Resurrection - Leo Tolstoy (me reader TXT) 📗

her. All this flashed through his mind as he instinctively put on his hat and left the hospital.

“What am I to do now? Am I still bound to her? Has this action of hers not set me free?” And as he put these questions to himself he knew at once that if he considered himself free, and threw her up, he would be punishing himself, and not her, which was what he wished to do, and he was seized with fear.

“No, what has happened cannot alter⁠—it can only strengthen my resolve. Let her do what flows from the state her mind is in. If it is carrying on with the medical assistant, let her carry on with the medical assistant; that is her business. I must do what my conscience demands of me. And my conscience expects me to sacrifice my freedom. My resolution to marry her, if only in form, and to follow wherever she may be sent, remains unalterable.” Nekhlúdoff said all this to himself with vicious obstinacy as he left the hospital and walked with resolute steps towards the big gates of the prison. He asked the warder on duty at the gate to inform the inspector that he wished to see Máslova. The warder knew Nekhlúdoff, and told him of an important change that had taken place in the prison. The old inspector had been discharged, and a new, very severe official appointed in his place.

“They are so strict nowadays, it’s just awful,” said the jailer. “He is in here; they will let him know directly.”

The new inspector was in the prison and soon came to Nekhlúdoff. He was a tall, angular man, with high cheek bones, morose, and very slow in his movements.

“Interviews are allowed in the visiting room on the appointed days,” he said, without looking at Nekhlúdoff.

“But I have a petition to the Emperor, which I want signed.”

“You can give it to me.”

“I must see the prisoner myself. I was always allowed to before.”

“That was so, before,” said the inspector, with a furtive glance at Nekhlúdoff.

“I have a permission from the governor,” insisted Nekhlúdoff, and took out his pocketbook.

“Allow me,” said the inspector, taking the paper from Nekhlúdoff with his long, dry, white fingers, on the first of which was a gold ring, still without looking him in the eyes. He read the paper slowly. “Step into the office, please.”

This time the office was empty. The inspector sat down by the table and began sorting some papers that lay on it, evidently intending to be present at the interview.

When Nekhlúdoff asked whether he might see the political prisoner, Doúkhova, the inspector answered, shortly, that he could not. “Interviews with political prisoners are not permitted,” he said, and again fixed his attention on his papers. With a letter to Doúkhova in his pocket, Nekhlúdoff felt as if he had committed some offence, and his plans had been discovered and frustrated.

When Máslova entered the room the inspector raised his head, and, without looking at either her or Nekhlúdoff, remarked: “You may talk,” and went on sorting his papers. Máslova had again the white jacket, petticoat and kerchief on. When she came up to Nekhlúdoff and saw his cold, hard look, she blushed scarlet, and crumbling the hem of her jacket with her hand, she cast down her eyes. Her confusion, so it seemed to Nekhlúdoff, confirmed the hospital doorkeeper’s words.

Nekhlúdoff had meant to treat her in the same way as before, but could not bring himself to shake hands with her, so disgusting was she to him now.

“I have brought you bad news,” he said, in a monotonous voice, without looking at her or taking her hand. “The Senate has refused.”

“I knew it would,” she said, in a strange tone, as if she were gasping for breath.

Formerly Nekhlúdoff would have asked why she said she knew it would; now he only looked at her. Her eyes were full of tears. But this did not soften him; it roused his irritation against her even more.

The inspector rose and began pacing up and down the room.

In spite of the disgust Nekhlúdoff was feeling at the moment, he considered it right to express his regret at the Senate’s decision.

“You must not despair,” he said. “The petition to the Emperor may meet with success, and I hope⁠—”

“I’m not thinking of that,” she said, looking piteously at him with her wet, squinting eyes.

“What is it, then?”

“You have been to the hospital, and they have most likely told you about me⁠—”

“What of that? That is your affair,” said Nekhlúdoff coldly, and frowned. The cruel feeling of wounded pride that had quieted down rose with renewed force when she mentioned the hospital.

“He, a man of the world, whom any girl of the best families would think it happiness to marry, offered himself as a husband to this woman, and she could not even wait, but began intriguing with the medical assistant,” thought he, with a look of hatred.

“Here, sign this petition,” he said, taking a large envelope from his pocket, and laying the paper on the table. She wiped the tears with a corner of her kerchief, and asked what to write and where.

He showed her, and she sat down and arranged the cuff of her right sleeve with her left hand; he stood behind her, and silently looked at her back, which shook with suppressed emotion, and evil and good feelings were fighting in his breast⁠—feelings of wounded pride and of pity for her who was suffering⁠—and the last feeling was victorious.

He could not remember which came first; did the pity for her first enter his heart, or did he first remember his own sins⁠—his own repulsive actions, the very same for which he was condemning her? Anyhow, he both felt himself guilty and pitied her.

Having signed the petition and wiped her inky finger on her petticoat, she got up and looked at him.

“Whatever happens, whatever comes of it, my resolve remains unchanged,” said Nekhlúdoff. The thought that he had forgiven