—one feels one has no right to judge.”

 

“Comme, c’est vrai,” she cried, as if struck by the truth of this

remark. She was in the habit of artfully flattering all those

with whom she conversed. “Well, and what of your picture? It does

interest me so. If I were not such a sad invalid I should have

been to see it long ago,” she said.

 

“I have quite given it up,” Nekhludoff replied drily. The

falseness of her flattery seemed as evident to him to-day as her

age, which she was trying to conceal, and he could not put

himself into the right state to behave politely.

 

“Oh, that is a pity! Why, he has a real talent for art; I have

it from Repin’s own lips,” she added, turning to Kolosoff.

 

“Why is it she is not ashamed of lying so?” Nekhludoff thought,

and frowned.

 

When she had convinced herself that Nekhludoff was in a bad

temper and that one could not get him into an agreeable and

clever conversation, Sophia Vasilievna turned to Kolosoff, asking

his