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

not at all frightful.

After they were hanged they only shrugged their shoulders twice,

like this.’ He showed how the shoulders convulsively rose and

fell. ‘Then the hangman pulled a bit so as to tighten the noose,

and it was all up, and they never budged.”’ And Kryltzoff

repeated the watchman’s words, “Not at all frightful,” and tried

to smile, but burst into sobs instead.

 

For a long time after that he kept silent, breathing heavily, and

repressing the sobs that were choking him.

 

“From that time I became a revolutionist. Yes,” he said, when he

was quieter and finished his story in a few words. He belonged to

the Narodovoltzy party, and was even at the head of the

disorganising group, whose object was to terrorise the government

so that it should give up its power of its own accord. With this

object he travelled to Petersburg, to Kiev, to Odessa and abroad,

and was everywhere successful. A man in whom he had full

confidence betrayed him. He was arrested, tried, kept in prison

for two years, and condemned to death, but the sentence was

mitigated to one of hard labour for life.

 

He went into consumption while in prison, and in the conditions

he was now placed he had scarcely more than a few months longer

to live. This he knew, but did not repent of his action, but said

that if he had another life he would use it in the same way to

destroy the conditions in which such things as he had seen were

possible.

 

This man’s story and his intimacy with him explained to

Nekhludoff much that he had not previously understood.

 

CHAPTER VII.

 

NEKHLUDOFF SEEKS AN INTERVIEW WITH MASLOVA.

 

On the day when the convoy officer had the encounter with the

prisoners at the halting station about the child, Nekhludoff, who

had spent the night at the village inn, woke up late, and was

some time writing letters to post at the next Government town, so

that he left the inn later than usual, and did not catch up with

the gang on the road as he had done previously, but came to the

village where the next halting station was as it was growing

dusk.

 

Having dried himself at the inn, which was kept by an elderly

woman who had an extraordinarily fat, white neck, he had his tea

in a clean room decorated with a great number of icons and

pictures and then hurried away to the halting station to ask the

officer for an interview with Katusha. At the last six halting

stations he could not get the permission for an interview from

any of the officers. Though they had been changed several times,

not one of them would allow Nekhludoff inside the halting

stations, so that he had not seen Katusha for more than a week.

This strictness was occasioned by the fact that an important

prison official was expected to pass that way. Now this official

had passed without looking in at the gang, after all, and

Nekhludoff hoped that the officer who had taken charge of the

gang in the morning would allow him an interview with the

prisoners, as former officers had done.

 

The landlady offered Nekhludoff a trap to drive him to the

halting station, situated at the farther end of the village, but

Nekhludoff preferred to walk. A young labourer, a

broad-shouldered young fellow of herculean dimensions, with

enormous top-boots freshly blackened with strongly smelling tar,

offered himself as a guide.

 

A dense mist obscured the sky, and it was so dark that when the

young fellow was three steps in advance of him Nekhludoff could

not see him unless the light of some window happened to fall on

the spot, but he could hear the heavy boots wading through the

deep, sticky slush. After passing the open place in front of the

church and the long street, with its rows of windows shining

brightly in the darkness, Nekhludoff followed his guide to the

outskirts of the village, where it was pitch dark. But soon here,

too, rays of light, streaming through the mist from the lamps in

the front of the halting station, became discernible through the

darkness. The reddish spots of light grew bigger and bigger; at

last the stakes of the palisade, the moving figure of the

sentinel, a post painted with white and black stripes and the

sentinel’s box became visible.

 

The sentinel called his usual “Who goes there?” as they

approached, and seeing they were strangers treated them with such

severity that he would not allow them to wait by the palisade;

but Nekhludoff’s guide was not abashed by this severity.

 

“Hallo, lad! why so fierce? You go and rouse your boss while we

wait here?”

 

The sentinel gave no answer, but shouted something in at the gate

and stood looking at the broad-shouldered young labourer scraping

the mud off Nekhludoff’s boots with a chip of wood by the light

of the lamp. From behind the palisade came the hum of male and

female voices. In about three minutes more something rattled, the

gate opened, and a sergeant, with his cloak thrown over his

shoulders, stepped out of the darkness into the lamplight.

 

The sergeant was not as strict as the sentinel, but he was

extremely inquisitive. He insisted on knowing what Nekhludoff

wanted the officer for, and who he was, evidently scenting his

booty and anxious not to let it escape. Nekhludoff said he had

come on special business, and would show his gratitude, and would

the sergeant take a note for him to the officer. The sergeant

took the note, nodded, and went away. Some time after the gate

rattled again, and women carrying baskets, boxes, jugs and sacks

came out, loudly chattering in their peculiar Siberian dialect as

they stepped over the threshold of the gate. None of them wore

peasant costumes, but were dressed town fashion, wearing jackets

and fur-lined cloaks. Their skirts were tucked up high, and their

heads wrapped up in shawls. They examined Nekhludoff and his

guide curiously by the light of the lamp. One of them showed

evident pleasure at the sight of the broad-shouldered fellow, and

affectionately administered to him a dose of Siberian abuse.

