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

me?”

 

“Never. The whole face is altered. Why, it must be 10 years since

then.”

 

“Not years, but a lifetime,” said Maslova. And suddenly her

animation went, her face grew gloomy, and a deep line appeared

between her brows.

 

“Why so? Your way of life must have been an easy one.”

 

“Easy, indeed,” Maslova reiterated, closing her eyes and shaking

her head. “It is hell.”

 

“Why, what makes it so?”

 

“What makes it so! From eight till four in the morning, and every

night the same!”

 

“Then why don’t they give it up?”

 

“They can’t give it up if they want to. But what’s the use of

talking?” Maslova said, jumping up and throwing the photograph

into the drawer of the table. And with difficulty repressing

angry tears, she ran out into the passage and slammed the door.

 

While looking at the group she imagined herself such as she was

there and dreamt of her happiness then and of the possibility of

happiness with him now. But her companion’s words reminded her of

what she was now and what she had been, and brought back all the

horrors of that life, which she had felt but dimly, and not

allowed herself to realise.

 

It was only now that the memory of all those terrible nights came

vividly back to her, especially one during the carnival when she

was expecting a student who had promised to buy her out. She

remembered how she—wearing her low necked silk dress stained

with wine, a red bow in her untidy hair, wearied, weak, half

tipsy, having seen her visitors off, sat down during an interval

in the dancing by the piano beside the bony pianiste with the

blotchy face, who played the accompaniments to the violin, and

began complaining of her hard fate; and how this pianiste said

that she, too, was feeling how heavy her position was and would

like to change it; and how Clara suddenly came up to them; and

how they all three decided to change their life. They thought

that the night was over, and were about to go away, when suddenly

the noise of tipsy voices was herd in the anteroom. The

violinist played a tune and the pianiste began hammering the

first figure of a quadrille on the piano, to the tune of a most

merry Russian song. A small, perspiring man, smelling of spirits,

with a white tie and swallow-tail coat, which he took off after

the first figure, came up to her, hiccoughing, and caught her up,

while another fat man, with a beard, and also wearing a

dress-coat (they had come straight from a ball) caught Clara up,

and for a long time they turned, danced, screamed, drank… .

And so it went on for another year, and another, and a third. How

could she help changing? And he was the cause of it all. And,

suddenly, all her former bitterness against him reawoke; she

wished to scold, to reproach him. She regretted having neglected

the opportunity of repeating to him once more that she knew him,

and would not give in to him—would not let him make use of her

spiritually as he had done physically.

 

And she longed for drink in order to stifle the feeling of pity

to herself and the useless feeling of reproach to him. And she

would have broken her word if she had been inside the prison.

Here she could not get any spirits except by applying to the

medical assistant, and she was afraid of him because he made up

to her, and intimate relations with men were disgusting to her

now. After sitting a while on a form in the passage she returned

to her little room, and without paying any heed to her

companion’s words, she wept for a long time over her wrecked

life.

 

CHAPTER XIV.

 

AN ARISTOCRATIC CIRCLE.

 

Nekhludoff had four matters to attend to in Petersburg. The first

was the appeal to the Senate in Maslova’s case; the second, to

hand in Theodosia Birukoff’s petition to the committee; the

third, to comply with Vera Doukhova’s requests—i.e., try to get

her friend Shoustova released from prison, and get permission for

a mother to visit her son in prison. Vera Doukhova had written to

him about this, and he was going to the Gendarmerie Office to

attend to these two matters, which he counted as one.

 

The fourth matter he meant to attend to was the case of some

sectarians who had been separated from their families and exiled

to the Caucasus because they read and discussed the Gospels. It

was not so much to them as to himself he had promised to do all

he could to clear up this affair.

 

Since his last visit to Maslennikoff, and especially since he had

been in the country, Nekhludoff had not exactly formed a

resolution but felt with his whole nature a loathing for that

society in which he had lived till then, that society which so

carefully hides the sufferings of millions in order to assure

ease and pleasure to a small number of people, that the people

belonging to this society do not and cannot see these sufferings,

nor the cruelty and wickedness of their life. Nekhludoff could no

longer move in this society without feeling ill at ease and

reproaching himself. And yet all the ties of relationship and

friendship, and his own habits, were drawing him back into this

society. Besides, that which alone interested him now, his desire

to help Maslova and the other sufferers, made it necessary to ask

for help and service from persons belonging to that society,

persons whom he not only could not respect, but who often aroused

in him indignation and a feeling of contempt.

 

When he came to Petersburg and stopped at his aunt’s—his

mother’s sister, the Countess Tcharsky, wife of a former

minister—Nekhludoff at once found himself in the very midst of

that aristocratic circle which had grown so foreign to him. This

was very unpleasant, but there was no possibility of getting out

of it. To put up at an hotel instead of at his aunt’s house would

have been to offend his aunt, and, besides, his aunt had

important connections and might be extremely useful in all these

matters he meant to attend to.

