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

here an old woman; such

a fine one, d’you know, she just surprises every one; she is

imprisoned for nothing, and her son, too, and everybody knows

they are innocent, though they are accused of having set fire to

a house. D’you know, hearing I was acquainted with you, she says:

‘Tell him to ask to see my son; he’ll tell him all about it.”’

Thus spoke Maslova, turning her head from side to side, and

glancing at Nekhludoff. “Their name’s Menshoff. Well, will you do

it? Such a fine old thing, you know; you can see at once she’s

innocent. You’ll do it, there’s a dear,” and she smiled, glanced

up at him, and then cast down her eyes.

 

“All right. I’ll find out about them,” Nekhludoff said, more and

more astonished by her free-and-easy manner. “But I was going to

speak to you about myself. Do you remember what I told you last

time?”

 

“You said a lot last time. What was it you told me?” she said,

continuing to smile and to turn her head from side to side.

 

“I said I had come to ask you to forgive me,” he began.

 

“What’s the use of that? Forgive, forgive, where’s the good of—”

 

“To atone for my sin, not by mere words, but in deed. I have made

up my mind to marry you.”

 

An expression of fear suddenly came over her face. Her squinting

eyes remained fixed on him, and yet seemed not to be looking at

him.

 

“What’s that for?” she said, with an angry frown.

 

“I feel that it is my duty before God to do it.”

 

“What God have you found now? You are not saying what you ought

to. God, indeed! What God? You ought to have remembered God

then,” she said, and stopped with her mouth open. It was only now

that Nekhludoff noticed that her breath smelled of spirits, and

that he understood the cause of her excitement.

 

“Try and be calm,” he said.

 

“Why should I be calm?” she began, quickly, flushing scarlet. “I

am a convict, and you are a gentleman and a prince. There’s no

need for you to soil yourself by touching me. You go to your

princesses; my price is a ten-rouble note.”

 

“However cruelly you may speak, you cannot express what I myself

am feeling,” he said, trembling all over; “you cannot imagine to

what extent I feel myself guilty towards you.”

 

“Feel yourself guilty?” she said, angrily mimicking him. “You did

not feel so then, but threw me 100 roubles. That’s your price.”

 

“I know, I know; but what is to be done now?” said Nekhludoff. “I

have decided not to leave you, and what I have said I shall do.”

 

“And I say you sha’n’t,” she said, and laughed aloud.

 

“Katusha” he said, touching her hand.

 

“You go away. I am a convict and you a prince, and you’ve no

business here,” she cried, pulling away her hand, her whole

appearance transformed by her wrath. “You’ve got pleasure out of

me in this life, and want to save yourself through me in the life

to come. You are disgusting to me—your spectacles and the whole

of your dirty fat mug. Go, go!” she screamed, starting to her

feet.

 

The jailer came up to them.

 

“What are you kicking up this row for?’ That won’t—”

 

“Let her alone, please,” said Nekhludoff.

 

“She must not forget herself,” said the jailer. “Please wait a

little,” said Nekhludoff, and the jailer returned to the window.

 

Maslova sat down again, dropping her eyes and firmly clasping her

small hands.

 

Nekhludoff stooped over her, not knowing what to do.

 

“You do not believe me?” he said.

 

“That you mean to marry me? It will never be. I’ll rather hang

myself. So there!”

 

“Well, still I shall go on serving you.”

 

“That’s your affair, only I don’t want anything from you. I am

telling you the plain truth,” she said. “Oh, why did I not die

then?” she added, and began to cry piteously.

 

Nekhludoff could not speak; her tears infected him.

 

She lifted her eyes, looked at him in surprise, and began to wipe

her tears with her kerchief.

 

The jailer came up again and reminded them that it was time to

part.

 

Maslova rose.

 

“You are excited. If it is possible, I shall come again tomorrow;

you think it over,” said Nekhludoff.

 

She gave him no answer and, without looking up, followed the

jailer out of the room.

 

“Well, lass, you’ll have rare times now,” Korableva said, when

Maslova returned to the cell. “Seems he’s mighty sweet on you;

make the most of it while he’s after you. He’ll help you out.

Rich people can do anything.”

 

“Yes, that’s so,” remarked the watchman’s wife, with her musical

voice. “When a poor man thinks of getting married, there’s many a

slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip; but a rich man need only make up

his mind and it’s done. We knew a toff like that duckie. What

d’you think he did?”

 

“Well, have you spoken about my affairs?” the old woman asked.

 

But Maslova gave her fellow-prisoners no answer; she lay down on

the shelf bedstead, her squinting eyes fixed on a corner of the

room, and lay there until the evening.

 

A painful struggle went on in her soul. What Nekhludoff had told

her called up the memory of that world in which she had suffered

and which she had left without having understood, hating it. She

now feared to wake from the trance in which she was living. Not

having arrived at any conclusion when evening came, she again

bought some vodka and drank with her companions.

