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

how many tears we have to see

shed! If only we could dry them all. One does all that lies

within one’s power.”

 

The lady entered.

 

“I forgot to ask you that he should not be allowed to give up the

daughter, because he is ready …”

 

“But I have already told you that I should do all I can.”

 

“Baron, for the love of God! You will save the mother?”

 

She seized his hand, and began kissing it.

 

“Everything shall be done.”

 

When the lady went out Nekhludoff also began to take leave.

 

“We shall do what we can. I shall speak about it at the Ministry

of Justice, and when we get their answer we shall do what we

can.”

 

Nekhludoff left the study, and went into the office again. Just

as in the Senate office, he saw, in a splendid apartment, a

number of very elegant officials, clean, polite, severely correct

and distinguished in dress and in speech.

 

“How many there are of them; how very many and how well fed they

all look! And what clean shirts and hands they all have, and how

well all their boots are polished! Who does it for them? How

comfortable they all are, as compared not only with the

prisoners, but even with the peasants!” These thoughts again

involuntarily came to Nekhludoff’s mind.

 

CHAPTER XIX.

 

AN OLD GENERAL OF REPUTE.

 

The man on whom depended the easing of the fate of the Petersburg

prisoners was an old General of repute—a baron of German

descent, who, as it was said of him, had outlived his wits. He

had received a profusion of orders, but only wore one of them,

the Order of the White Cross. He had received this order, which

he greatly valued, while serving in the Caucasus, because a

number of Russian peasants, with their hair cropped, and dressed

in uniform and armed with guns and bayonets, had killed at his

command more than a thousand men who were defending their

liberty, their homes, and their families. Later on he served in

Poland, and there also made Russian peasants commit many

different crimes, and got more orders and decorations for his

uniform. Then he served somewhere else, and now that he was a

weak, old man he had this position, which insured him a good

house, an income and respect. He strictly observed all the

regulations which were prescribed “from above,” and was very

zealous in the fulfilment of these regulations, to which he

ascribed a special importance, considering that everything else

in the world might be changed except the regulations prescribed

“from above.” His duty was to keep political prisoners, men and

women, in solitary confinement in such a way that half of them

perished in 10 years’ time, some going out of their minds, some

dying of consumption, some committing suicide by starving

themselves to death, cutting their veins with bits of glass,

hanging, or burning themselves to death.

 

The old General was not ignorant of this; it all happened within

his knowledge; but these cases no more touched his conscience

than accidents brought on by thunderstorms, floods, etc. These

cases occurred as a consequence of the fulfilment of regulations

prescribed “from above” by His Imperial Majesty. These

regulations had to be carried out without fail, and therefore it

was absolutely useless to think of the consequences of their

fulfilment. The old General did not even allow himself to think

of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a soldier not

to think of them for fear of getting weak in the carrying out of

these, according to his opinion, very important obligations. Once

a week the old General made the round of the cells, one of the

duties of his position, and asked the prisoners if they had any

requests to make. The prisoners had all sorts of requests. He

listened to them quietly, in impenetrable silence, and never

fulfilled any of their requests, because they were all in

disaccord with the regulations. Just as Nekhludoff drove up to

the old General’s house, the high notes of the bells on the

belfry clock chimed “Great is the Lord,” and then struck two. The

sound of these chimes brought back to Nekhludoff’s mind what he

had read in the notes of the Decembrists [the Decembrists were a

group who attempted, but failed, to put an end to absolutism in

Russia at the time of the accession of Nicholas the First] about

the way this sweet music repeated every hour re-echoes in the

hearts of those imprisoned for life.

 

Meanwhile the old General was sitting in his darkened

drawing-room at an inlaid table, turning a saucer on a piece of

paper with the aid of a young artist, the brother of one of his

subordinates. The thin, weak, moist fingers of the artist were

pressed against the wrinkled and stiff-jointed fingers of the old

General, and the hands joined in this manner were moving together

with the saucer over a paper that had all the letters of the

alphabet written on it. The saucer was answering the questions

put by the General as to how souls will recognise each other

after death.

 

When Nekhludoff sent in his card by an orderly acting as footman,

the soul of Joan of Arc was speaking by the aid of the saucer.

The soul of Joan of Arc had already spelt letter by letter the

words: “They well knew each other,” and these words had been

written down. When the orderly came in the saucer had stopped

first on b, then on y, and began jerking hither and thither. This

jerking was caused by the General’s opinion that the next letter

should be b, i.e., Joan of Arc ought to say that the souls will

know each other by being cleansed of all that is earthly, or

something of the kind, clashing with the opinion of the artist,

who thought the next letter should be l, i.e., that the souls

should know each other by light emanating from their astral

bodies. The General, with his bushy grey eyebrows gravely

contracted, sat gazing at the hands on the saucer, and, imagining

that it was moving of its own accord, kept pulling the saucer

towards b. The pale-faced young artist, with his thin hair combed

back behind his cars, was looking with his lifeless blue eyes

into a dark corner of the drawing-room, nervously moving his lips

and pulling the saucer towards l.

