Resurrection - Leo Tolstoy (me reader TXT) 📗

to Siberia, an innocent woman. This bothers me very much.” Nekhlúdoff, to his own surprise, blushed and became confused. Fanárin glanced at him rapidly, and looked down again, listening.

“Well?”

“We have condemned a woman, and I should like to appeal to a higher court.”

“To the Senate, you mean,” said Fanárin, correcting him.

“Yes, and I should like to ask you to take the case in hand.” Nekhlúdoff wanted to get the most difficult part over, and added, “I shall take the costs of the case on myself, whatever they may be.”

“Oh, we shall settle all that,” said the advocate, smiling with condescension at Nekhlúdoff’s inexperience in these matters. “What is the case?”

Nekhlúdoff stated what had happened.

“All right. I shall look the case through tomorrow or the day after⁠—no⁠—better on Thursday. If you will come to me at six o’clock I will give you an answer. Well, and now let us go; I have to make a few inquiries here.”

Nekhlúdoff took leave of him and went out. This talk with the advocate, and the fact that he had taken measures for Máslova’s defence, quieted him still further. He went out into the street. The weather was beautiful, and he joyfully drew in a long breath of spring air. He was at once surrounded by isvóstchiks offering their services, but he went on foot. A whole swarm of pictures and memories of Katúsha and his conduct to her began whirling in his brain, and he felt depressed and everything appeared gloomy. “No, I shall consider all this later on; I must now get rid of all these disagreeable impressions,” he thought to himself.

He remembered the Korchágin’s dinner and looked at his watch. It was not yet too late to get there in time. He heard the ring of a passing tramcar, ran to catch it, and jumped on. He jumped off again when they got to the marketplace, took a good isvóstchik, and ten minutes later was at the entrance of the Korchágins’ big house.

XXVI

“Please to walk in, your excellency,” said the friendly, fat doorkeeper of the Korchágins’ big house, opening the door, which moved noiselessly on its patent English hinges; “you are expected. They are at dinner. My orders were to admit only you.” The doorkeeper went as far as the staircase and rang.

“Are there any strangers?” asked Nekhlúdoff, taking off his overcoat.

“Mr. Kólosoff and Michael Sergéivitch only, besides the family.”

A very handsome footman with whiskers, in a swallowtail coat and white gloves, looked down from the landing.

“Please to walk up, your excellency,” he said. “You are expected.”

Nekhlúdoff went up and passed through the splendid large dancing-room, which he knew so well, into the dining-room. There the whole Korchágin family⁠—except the mother, Sophia Vasílievna, who never left her cabinet⁠—were sitting round the table. At the head of the table sat old Korchágin; on his left the doctor, and on his right, a visitor, Iván Ivánovitch Kólosoff, a former maréchal de noblesse, now a bank director, Korchágin’s friend and a Liberal. Next on the left side sat Miss Rayner, the governess of Missy’s little sister, and the four-year-old girl herself. Opposite them, Missy’s brother, Pétia, the only son of the Korchágins, a public-school boy of the Sixth Class. It was because of his examinations that the whole family were still in town. Next to him sat a University student who was coaching him, and Missy’s cousin, Michael Sergéivitch Telégin, generally called Mísha; opposite him, Katerína Alexéevna, a forty-year-old maiden lady, a Slavophil; and at the foot of the table sat Missy herself, with an empty place by her side.

“Ah! that’s right! Sit down. We are still at the fish,” said old Korchágin with difficulty, chewing carefully with his false teeth, and lifting his bloodshot eyes (which had no visible lids to them) to Nekhlúdoff.

“Stephen!” he said, with his mouth full, addressing the stout, dignified butler, and pointing with his eyes to the empty place. Though Nekhlúdoff knew Korchágin very well, and had often seen him at dinner, today this red face with the sensual smacking lips, the fat neck above the napkin stuck into his waistcoat, and the whole overfed military figure, struck him very disagreeably. Then Nekhlúdoff remembered, without wishing to, what he knew of the cruelty of this man, who, when in command, used to have men flogged, and even hanged, without rhyme or reason, simply because he was rich and had no need to curry favour.

“Immediately, your excellency,” said Stephen, getting a large soup ladle out of the sideboard, which was decorated with a number of silver vases. He made a sign with his head to the handsome footman, who began at once to arrange the untouched knives and forks and the napkin, elaborately folded with the embroidered family crest uppermost, in front of the empty place next to Missy. Nekhlúdoff went round shaking hands with everyone, and all, except old Korchágin and the ladies, rose when he approached. And this walk round the table, this shaking the hands of people, with many of whom he never talked, seemed unpleasant and odd. He excused himself for being late, and was about to sit down between Missy and Katerína Alexéevna, but old Korchágin insisted that if he would not take a glass of vodka he should at least take a bit of something to whet his appetite, at the side table, on which stood small dishes of lobster, caviar, cheese, and salt herrings. Nekhlúdoff did not know how hungry he was until he began to eat, and then, having taken some bread and cheese, he went on eating eagerly.

“Well, have you succeeded in undermining the basis of society?” asked Kólosoff, ironically quoting an expression used by a retrograde newspaper in attacking trial by jury. “Acquitted the culprits and condemned the innocent, have you?”

“Undermining the basis⁠—undermining the basis,” repeated Prince Korchágin, laughing. He had a firm faith in the wisdom and learning of his chosen friend and companion.

At the risk of seeming rude, Nekhlúdoff