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

son as his housekeeper. Agraphena Petrovna had

spent nearly ten years, at different times, abroad with

Nekhludoff’s mother, and had the appearance and manners of a

lady. She had lived with the Nekhludoffs from the time she was a

child, and had known Dmitri Ivanovitch at the time when he was

still little Mitinka.

 

“Good-morning, Dmitri Ivanovitch.”

 

“Good-morning, Agraphena Petrovna. What is it you want?”

Nekhludoff asked.

 

“A letter from the princess; either from the mother or the

daughter. The maid brought it some time ago, and is waiting in my

room,” answered Agraphena Petrovna, handing him the letter with a

significant smile.

 

“All right! Directly!” said Nekhludoff, taking the letter and

frowning as he noticed Agraphena Petrovna’s smile.

 

That smile meant that the letter was from the younger Princess

Korchagin, whom Agraphena Petrovna expected him to marry. This

supposition of hers annoyed Nekhludoff.

 

“Then I’ll tell her to wait?” and Agraphena Petrovna took a crumb

brush which was not in its place, put it away, and sailed out of

the room.

 

Nekhludoff opened the perfumed note, and began reading it.

 

The note was written on a sheet of thick grey paper, with rough

edges; the writing looked English. It said:

 

Having assumed the task of acting as your memory, I take the

liberty of reminding you that on this the 28th day of April you

have to appear at the Law Courts, as juryman, and, in

consequence, can on no account accompany us and Kolosoff to the

picture gallery, as, with your habitual flightiness, you promised

yesterday; _a moins que vous ne soyez dispose a payer la cour

d’assise les 300 roubles d’amende que vous vous refusez pour

votre cheval,_ for not appearing in time. I remembered it last

night after you were gone, so do not forget.

 

Princess M. Korchagin.

 

On the other side was a postscript.

 

_Maman vous fait dire que votre convert vous attendra jusqu’a

la nuit. Venez absolument a quelle heure que cela soit._

 

M. K.

 

Nekhludoff made a grimace. This note was a continuation of that

skilful manoeuvring which the Princess Korchagin had already

practised for two months in order to bind him closer and closer

with invisible threads. And yet, beside the usual hesitation of

men past their youth to marry unless they are very much in love,

Nekhludoff had very good reasons why, even if he did make up his

mind to it, he could not propose at once. It was not that ten

years previously he had betrayed and forsaken Maslova; he had

quite forgotten that, and he would not have considered it a

reason for not marrying. No! The reason was that he had a liaison

with a married woman, and, though he considered it broken off,

she did not.

 

Nekhludoff was rather shy with women, and his very shyness

awakened in this married woman, the unprincipled wife of the

marechal de noblesse of a district where Nekhludoff was present

at an election, the desire of vanquishing him. This woman drew

him into an intimacy which entangled him more and more, while it

daily became more distasteful to him. Having succumbed to the

temptation, Nekhludoff felt guilty, and had not the courage to

break the tie without her consent. And this was the reason he did

not feel at liberty to propose to Korchagin even if he had wished

to do so. Among the letters on the table was one from this

woman’s husband. Seeing his writing and the postmark, Nekhludoff

flushed, and felt his energies awakening, as they always did when

he was facing any kind of danger.

 

But his excitement passed at once. The marechal do noblesse, of

the district in which his largest estate lay, wrote only to let

Nekhludoff know that there was to be a special meeting towards

the end of May, and that Nekhludoff was to be sure and come to

“donner un coup d’epaule,” at the important debates concerning

the schools and the roads, as a strong opposition by the

reactionary party was expected.

 

The marechal was a liberal, and was quite engrossed in this

fight, not even noticing the misfortune that had befallen him.

 

Nekhludoff remembered the dreadful moments he had lived through;

once when he thought that the husband had found him out and was

going to challenge him, and he was making up his mind to fire

into the air; also the terrible scene he had with her when she

ran out into the park, and in her excitement tried to drown

herself in the pond.

 

“Well, I cannot go now, and can do nothing until I get a reply

from her,” thought Nekhludoff. A week ago he had written her a

decisive letter, in which he acknowledged his guilt, and his

readiness to atone for it; but at the same time he pronounced

their relations to be at an end, for her own good, as he

expressed it. To this letter he had as yet received no answer.

This might prove a good sign, for if she did not agree to break

off their relations, she would have written at once, or even come

herself, as she had done before. Nekhludoff had heard that there

was some officer who was paying her marked attention, and this

tormented him by awakening jealousy, and at the same time

encouraged him with the hope of escape from the deception that

was oppressing him.

