Resurrection - Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (interesting novels in english .TXT) 📗
- Author: Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
- Performer: -
Book online «Resurrection - Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (interesting novels in english .TXT) 📗». Author Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
fellow, is it true that Karmanoff wishes to exchange?”
Bousovkin’s kindly, gentle face turned suddenly sad and a veil
seemed to dim his eyes.
“We have heard nothing—hardly,” he said, and with the same
dimness still over his eyes he turned to the child.
“Well, Aksutka, it seems you’re to make yourself comfortable with
the ladies,” and he hurried away.
“It’s true about the exchange, and he knows it very well,” said
Nabatoff.
“What are you going to do?”
“I shall tell the authorities in the next town. I know both
prisoners by sight,” said Nekhludoff.
All were silent, fearing a recommencement of the dispute.
Simonson, who had been lying with his arms thrown back behind his
head, and not speaking, rose, and determinately walked up to
Nekhludoff, carefully passing round those who were sitting.
“Could you listen to me now?”
“Of course,” and Nekhludoff rose and followed him.
Katusha looked up with an expression of suspense, and meeting
Nekhludoff’s eyes, she blushed and shook her head.
“What I want to speak to you about is this,” Simonson began, when
they had come out into the passage. In the passage the din of the
criminal’s voices and shouts sounded louder. Nekhludoff made a
face, but Simonson did not seem to take any notice.
“Knowing of your relations to Katerina Maslova,” he began
seriously and frankly, with his kind eyes looking straight into
Nekhludoff’s face, “I consider it my duty”—He was obliged to
stop because two voices were heard disputing and shouting, both
at once, close to the door.
“I tell you, blockhead, they are not mine,” one voice shouted.
“May you choke, you devil,” snorted the other.
At this moment Mary Pavlovna came out into the passage.
“How can one talk here?” she said; “go in, Vera is alone there,”
and she went in at the second door, and entered a tiny room,
evidently meant for a solitary cell, which was now placed at the
disposal of the political women prisoners, Vera Doukhova lay
covered up, head and all, on the bed.
“She has got a headache, and is asleep, so she cannot hear you,
and I will go away,” said Mary Pavlovna.
“On the contrary, stay here,” said Simonson; “I have no secrets
from any one, certainly none from you.”
“All right,” said Mary Pavlovna, and moving her whole body from
side to side, like a child, so as to get farther back on to the
bed, she settled down to listen, her beautiful hazel eyes seeming
to look somewhere far away.
“Well, then, this is my business,” Simonson repeated. “Knowing of
your relations to Katerina Maslova, I consider myself bound to
explain to you my relations to her.”
Nekhludoff could not help admiring the simplicity and
truthfulness with which Simonson spoke to him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I should like to marry Katerina Maslova—”
“How strange!” said Mary Pavlovna, fixing her eyes on Simonson.
“—And so I made up my mind to ask her to be my wife,” Simonson
continued.
“What can I do? It depends on her,” said Nekhludoff.
“Yes; but she will not come to any decision without you.”
“Why?”
“Because as long as your relations with her are unsettled she
cannot make up her mind.”
“As far as I am concerned, it is finally settled. I should like
to do what I consider to be my duty and also to lighten her fate,
but on no account would I wish to put any restraint on her.”
“Yes, but she does not wish to accept your sacrifice.”
“It is no sacrifice.”
“And I know that this decision of hers is final.”
“Well, then, there is no need to speak to me,” said Nekhludoff.
“She wants you to acknowledge that you think as she does.”
“How can I acknowledge that I must not do what I consider to be
my duty? All I can say is that I am not free, but she is.”
Simonson was silent; then, after thinking a little, he said:
“Very well, then, I’ll tell her. You must not think I am in love
with her,” he continued; “I love her as a splendid, unique,
human being who has suffered much. I want nothing from her. I
have only an awful longing to help her, to lighten her posi—”
Nekhludoff was surprised to hear the trembling in Simonson’s
voice.
“—To lighten her position,” Simonson continued. “If she does not
wish to accept your help, let her accept mine. If she consents, I
shall ask to be sent to the place where she will be imprisoned.
Four years are not an eternity. I would live near her, and
perhaps might lighten her fate—” and he again stopped, too
agitated to continue.
“What am I to say?” said Nekhludoff. “I am very glad she has
found such a protector as you—”
“That’s what I wanted to know,” Simonson interrupted.
“I wanted to know if, loving her and wishing her happiness, you
would consider it good for her to marry me?”
“Oh, yes,” said Nekhludoff decidedly.
“It all depends on her; I only wish that this suffering soul
should find rest,” said Simonson, with such childlike tenderness
as no one could have expected from so morose-looking a man.
Simonson rose, and stretching his lips out to Nekhludoff, smiled
shyly and kissed him.
“So I shall tell her,” and he went away.
CHAPTER XVII.
“I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY.”