 

CHAPTER XLIX.

 

VERA DOUKHOVA.

 

“So this is what it means, this,” thought Nekhludoff as he left

the prison, only now fully understanding his crime. If he had not

tried to expiate his guilt he would never have found out how

great his crime was. Nor was this all; she, too, would never have

felt the whole horror of what had been done to her. He only now

saw what he had done to the soul of this woman; only now she saw

and understood what had been done to her.

 

Up to this time Nekhludoff had played with a sensation of

self-admiration, had admired his own remorse; now he was simply

filled with horror. He knew he could not throw her up now, and

yet he could not imagine what would come of their relations to

one another.

 

Just as he was going out, a jailer, with a disagreeable,

insinuating countenance, and a cross and medals on his breast,

came up and handed him a note with an air of mystery.

 

“Here is a note from a certain person, your honour,” he said to

Nekhludoff as he gave him the envelope.

 

“What person?”

 

“You will know when you read it. A political prisoner. I am in

that ward, so she asked me; and though it is against the rules,

still feelings of humanity—” The jailer spoke in an unnatural

manner.

 

Nekhludoff was surprised that a jailer of the ward where

political prisoners were kept should pass notes inside the very

prison walls, and almost within sight of every one; he did not

then know that this was both a jailer and a spy. However, he took

the note and read it on coming out of the prison.

 

The note was written in a bold hand, and ran as follows: “Having

heard that you visit the prison, and are interested in the case

of a criminal prisoner, the desire of seeing you arose in me. Ask

for a permission to see me. I can give you a good deal of

information concerning your protegee, and also our group.—Yours

gratefully, VERA DOUKHOVA.”

 

Vera Doukhova had been a school-teacher in an out-of-the-way

village of the Novgorod Government, where Nekhludoff and some

friends of his had once put up while bear hunting. Nekhludoff

gladly and vividly recalled those old days, and his acquaintance

with Doukhova. It was just before Lent, in an isolated spot, 40

miles from the railway. The hunt had been successful; two bears

had been killed; and the company were having dinner before

starting on their return journey, when the master of the hut

where they were putting up came in to say that the deacon’s

daughter wanted to speak to Prince Nekhludoff. “Is she pretty?”

some one asked. “None of that, please,” Nekhludoff said, and rose

with a serious look on his face. Wiping his mouth, and wondering

what the deacon’s daughter might want of him, he went into the

host’s private hut.

 

There he found a girl with a felt hat and a warm cloak on—a

sinewy, ugly girl; only her eyes with their arched brows were

beautiful.

 

“Here, miss, speak to him,” said the old housewife; “this is the

prince himself. I shall go out meanwhile.”

 

“In what way can I be of service to you?” Nekhludoff asked.

 

“I—I—I see you are throwing away your money on such

nonsense—on hunting,” began the girl, in great confusion. “I

know—I only want one thing—to be of use to the people, and I

can do nothing because I know nothing—” Her eyes were so

truthful, so kind, and her expression of resoluteness and yet

bashfulness was so touching, that Nekhludoff, as it often

happened to him, suddenly felt as if he were in her position,

understood, and sympathised.

 

“What can I do, then?”

 

“I am a teacher, but should like to follow a course of study; and

I am not allowed to do so. That is, not that I am not allowed to;

they’d allow me to, but I have not got the means. Give them to

me, and when I have finished the course I shall repay you. I am

thinking the rich kill bears and give the peasants drink; all

this is bad. Why should they not do good? I only want 80 roubles.

But if you don’t wish to, never mind,” she added, gravely.

 

“On the contrary, I am very grateful to you for this opportunity.

… I will bring it at once,” said Nekhludoff.

 

He went out into the passage, and there met one of his comrades,

who had been overhearing his conversation. Paying no heed to his

chaffing, Nekhludoff got the money out of his bag and took it to

her.

 

“Oh, please, do not thank me; it is I who should thank you,” he

said.

 

It was pleasant to remember all this now; pleasant to remember

that he had nearly had a quarrel with an officer who tried to

make an objectionable joke of it, and how another of his comrades

had taken his part, which led to a closer friendship between

them. How successful the whole of that hunting expedition had

been, and how happy he had felt when returning to the railway

station that night. The line of sledges, the horses in tandem,

glide quickly along the narrow road that lies through the forest,

now between high trees, now between low firs weighed down by the

snow, caked in heavy lumps on their branches. A red light flashes

in the dark, some one lights an aromatic cigarette. Joseph, a

bear driver, keeps running from sledge to sledge, up to his knees

in snow, and while putting things to rights he speaks about the

elk which are now going about on the deep snow and gnawing the

bark off the aspen trees, of the bears that are lying asleep in

their deep hidden dens, and his breath comes warm through the

opening in