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

reach the prison before 12 o’clock.

 

The night before, as he was packing up and sorting his papers, he

came upon his diary, and read some bits here and there. The last

bit written before he left for Petersburg ran thus: “Katusha

does not wish to accept my sacrifice; she wishes to make a

sacrifice herself. She has conquered, and so have I. She makes me

happy by the inner change, which seems to me, though I fear to

believe it, to be going on in her. I fear to believe it, yet she

seems to be coming back to life.” Then further on he read. “I

have lived through something very hard and very joyful. I learnt

that she has behaved very badly in the hospital, and I suddenly

felt great pain. I never expected that it could be so painful. I

spoke to her with loathing and hatred, then all of a sudden I

called to mind how many times I have been, and even still am,

though but in thought, guilty of the thing that I hated her for,

and immediately I became disgusting to myself, and pitied her and

felt happy again. If only we could manage to see the beam in our

own eye in time, how kind we should be.” Then he wrote: “I have

been to see Nathalie, and again self-satisfaction made me unkind

and spiteful, and a heavy feeling remains. Well, what is to be

done? Tomorrow a new life will begin. A final goodbye to the

old! Many new impressions have accumulated, but I cannot yet

bring them to unity.”

 

When he awoke the next morning Nekhludoff’s first feeling was

regret about the affair between him and his brother-in-law.

 

“I cannot go away like this,” he thought. “I must go and make it

up with them.” But when he looked at his watch he saw that he had

not time to go, but must hurry so as not to be too late for the

departure of the gang. He hastily got everything ready, and sent

the things to the station with a servant and Taras, Theodosia’s

husband, who was going with them. Then he took the first

isvostchik he could find and drove off to the prison.

 

The prisoners’ train started two hours before the train by which

he was going, so Nekhludoff paid his bill in the lodgings and

left for good.

 

It was July, and the weather was unbearably hot. From the stones,

the walls, the iron of the roofs, which the sultry night had not

cooled, the beat streamed into the motionless air. When at rare

intervals a slight breeze did arise, it brought but a whiff of

hot air filled with dust and smelling of oil paint.

 

There were few people in the streets, and those who were out

tried to keep on the shady side. Only the sunburnt peasants, with

their bronzed faces and bark shoes on their feet, who were

mending the road, sat hammering the stones into the burning sand

in the sun; while the policemen, in their holland blouses, with

revolvers fastened with orange cords, stood melancholy and

depressed in the middle of the road, changing from foot to foot;

and the tramcars, the horses of which wore holland hoods on their

heads, with slits for the ears, kept passing up and down the

sunny road with ringing bells.

 

When Nekhludoff drove up to the prison the gang had not left the

yard. The work of delivering and receiving the prisoners that had

commenced at 4 A.M. was still going on. The gang was to consist

of 623 men and 64 women; they had all to be received according to

the registry lists. The sick and the weak to be sorted out, and

all to be delivered to the convoy. The new inspector, with two

assistants, the doctor and medical assistant, the officer of the

convoy, and the clerk, were sitting in the prison yard at a table

covered with writing materials and papers, which was placed in

the shade of a wall. They called the prisoners one by one,

examined and questioned them, and took notes. The rays of the sun

had gradually reached the table, and it was growing very hot and

oppressive for want of air and because of the breathing crowd of

prisoners that stood close by.

 

“Good gracious, will this never come to an end!” the convoy

officer, a tall, fat, red-faced man with high shoulders, who kept

puffing the smoke, of his cigarette into his thick moustache,

asked, as he drew in a long puff. “You are killing me. From where

have you got them all? Are there many more?” the clerk inquired.

 

“Twenty-four men and the women.”

 

“What are you standing there for? Come on,” shouted the convoy

officer to the prisoners who had not yet passed the revision, and

who stood crowded one behind the other. The prisoners had been

standing there more than three hours, packed in rows in the full

sunlight, waiting their turns.

 

While this was going on in the prison yard, outside the gate,

besides the sentinel who stood there as usual with a gun, were

drawn up about 20 carts, to carry the luggage of the prisoners

and such prisoners as were too weak to walk, and a group of

relatives and friends waiting to see the prisoners as they came

out and to exchange a few words if a chance presented itself and

to give them a few things. Nekhludoff took his place among the

group. He had stood there about an hour when the clanking of

chains, the noise of footsteps, authoritative voices, the sound

of coughing, and the low murmur of a large crowd became audible.

 

This continued for about five minutes, during which several

jailers went in and out of the gateway. At last the word of

command was given. The gate opened with a thundering noise, the

clattering of the chains became louder, and the convoy soldiers,

dressed in white blouses and carrying guns, came out into the

street and took their places in a large, exact circle in front of

the gate; this was evidently a usual, often-practised manoeuvre.

