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

and acknowledged the

fact.) And the most terrible part was that this was not a

solitary, but a recurring case.

 

Only by a special cultivation of vice, such as was perpetrated in

these establishments, could a Russian be brought to the state of

this tramp, who excelled Nietzsche’s newest teaching, and held

that everything was possible and nothing forbidden, and who

spread this teaching first among the convicts and then among the

people in general.

 

The only explanation of all that was being done was the wish to

put a stop to crime by fear, by correction, by lawful vengeance

as it was written in the books. But in reality nothing in the

least resembling any of these results came to pass. Instead of

vice being put a stop to, it only spread further; instead of

being frightened, the criminals were encouraged (many a tramp

returned to prison of his own free will). Instead of being

corrected, every kind of vice was systematically instilled, while

the desire for vengeance did not weaken by the measures of the

government, but was bred in the people who had none of it.

 

“Then why is it done?” Nekhludoff asked himself, but could find

no answer. And what seemed most surprising was that all this was

not being done accidentally, not by mistake, not once, but that

it had continued for centuries, with this difference only, that

at first the people’s nostrils used to be torn and their ears cut

off; then they were branded, and now they were manacled and

transported by steam instead of on the old carts. The arguments

brought forward by those in government service, who said that the

things which aroused his indignation were simply due to the

imperfect arrangements of the places of confinement, and that

they could all be put to rights if prisons of a modern type were

built, did not satisfy Nekhludoff, because he knew that what

revolted him was not the consequence of a better or worse

arrangement of the prisons. He had read of model prisons with

electric bells, of executions by electricity, recommended by

Tard; but this refined kind of violence revolted him even more.

 

But what revolted Nekhludoff most was that there were men in the

law courts and in the ministry who received large salaries, taken

from the people, for referring to books written by men like

themselves and with like motives, and sorting actions that

violated laws made by themselves according to different statutes;

and, in obedience to these statutes, sending those guilty of such

actions to places where they were completely at the mercy of

cruel, hardened inspectors, jailers, convoy soldiers, where

millions of them perished body and soul.

 

Now that he had a closer knowledge of prisons, Nekhludoff found

out that all those vices which developed among the

prisoners—drunkenness, gambling, cruelty, and all these terrible

crimes, even cannibalism—were not casual, or due to degeneration

or to the existence of monstrosities of the criminal type, as

science, going hand in hand with the government, explained it,

but an unavoidable consequence of the incomprehensible delusion

that men may punish one another. Nekhludoff saw that cannibalism

did not commence in the marshes, but in the ministry. He saw that

his brother-in-law, for example, and, in fact, all the lawyers

and officials, from the usher to the minister, do not care in the

least for justice or the good of the people about whom they

spoke, but only for the roubles they were paid for doing the

things that were the source whence all this degradation and

suffering flowed. This was quite evident.

 

“Can it be, then, that all this is done simply through

misapprehension? Could it not be managed that all these officials

should have their salaries secured to them, and a premium paid

them, besides, so that they should leave off, doing all that they

were doing now?” Nekhludoff thought, and in spite of the fleas,

that seemed to spring up round him like water from a fountain

whenever he moved, he fell fast asleep.

 

CHAPTER XX.

 

THE JOURNEY RESUMED.

 

The carters had left the inn long before Nekhludoff awoke. The

landlady had had her tea, and came in wiping her fat, perspiring

neck with her handkerchief, and said that a soldier had brought a

note from the halting station. The note was from Mary Pavlovna.

She wrote that Kryltzoff’s attack was more serious than they had

imagined. “We wished him to be left behind and to remain with

him, but this has not been allowed, so that we shall take him on;

but we fear the worst. Please arrange so that if he should he

left in the next town, one of us might remain with him. If in

order to get the permission to stay I should be obliged to get

married to him, I am of course ready to do so.”

 

Nekhludoff sent the young labourer to the post station to order

horses and began packing up hurriedly. Before he had drunk his

second tumbler of tea the three-horsed postcart drove up to the

porch with ringing bells, the wheels rattling on the frozen mud

as on stones. Nekhludoff paid the fat-necked landlady, hurried

out and got into the cart, and gave orders to the driver to go on

as fast as possible, so as to overtake the gang. Just past the

gates of the commune pasture ground they did overtake the carts,

loaded with sacks and the sick prisoners, as they rattled over

the frozen mud, that was just beginning to be rolled smooth by

the wheels (the officer was not there, he had gone in advance).