 

The other letter was from his steward. The steward wrote to tell

him that a visit to his estates was necessary in order to enter

into possession, and also to decide about the further management

of his lands; whether it was to continue in the same way as when

his mother was alive, or whether, as he had represented to the

late lamented princess, and now advised the young prince, they

had not better increase their stock and farm all the land now

rented by the peasants themselves. The steward wrote that this

would be a far more profitable way of managing the property; at

the same time, he apologised for not having forwarded the 3,000

roubles income due on the 1st. This money would he sent on by the

next mail. The reason for the delay was that he could not get the

money out of the peasants, who had grown so untrustworthy that he

had to appeal to the authorities. This letter was partly

disagreeable, and partly pleasant. It was pleasant to feel that

he had power over so large a property, and yet disagreeable,

because Nekhludoff had been an enthusiastic admirer of Henry

George and Herbert Spencer. Being himself heir to a large

property, he was especially struck by the position taken up by

Spencer in Social Statics, that justice forbids private

landholding, and with the straightforward resoluteness of his

age, had not merely spoken to prove that land could not be looked

upon as private property, and written essays on that subject at

the university, but had acted up to his convictions, and,

considering it wrong to hold landed property, had given the small

piece of land he had inherited from his father to the peasants.

Inheriting his mother’s large estates, and thus becoming a landed

proprietor, he had to choose one of two things: either to give up

his property, as he had given up his father’s land ten years

before, or silently to confess that all his former ideas were

mistaken and false.

 

He could not choose the former because he had no means but the

landed estates (he did not care to serve); moreover, he had

formed luxurious habits which he could not easily give up.

Besides, he had no longer the same inducements; his strong

convictions, the resoluteness of youth, and the ambitious desire

to do something unusual were gone. As to the second course, that

of denying those clear and unanswerable proofs of the injustice

of landholding, which he had drawn from Spencer’s Social Statics,

and the brilliant corroboration of which he had at a later period

found in the works of Henry George, such a course was impossible

to him.

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

MISSY.

 

When Nekhludoff had finished his coffee, he went to his study to

look at the summons, and find out what time he was to appear at

the court, before writing his answer to the princess. Passing

through his studio, where a few studies hung on the walls and,

facing the easel, stood an unfinished picture, a feeling of

inability to advance in art, a sense of his incapacity, came over

him. He had often had this feeling, of late, and explained it by

his too finely-developed aesthetic taste; still, the feeling was

a very unpleasant one. Seven years before this he had given up

military service, feeling sure that he had a talent for art, and

had looked down with some disdain at all other activity from the

height of his artistic standpoint. And now it turned out that he

had no right to do so, and therefore everything that reminded him

of all this was unpleasant. He looked at the luxurious fittings

of the studio with a heavy heart, and it was in no cheerful mood

that he entered his study, a large, lofty room fitted up with a

view to comfort, convenience, and elegant appearance. He found

the summons at once in a pigeon hole, labelled “immediate,” of

his large writing table. He had to appear at the court at 11

o’clock.

 

Nekhludoff sat down to write a note in reply to the princess,

thanking her for the invitation, and promising to try and come to

dinner. Having written one note, he tore it up, as it seemed too

intimate. He wrote another, but it was too cold; he feared it

might give offence, so he tore it up, too. He pressed the button

of an electric bell, and his servant, an elderly, morose-looking

man, with whiskers and shaved chin and lip, wearing a grey cotton

apron, entered at the door.

 

“Send to fetch an isvostchik, please.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“And tell the person who is waiting that I send thanks for the

invitation, and shall try to come.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“It is not very polite, but I can’t write; no matter, I shall see

her today,” thought Nekhludoff, and went to get his overcoat.

 

When he came out of the house, an isvostchik he knew, with

india-rubber tires to his trap, was at the door waiting for him.

“You had hardly gone away from Prince Korchagin’s yesterday,” he

said, turning half round, “when I drove up, and the Swiss at the

door says, ‘just gone.’” The isvostchik knew that Nekhludoff

visited at the Korchagins, and called there on the chance of

being engaged by him.

 

“Even the isvostchiks know of my relations with the Korchagins,”

thought Nekhludoff, and again the question whether he should not

marry Princess Korchagin presented itself to him, and he could

not decide it either way, any more than most of the questions

that arose in his mind at this time.

 

It was in favour of marriage in general, that besides the

comforts of hearth and home, it made a moral life possible, and

chiefly that a family would, so Nekhludoff thought, give an aim

to his now empty life.

 

Against marriage in general was the fear, common to bachelors

past their first youth, of losing freedom, and an unconscious awe

before this mysterious creature, a woman.

 

In this particular case, in favour of marrying Missy (her name

was Mary, but, as is usual among a certain set, a nickname had

been given her) was that she came of good family, and differed in

everything, manner of speaking, walking, laughing, from the

common people, not by anything exceptional, but by her “good

breeding”—he could