 

The General made a wry face at the interruption, but after a

moment’s pause he took the card, put on his pince-nez, and,

uttering a groan, rose, in spite of the pain in his back, to his

full height, rubbing his numb fingers.

 

“Ask him into the study.”

 

“With your excellency’s permission I will finish it alone,” said

the artist, rising. “I feel the presence.”

 

“All right, finish alone,” the General said, severely and

decidedly, and stepped quickly, with big, firm and measured

strides, into his study.

 

“Very pleased to see you,” said the General to Nekhludoff,

uttering the friendly words in a gruff tone, and pointing to an

armchair by the side of the writing-table. “Have you been in

Petersburg long?”

 

Nekhludoff replied that he had only lately arrived.

 

“Is the Princess, your mother, well?”

 

“My mother is dead.”

 

“Forgive me; I am very sorry. My son told me he had met you.”

 

The General’s son was making the same kind of career for himself

that the father had done, and, having passed the Military

Academy, was now serving in the Inquiry Office, and was very

proud of his duties there. His occupation was the management of

Government spies.

 

“Why, I served with your father. We were friends—comrades. And

you; are you also in the Service?”

 

“No, I am not.”

 

The General bent his head disapprovingly.

 

“I have a request to make, General.”

 

“Very pleased. In what way can I be of service to you? If my

request is out of place pray pardon me. But I am obliged to make

it.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“There is a certain Gourkevitch imprisoned in the fortress; his

mother asks for an interview with him, or at least to be allowed

to send him some books.”

 

The General expressed neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction at

Nekhludoff’s request, but bending his head on one side he closed

his eyes as if considering. In reality he was not considering

anything, and was not even interested in Nekhludoff’s questions,

well knowing that he would answer them according to the law. He

was simply resting mentally and not thinking at all.

 

“You see,” he said at last, “this does not depend on me. There is

a regulation, confirmed by His Majesty, concerning interviews;

and as to books, we have a library, and they may have what is

permitted.”

 

“Yes, but he wants scientific books; he wishes to study.”

 

“Don’t you believe it,” growled the General. “It’s not study he

wants; it is just only restlessness.”

 

“But what is to be done? They must occupy their time somehow in

their hard condition,” said Nekhludoff.

 

“They are always complaining,” said the General. “We know them.”

 

He spoke of them in a general way, as if they were all a

specially bad race of men. “They have conveniences here which can

be found in few places of confinement,” said the General, and he

began to enumerate the comforts the prisoners enjoyed, as if the

aim of the institution was to give the people imprisoned there a

comfortable home.

 

“It is true it used to be rather rough, but now they are very

well kept here,” he continued. “They have three courses for

dinner—and one of them meat—cutlets, or rissoles; and on

Sundays they get a fourth—a sweet dish. God grant every Russian

may eat as well as they do.”

 

Like all old people, the General, having once got on to a

familiar topic, enumerated the various proofs he had often given

before of the prisoners being exacting and ungrateful.

 

“They get books on spiritual subjects and old journals. We have a

library. Only they rarely read. At first they seem interested,

later on the new books remain uncut, and the old ones with their

leaves unturned. We tried them,” said the old General, with the

dim likeness of a smile. “We put bits of paper in on purpose,

which remained just as they had been placed. Writing is also not

forbidden,” he continued. “A slate is provided, and a slate

pencil, so that they can write as a pastime. They can wipe the

slate and write again. But they don’t write, either. Oh, they

very soon get quite tranquil. At first they seem restless, but

later on they even grow fat and become very quiet.” Thus spoke

the General, never suspecting the terrible meaning of his words.

 

Nekhludoff listened to the hoarse old voice, looked at the stiff

limbs, the swollen eyelids under the grey brows, at the old,

clean-shaved, flabby jaw, supported by the collar of the military

uniform, at the white cross that this man was so proud of,

chiefly because he had gained it by exceptionally cruel and

extensive slaughter, and knew that it was useless to reply to the

old man or to explain the meaning of his own words to him.

 

He made another effort, and asked about the prisoner Shoustova,

for whose release, as he had been informed that morning, orders

were given.

 

“Shoustova—Shoustova? I cannot remember all their names, there

are so many of them,” he said, as if reproaching them because

there were so many. He rang, and ordered the secretary to be

called. While waiting for the latter, he began persuading

Nekhludoff to