The soldiers, who had evidently been drinking, followed by the

side of the road, chatting merrily. There were a great many

carts. In each of the first carts sat six invalid criminal

convicts, close packed. On each of the last two were three

political prisoners. Novodvoroff, Grabetz and Kondratieff sat on

one, Rintzeva, Nabatoff and the woman to whom Mary Pavlovna had

given up her own place on the other, and on one of the carts lay

Kryltzoff on a heap of hay, with a pillow under his head, and

Mary Pavlovna sat by him on the edge of the cart. Nekhludoff

ordered his driver to stop, got out and went up to Kryltzoff. One

of the tipsy soldiers waved his hand towards Nekhludoff, but he

paid no attention and started walking by Kryltzoff’s side,

holding on to the side of the cart with his hand. Dressed in a

sheepskin coat, with a fur cap on his head and his mouth bound up

with a handkerchief, he seemed paler and thinner than ever. His

beautiful eyes looked very large and brilliant. Shaken from side

to side by the jottings of the cart, he lay with his eyes fixed

on Nekhludoff; but when asked about his health, he only closed

his eyes and angrily shook his head. All his energy seemed to be

needed in order to bear the jolting of the cart. Mary Pavlovna

was on the other side. She exchanged a significant glance with

Nekhludoff, which expressed all her anxiety about Kryltzoff’s

state, and then began to talk at once in a cheerful manner.

 

“It seems the officer is ashamed of himself,” she shouted, so as

to be heard above the rattle of the wheels. “Bousovkin’s manacles

have been removed, and he is carrying his little girl himself.

Katusha and Simonson are with him, and Vera, too. She has taken

my place.”

 

Kryltzoff said something that could not be heard because of the

noise, and frowning in the effort to repress his cough shook his

head. Then Nekhludoff stooped towards him, so as to hear, and

Kryltzoff, freeing his mouth of the handkerchief, whispered:

 

“Much better now. Only not to catch cold.”

 

Nekhludoff nodded in acquiescence, and again exchanged a glance

with Mary Pavlovna.

 

“How about the problem of the three bodies?” whispered Kryltzoff,

smiling with great difficulty. “The solution is difficult.”

 

Nekhludoff did not understand, but Mary Pavlovna explained that

he meant the well-known mathematical problem which defined the

position of the sun, moon and earth, which Kryltzoff compared to

the relations between Nekhludoff, Katusha and Simonson.

Kryltzoff nodded, to show that Mary Pavlovna had explained his

joke correctly.

 

“The decision does not lie with me,” Nekhludoff said.

 

“Did you get my note? Will you do it?” Mary Pavlovna asked.

 

“Certainly,” answered Nekhludoff; and noticing a look of

displeasure on Kryltzoff’s face, he returned to his conveyance,

and holding with both hands to the sides of the cart, got in,

which jolted with him over the ruts of the rough road. He passed

the gang, which, with its grey cloaks and sheepskin coats, chains

and manacles, stretched over three-quarters of a mile of the

road. On the opposite side of the road Nekhludoff noticed

Katusha’s blue shawl, Vera Doukhova’s black coat, and Simonson’s

crochet cap, white worsted stockings, with bands, like those of

sandals, tied round him. Simonson was walking with the woman and

carrying on a heated discussion.

 

When they saw Nekhludoff they bowed to him, and Simonson raised

his hat in a solemn manner. Nekhludoff, having nothing to say,

did not stop, and was soon ahead of the carts. Having got again

on to a smoother part of the road, they drove still more quickly,

but they had continually to turn aside to let pass long rows of

carts that were moving along the road in both directions.

 

The road, which was cut up by deep ruts, lay through a thick pine

forest, mingled with birch trees and larches, bright with yellow

leaves they had not yet shed. By the time Nekhludoff had passed

about half the gang he reached the end of the forest. Fields now

lay stretched along both sides of the road, and the crosses and

cupolas of a monastery appeared in the distance. The clouds had

dispersed, and it had cleared up completely; the leaves, the

frozen puddles and the gilt crosses and cupolas of the monastery

glittered brightly in the sun that had risen above the forest. A

little to the right mountains began to gleam white in the

blue-grey distance, and the trap entered a large village. The

village street was full of people, both Russians and other

nationalities, wearing peculiar caps and cloaks. Tipsy men and

women crowded and chattered round booths, traktirs, public houses

and carts. The vicinity of a town was noticeable. Giving a pull

and a lash of the whip to the horse on his right, the driver sat

down sideways on the right edge of the scat, so that the reins

hung over that side, and with evident desire of showing off, he

drove quickly down to the river, which had to be crossed by a

ferry. The raft was coming towards them, and had reached the

middle of the river. About twenty carts were waiting to cross.

Nekhludoff had not long to wait. The raft, which had been pulled

far up the stream, quickly approached the landing, carried by the

swift waters. The tall, silent, broad-shouldered, muscular

ferryman, dressed in sheepskins, threw the ropes and moored the

raft with practised hand, landed the carts that were on it, and

put those that were waiting on the bank on board. The whole raft

was filled with vehicles and horses shuffling at the sight of the

water. The broad, swift river splashed against the sides of the

ferryboats, tightening their moorings.

 

When the raft was full, and Nekhludoff’s cart, with the horses

taken out of it, stood closely surrounded by other carts on the

side of the raft, the ferryman barred the entrance, and, paying

no heed to the prayers of those who had not found room in the

raft, unfastened the ropes and set off.

 

All was quiet on the