 

“What is this I hear about you? All sorts of marvels,” said the

Countess Katerina Ivanovna Tcharsky, as she gave him his coffee

immediately after his arrival. “Vous posez pour un Howard.

Helping criminals, going the round of prisons, setting things

right.”

 

“Oh, no. I never thought of it.”

 

“Why not? It is a good thing, only there seems to be some

romantic story connected with it. Let us hear all about it.”

 

Nekhludoff told her the whole truth about his relations to

Maslova.

 

“Yes, yes, I remember your poor mother telling me about it. That

was when you were staying with those old women. I believe they

wished to marry you to their ward (the Countess Katerina Ivanovna

had always despised Nekhludoff’s aunts on his father’s side). So

it’s she. Elle est encore jolie?”

 

Katerina Ivanovna was a strong, bright, energetic, talkative

woman of 60. She was tall and very stout, and had a decided black

moustache on her lip. Nekhludoff was fond of her and had even as

a child been infected by her energy and mirth.

 

“No, ma tante, that’s at an end. I only wish to help her, because

she is innocently accused. I am the cause of it and the cause of

her fate being what it is. I feel it my duty to do all I can for

her.”

 

“But what is this I have heard about your intention of marrying

her?”

 

“Yes, it was my intention, but she does not wish it.”

 

Katerina Ivanovna looked at her nephew with raised brows and

drooping eyeballs, in silent amazement. Suddenly her face

changed, and with a look of pleasure she said: “Well, she is

wiser than you. Dear me, you are a fool. And you would have

married her?”

 

“Most certainly.”

 

“After her having been what she was?”

 

“All the more, since I was the cause of it.”

 

“Well, you are a simpleton,” said his aunt, repressing a smile,

“a terrible simpleton; but it is just because you are such a

terrible simpleton that I love you.” She repeated the word,

evidently liking it, as it seemed to correctly convey to her mind

the idea of her nephew’s moral state. “Do you know—What a lucky

chance. Aline has a wonderful home—the Magdalene Home. I went

there once. They are terribly disgusting. After that I had to

pray continually. But Aline is devoted to it, body and soul, so

we shall place her there—yours, I mean.”

 

“But she is condemned to Siberia. I have come on purpose to

appeal about it. This is one of my requests to you.”

 

“Dear me, and where do you appeal to in this case?”

 

“To the Senate.”

 

“Ah, the Senate! Yes, my dear Cousin Leo is in the Senate, but he

is in the heraldry department, and I don’t know any of the real

ones. They are all some kind of Germans—Gay, Fay, Day—tout

l’alphabet, or else all sorts of Ivanoffs, Simenoffs, Nikitines,

or else Ivanenkos, Simonenkos, Nikitenkos, pour varier. Des gens

de l’autre monde. Well, it is all the same. I’ll tell my husband,

he knows them. He knows all sorts of people. I’ll tell him, but

you will have to explain, he never understands me. Whatever I may

say, he always maintains he does not understand it. C’est un

parti pris, every one understands but only not he.”

 

At this moment a footman with stockinged legs came in with a note

on a silver platter.

 

“There now, from Aline herself. You’ll have a chance of hearing

Kiesewetter.”

 

“Who is Kiesewetter?”

 

“Kiesewetter? Come this evening, and you will find out who he is.

He speaks in such a way that the most hardened criminals sink on

their knees and weep and repent.”

 

The Countess Katerina Ivanovna, however strange it may seem, and

however little it seemed in keeping with the rest of her

character, was a staunch adherent to that teaching which holds

that the essence of Christianity lies in the belief in

redemption. She went to meetings where this teaching, then in

fashion, was being preached, and assembled the “faithful” in her

own house. Though this teaching repudiated all ceremonies, icons,

and sacraments, Katerina Ivanovna had icons in every room, and

one on the wall above her bed, and she kept all that the Church

prescribed without noticing any contradiction in that.

 

“There now; if your Magdalene could hear him she would be

converted,” said the Countess. “Do stay at home to-night; you

will hear him. He is a wonderful man.”

 

“It does not interest me, ma tante.”

 

“But I tell you that it is interesting, and you must come home.

Now you may go. What else do you want of me? Videz votre sac.”

 

“The next is in the fortress.”

 

“In the fortress? I can give you a note for that to the Baron

Kriegsmuth. Cest un tres brave homme. Oh, but you know him; he

was a comrade of your father’s. Il donne dans le spiritisme. But

that does not matter, he is a good fellow. What do you want

there?”

 

“I want to get leave for a mother to visit her son who is

imprisoned there. But I was told that this did not depend on

Kriegsmuth but on Tcherviansky.”

 

“I do not like Tcherviansky, but he is Mariette’s husband; we

might ask her. She will do it for