 

“You demon, what are you doing here? The devil take you,” she

said, addressing him.

 

“I’ve been showing this traveller here the way,” answered the

young fellow. “And what have you been bringing here?”

 

“Dairy produce, and I am to bring more in the morning.”

 

The guide said something in answer that made not only the women

but even the sentinel laugh, and, turning to Nekhludoff, he said:

 

“You’ll find your way alone? Won’t get lost, will you?”

 

“I shall find it all right.”

 

“When you have passed the church it’s the second from the

two-storied house. Oh, and here, take my staff,” he said, handing

the stick he was carrying, and which was longer than himself, to

Nekhludoff; and splashing through the mud with his enormous

boots, he disappeared in the darkness, together with the women.

 

His voice mingling with the voices of the women was still audible

through the fog, when the gate again rattled, and the sergeant

appeared and asked Nekhludoff to follow him to the officer.

 

CHAPTER VIII.

 

NEKHLUDOFF AND THE OFFICER.

 

This halting station, like all such stations along the Siberian

road, was surrounded by a courtyard, fenced in with a palisade of

sharp-pointed stakes, and consisted of three one-storied houses.

One of them, the largest, with grated windows, was for the

prisoners, another for the convoy soldiers, and the third, in

which the office was, for the officers.

 

There were lights in the windows of all the three houses, and,

like all such lights, they promised, here in a specially

deceptive manner, something cosy inside the walls. Lamps were

burning before the porches of the houses and about five lamps

more along the walls lit up the yard.

 

The sergeant led Nekhludoff along a plank which lay across the

yard up to the porch of the smallest of the houses.

 

When he had gone up the three steps of the porch he let

Nekhludoff pass before him into the anteroom, in which a small

lamp was burning, and which was filled with smoky fumes. By the

stove a soldier in a coarse shirt with a necktie and black

trousers, and with one top-boot on, stood blowing the charcoal in

a somovar, using the other boot as bellows. [The long boots worn

in Russia have concertina-like sides, and when held to the

chimney of the somovar can be used instead of bellows to make the

charcoal inside burn up.] When he saw Nekhludoff, the soldier

left the somovar and helped him off with his waterproof; then

went into the inner room.

 

“He has come, your honour.”

 

“Well, ask him in,” came an angry voice.

 

“Go in at the door,” said the soldier, and went back to the

somovar.

 

In the next room an officer with fair moustaches and a very red

face, dressed in an Austrian jacket that closely fitted his broad

chest and shoulders, sat at a covered table, on which were the

remains of his dinner and two bottles; there was a strong smell

of tobacco and some very strong, cheap scent in the warm room. On

seeing Nekhludoff the officer rose and gazed ironically and

suspiciously, as it seemed, at the newcomer.

 

“What is it you want?” he asked, and, not waiting for a reply,

he shouted through the open door:

 

“Bernoff, the somovar! What are you about?”

 

“Coming at once.”

 

“You’ll get it ‘at once’ so that you’ll remember it,” shouted the

officer, and his eyes flashed.

 

“I’m coming,” shouted the soldier, and brought in the somovar.

Nekhludoff waited while the soldier placed the somovar on the

table. When the officer had followed the soldier out of the room

with his cruel little eyes looking as if they were aiming where

best to hit him, he made the tea, got the four-cornered decanter

out of his travelling case and some Albert biscuits, and having

placed all this on the cloth he again turned to Nekhludoff.

“Well, how can I he of service to you?”

 

“I should like to be allowed to visit a prisoner,” said

Nekhludoff, without sitting down.

 

“A political one? That’s forbidden by the law,” said the officer.

 

“The woman I mean is not a political prisoner,” said Nekhludoff.

 

“Yes. But pray take a scat,” said the officer. Nekhludoff sat

down.

 

“She is not a political one, but at my request she has been

allowed by the higher authorities to join the political

prisoners—”

 

“Oh, yes, I know,” interrupted the other; “a little dark one?

Well, yes, that can be managed. Won’t you smoke?” He moved a box

of cigarettes towards Nekhludoff, and, having carefully poured

out two tumblers of tea, he passed one to Nekhludoff. “If you

please,” he said.

 

“Thank you; I should like to see—”

 

“The night is long. You’ll have plenty of time. I shall order her

to be sent out to you.”

 

“But could I not see her where she is? Why need she be sent for?”

Nekhludoff said.

 

“In to the political prisoners? It is against the law.”

 

“I have been allowed to go in several times. If there is any

danger of my passing anything in to them I could do it through

her just as well.”

 

“Oh, no; she would be searched,” said the officer, and laughed in

an unpleasant manner.

 

“Well, why not search me?”

 

“All right; we’ll manage without that,” said the officer, opening

the decanter, and holding it out towards Nekhludoff’s tumbler