Resurrection - Leo Tolstoy (me reader TXT) 📗

with sacking for her to sit on. She got in and wrapped her shawl round her, and off we drove. She says nothing and I say nothing. Just as we were coming up to the house she says, ‘And how’s mother; is she alive?’ ‘Yes, she’s alive.’ ‘And father; is he alive?’ ‘Yes, he is.’ ‘Forgive me, Tarás,’ she says, ‘for my folly. I did not myself know what I was doing.’ So I say, ‘Words won’t mend matters. I have forgiven you long ago,’ and I said no more. We got home, and she just fell at mother’s feet. Mother says, ‘The Lord will forgive you.’ And father said, ‘How d’you do?’ and ‘What’s past is past. Live as best you can. Now,’ says he, ‘is not the time for all that; there’s the harvest to be gathered in down at Skorodinó,’ he says. ‘Down on the manured acre, by the Lord’s help, the ground has borne such rye that the sickle can’t tackle it. It’s all interwoven and heavy, and has sunk beneath its weight; that must be reaped. You and Tarás had better go and see to it tomorrow.’ Well, friend, from that moment she took to the work and worked so that everyone wondered. At that time we rented three desiatins, and by God’s help we had a wonderful crop both of oats and rye. I mow and she binds the sheaves, and sometimes we both of us reap. I am good at work and not afraid of it, but she’s better still at whatever she takes up. She’s a smart woman, young, and full of life; and as to work, friend, she’d grown that eager that I had to stop her. We get home, our fingers swollen, our arms aching, and she, instead of resting, rushes off to the barn to make binders for the sheaves for next day. Such a change!”

“Well, and to you? Was she kinder, now?” asked the gardener.

“That’s beyond question. She clings to me as if we were one soul. Whatever I think she understands. Even mother, angry as she was, could not help saying: ‘It’s as if our Theodosia had been transformed; she’s quite a different woman now!’ We were once going to cart the sheaves with two carts. She and I were in the first, and I say, ‘How could you think of doing that, Theodosia?’ and she says, ‘How could I think of it? just so, I did not wish to live with you. I thought I’d rather die than live with you!’ I say, ‘And now?’ and she says, ‘Now you’re in my heart!’ ” Tarás stopped, and smiled joyfully, shook his head as if surprised. “Hardly had we got the harvest home when I went to soak the hemp, and when I got home there was a summons, she must go to be tried, and we had forgotten all about the matter that she was to be tried for.”

“It can only be the evil one,” said the gardener. “Could any man of himself think of destroying a living soul? We had a fellow once⁠—” and the gardener was about to commence his tale when the train began to stop.

“It seems we are coming to a station,” he said. “I’ll go and have a drink.”

The conversation stopped, and Nekhlúdoff followed the gardener out of the carriage onto the wet platform of the station.

XLII

Before Nekhlúdoff got out he had noticed in the station yard several elegant equipages, some with three, some with four, well-fed horses, with tinkling bells on their harness. When he stepped out on the wet, dark-coloured boards of the platform, he saw a group of people in front of the first-class carriage, among whom were conspicuous a stout lady with costly feathers on her hat, and a waterproof, and a tall, thin-legged young man in a cycling suit. The young man had by his side an enormous, well-fed dog, with a valuable collar. Behind them stood footmen, holding wraps and umbrellas, and a coachman, who had also come to meet the train.

On the whole of the group, from the fat lady down to the coachman who stood holding up his long coat, there lay the stamp of wealth and quiet self-assurance. A curious and servile crowd rapidly gathered round this group⁠—the stationmaster, in his red cap, a gendarme, a thin young lady in a Russian costume, with beads round her neck, who made a point of seeing the trains come in all through the summer, a telegraph clerk, and passengers, men and women.

In the young man with the dog Nekhlúdoff recognised young Korchágin, a gymnasium student. The fat lady was the Princess’s sister, to whose estate the Korchágins were now moving. The guard, with his gold cord and shiny top-boots, opened the carriage door and stood holding it as a sign of deference, while Philip and a porter with a white apron carefully carried out the long-faced Princess in her folding chair. The sisters greeted each other, and French sentences began flying about. Would the Princess go in a closed or an open carriage? At last the procession started towards the exit, the lady’s maid, with her curly fringe, parasol and leather case in the rear.

Nekhlúdoff not wishing to meet them and to have to take leave over again, stopped before he got to the door, waiting for the procession to pass.

The Princess, her son, Missy, the doctor, and the maid went out first, the old Prince and his sister-in-law remained behind. Nekhlúdoff was too far to catch anything but a few disconnected French sentences of their conversation. One of the sentences uttered by the Prince, as it often happens, for some unaccountable reason remained in his memory with all its intonations and the sound of the voice.

“Oh, il est du vrai grand monde, du vrai grand monde,” said the Prince in his loud, self-assured tone as he went out of the station with his sister-in-law, accompanied by the respectful