Then another command was given, and the prisoners began coming

out in couples, with flat, pancake-shaped caps on their shaved

heads and sacks over their shoulders, dragging their chained legs

and swinging one arm, while the other held up a sack.

 

First came the men condemned to hard labour, all dressed alike in

grey trousers and cloaks with marks on the back. All of

them—young and old, thin and fat, pale and red, dark and bearded

and beardless, Russians, Tartars, and Jews—came out, clattering

with their chains and briskly swinging their arms as if prepared

to go a long distance, but stopped after having taken ten steps,

and obediently took their places behind each other, four abreast.

Then without interval streamed out more shaved men, dressed in

the same manner but with chains only on their legs. These were

condemned to exile. They came out as briskly and stopped as

suddenly, taking their places four in a row. Then came those

exiled by their Communes. Then the women in the same order, first

those condemned to hard labour, with grey cloaks and kerchiefs;

then the exiled women, and those following their husbands of

their own free will, dressed in their own town or village

clothing. Some of the women were carrying babies wrapped in the

fronts of their grey cloaks.

 

With the women came the children, boys and girls, who, like colts

in a herd of horses, pressed in among the prisoners.

 

The men took their places silently, only coughing now and then,

or making short remarks.

 

The women talked without intermission. Nekhludoff thought he saw

Maslova as they were coming out, but she was at once lost in the

large crowd, and he could only see grey creatures, seemingly

devoid of all that was human, or at any rate of all that was

womanly, with sacks on their backs and children round them,

taking their places behind the men.

 

Though all the prisoners had been counted inside the prison

walls, the convoy counted them again, comparing the numbers with

the list. This took very long, especially as some of the

prisoners moved and changed places, which confused the convoy.

 

The convoy soldiers shouted and pushed the prisoners (who

complied obediently, but angrily) and counted them over again.

When all had been counted, the convoy officer gave a command, and

the crowd became agitated. The weak men and women and children

rushed, racing each other, towards the carts, and began placing

their bags on the carts and climbing up themselves. Women with

crying babies, merry children quarrelling for places, and dull,

careworn prisoners got into the carts.

 

Several of the prisoners took off their caps and came up to the

convoy officer with some request. Nekhludoff found out later that

they were asking for places on the carts. Nekhludoff saw how the

officer, without looking at the prisoners, drew in a whiff from

his cigarette, and then suddenly waved his short arm in front of

one of the prisoners, who quickly drew his shaved head back

between his shoulders as if afraid of a blow, and sprang back.

 

“I will give you a lift such that you’ll remember. You’ll get

there on foot right enough,” shouted the officer. Only one of the

men was granted his request—an old man with chains on his legs;

and Nekhludoff saw the old man take off his pancake-shaped cap,

and go up to the cart crossing himself. He could not manage to

get up on the cart because of the chains that prevented his

lifting his old legs, and a woman who was sitting in the cart at

last pulled him in by the arm.

 

When all the sacks were in the carts, and those who were allowed

to get in were seated, the officer took off his cap, wiped his

forehead, his bald head and fat, red neck, and crossed himself.

 

“March,” commanded the officer. The soldiers’ guns gave a click;

the prisoners took off their caps and crossed themselves, those

who were seeing them off shouted something, the prisoners shouted

in answer, a row arose among the women, and the gang, surrounded

by the soldiers in their white blouses, moved forward, raising

the dust with their chained feet. The soldiers went in front;

then came the convicts condemned to hard labour, clattering with

their chains; then the exiled and those exiled by the Communes,

chained in couples by their wrists; then the women. After them,

on the carts loaded with sacks, came the weak. High up on one of

the carts sat a woman closely wrapped up, and she kept shrieking

and sobbing.

 

CHAPTER XXXV.

 

NOT MEN BUT STRANGE AND TERRIBLE CREATURES?

 

The procession was such a long one that the carts with the

luggage and the weak started only when those in front were

already out of sight. When the last of the carts moved,

Nekhludoff got into the trap that stood waiting for him and told

the isvostchik to catch up the prisoners in front, so that he

could see if he knew any of the men in the gang, and then try and

find out Maslova among the women and ask her if she had received

the things he sent.

 

It was very hot, and a cloud of dust that was raised by a

thousand tramping feet stood all the time over the gang that was

moving down the middle of the street. The prisoners were walking

quickly, and the slow-going isvostchik’s horse was some time in

catching them up. Row upon row they passed, those strange and

terrible-looking creatures, none of whom Nekhludoff knew.

 

On they