Resurrection - Leo Tolstoy (me reader TXT) 📗

her term. The question in such cases is, whose is the heavier punishment, hers or his?”

“They are both sentenced to hard labour.”

“Very well; so they are quits,” said the General, with a laugh. “She’s got what he has, only as he is sick he may be left behind, and of course what can be done to lighten his fate shall be done. But as for her, even if she did marry him, she could not remain behind.”

“The Generaless is having her coffee,” the footman announced.

The General nodded and continued:

“However, I shall think about it. What are their names? Put them down here.”

Nekhlúdoff wrote down the names.

Nekhlúdoff’s request to be allowed to see the dying man the General answered by saying, “Neither can I do that. Of course I do not suspect you, but you take an interest in him and in the others, and you have money, and here with us anything can be done with money. I have been told to put down bribery. But how can I put down bribery when everybody takes bribes? And the lower their rank the more ready they are to be bribed. How can one find it out across more than 3,000 miles? There any official is a little Tsar, just as I am here,” and he laughed. “You have in all likelihood been to see the political prisoners; you gave money and got permission to see them,” he said, with a smile. “Is it not so?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I quite understand that you had to do it. You pity a political prisoner and wish to see him. And the inspector or the convoy soldier accepts, because he has a salary of twice twenty copecks and a family, and he can’t help accepting it. In his place and yours I should have acted in the same way as you and he did. But in my position I do not permit myself to swerve an inch from the letter of the law, just because I am a man, and might be influenced by pity. But I am a member of the executive, and I have been placed in a position of trust on certain conditions, and these conditions I must carry out. Well, so this business is finished. And now let us hear what is going on in the metropolis.” And the General began questioning with the evident desire to hear the news and to show how very human he was.

XXIII

“By-the-way, where are you staying?” asked the General as he was taking leave of Nekhlúdoff. “At Dúk’s? Well, it’s horrid enough there. Come and dine with us at five o’clock. You speak English?”

“Yes, I do.”

“That’s good. You see, an English traveller has just arrived here. He is studying the question of transportation and examining the prisons of Siberia. Well, he is dining with us tonight, and you come and meet him. We dine at five, and my wife expects punctuality. Then I shall also give you an answer what to do about that woman, and perhaps it may be possible to leave someone behind with the sick prisoner.”

Having made his bow to the General, Nekhlúdoff drove to the post-office, feeling himself in an extremely animated and energetic frame of mind.

The post-office was a low-vaulted room. Several officials sat behind a counter serving the people, of whom there was quite a crowd. One official sat with his head bent to one side and kept stamping the envelopes, which he slipped dexterously under the stamp. Nekhlúdoff had not long to wait. As soon as he had given his name, everything that had come for him by post was at once handed to him. There was a good deal: letters, and money, and books, and the last number of Fatherland Notes. Nekhlúdoff took all these things to a wooden bench, on which a soldier with a book in his hand sat waiting for something, took the seat by his side, and began sorting the letters. Among them was one registered letter in a fine envelope, with a distinctly stamped bright red seal. He broke the seal, and seeing a letter from Selenín and some official paper inside the envelope, he felt the blood rush to his face, and his heart stood still. It was the answer to Katúsha’s petition. What would that answer be? Nekhlúdoff glanced hurriedly through the letter, written in an illegibly small, hard, and cramped hand, and breathed a sigh of relief. The answer was a favourable one.

“Dear friend,” wrote Selenín, “our last talk has made a profound impression on me. You were right concerning Máslova. I looked carefully through the case, and see that shocking injustice has been done her. It could be remedied only by the Committee of Petitions before which you laid it. I managed to assist at the examination of the case, and I enclose herewith the copy of the mitigation of the sentence. Your aunt, the Countess Katerína Ivánovna, gave me the address which I am sending this to. The original document has been sent to the place where she was imprisoned before her trial, and will from there he probably sent at once to the principal Government office in Siberia. I hasten to communicate this glad news to you and warmly press your hand.⁠—Yours, Selenín.”

The document ran thus: “His Majesty’s office for the reception of petitions, addressed to his Imperial name”⁠—here followed the date⁠—“by order of the chief of his Majesty’s office for the reception of petitions addressed to his Imperial name. The meschánka Katerína Máslova is hereby informed that his Imperial Majesty, with reference to her most loyal petition, condescending to her request, deigns to order that her sentence to hard labour should be commuted to one of exile to the less distant districts of Siberia.”

This was joyful and important news; all that Nekhlúdoff could have hoped for Katúsha, and for himself also, had happened. It was true that the new position she was in brought new