“What do you think of that?” said Mary Pavlovna. “In love—quite
in love. Now, that’s a thing I never should have expected, that
Valdemar Simonson should be in love, and in the silliest, most
boyish manner. It is strange, and, to say the truth, it is sad,”
and she sighed.
“But she? Katusha? How does she look at it, do you think?”
Nekhludoff asked.
“She?” Mary Pavlovna waited, evidently wishing to give as exact
an answer as possible. “She? Well, you see, in spite of her past
she has one of the most moral natures—and such fine feelings.
She loves you—loves you well, and is happy to be able to do you
even the negative good of not letting you get entangled with her.
Marriage with you would be a terrible fall for her, worse than
all that’s past, and therefore she will never consent to it. And
yet your presence troubles her.”
“Well, what am I to do? Ought I to vanish?”
Mary Pavlovna smiled her sweet, childlike smile, and said, “Yes,
partly.”
“How is one to vanish partly?”
“I am talking nonsense. But as for her, I should like to tell you
that she probably sees the silliness of this rapturous kind of
love (he has not spoken to her), and is both flattered and afraid
of it. I am not competent to judge in such affairs, you know,
still I believe that on his part it is the most ordinary man’s
feeling, though it is masked. He says that this love arouses his
energy and is Platonic, but I know that even if it is
exceptional, still at the bottom it is degrading.”
Mary Pavlovna had wandered from the subject, having started on
her favourite theme.
“Well, but what am I to do?” Nekhludoff asked.
“I think you should tell her everything; it is always best that
everything should be clear. Have a talk with her; I shall call
her. Shall I?” said Mary Pavlovna.
“If you please,” said Nekhludoff, and Mary Pavlovna went.
A strange feeling overcame Nekhludoff when he was alone in the
little room with the sleeping Vera Doukhova, listening to her
soft breathing, broken now and then by moans, and to the
incessant dirt that came through the two doors that separated him
from the criminals. What Simonson had told him freed him from the
self-imposed duty, which had seemed hard and strange to him in
his weak moments, and yet now he felt something that was not
merely unpleasant but painful.
He had a feeling that this offer of Simonson’s destroyed the
exceptional character of his sacrifice, and thereby lessened its
value in his own and others’ eyes; if so good a man who was not
bound to her by any kind of tie wanted to join his fate to hers,
then this sacrifice was not so great. There may have also been an
admixture of ordinary jealousy. He had got so used to her love
that he did not like to admit that she loved another.
Then it also upset the plans he had formed of living near her
while she was doing her term. If she married Simonson his
presence would be unnecessary, and he would have to form new
plans.
Before he had time to analyse his feelings the loud din of the
prisoners’ voices came in with a rush (something special was
going on among them to-day) as the door opened to let Katusha in.
She stepped briskly close up to him and said, “Mary Pavlovna has
sent me.”
“Yes, I must have a talk with you. Sit down. Valdemar Simonson
has been speaking to me.”
She sat down and folded her hands in her lap and seemed quite
calm, but hardly had Nekhludoff uttered Simonson’s name when she
flushed crimson.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“He told me he wanted to marry you.”
Her face suddenly puckered up with pain, but she said nothing and
only cast down her eyes.
“He is asking for my consent or my advice. I told him that it all
depends entirely on you—that you must decide.”
“Ah, what does it all mean? Why?” she muttered, and looked in
his eyes with that peculiar squint that always strangely affected
Nekhludoff.
They sat silent for a few minutes looking into each other’s eyes,
and this look told much to both of them.
“You must decide,” Nekhludoff repeated.
“What am I to decide? Everything has long been decided.”
“No; you must decide whether you will accept Mr. Simonson’s
offer,” said Nekhludoff.
“What sort of a wife can I be—I, a convict? Why should I ruin
Mr. Simonson, too?” she said, with a frown.
“Well, but if the sentence should be mitigated.”
“Oh, leave me alone. I have nothing more to say,” she said, and
rose to leave the room.
CHAPTER XVIII.
NEVEROFF’S FATE.
When, following Katusha, Nekhludoff returned to the men’s room,
he found every one there in agitation. Nabatoff, who went about
all over the place, and who got to know everybody, and noticed
everything, had just brought news which staggered them all. The
news was that he had discovered a note on a wall, written by the
revolutionist Petlin, who had been sentenced to hard labour, and
who, every one thought, had long since reached the Kara; and now
it turned out that he had passed this way quite recently, the
only political prisoner among criminal convicts.
“On the 17th of August,” so ran the note, “I was sent off alone
with the criminals. Neveroff was with me, but hanged himself in
the lunatic asylum in Kasan. I am well and in good spirits and
hope for the best.”
All were discussing Petlin’s position and the possible reasons of
Neveroff’s suicide. Only Kryltzoff sat silent and preoccupied,
his glistening eyes gazing fixedly in front of him.
“My husband told me that Neveroff had a vision while still in the
Petropavlovski prison,” said Rintzeva.
“Yes, he was a poet, a dreamer; this sort
Comments (0)