Produced by Jim Tinsley
RESURRECTION
By Leo Tolstoy
Translated by Mrs. Louise Maude
[Transcriber’s Note: The following paragraph is on a page of its own, in
cursive writing, apparently in Tolstoy’s own hand.]
This English version
of “Resurrection” is pub-
lished by Dodd, Mead and
Company by my authority.
Leo Tolstoy
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
Opinions about Tolstoy and his work differ, but on one point there
surely might be unanimity. A writer of world-wide reputation should be
at least allowed to know how to spell his own name. Why should any one
insist on spelling it “Tolstoi” (with one, two or three dots over the
“i”), when he himself writes it “Tolstoy”? The only reason I have ever
heard suggested is, that in England and America such outlandish views
are attributed to him, that an outlandish spelling is desirable to match
those views.
This novel, written in the rough by Tolstoy some years ago and founded
upon an actual occurrence, was completely rewritten by him during the
last year and a half, and all the proceeds have been devoted by him
to aiding the Doukhobors, a sect who were persecuted in the Caucasus
(especially from 1895 to 1898) for refusing to learn war. About seven
thousand three hundred of them are settled in Canada, and about a
hundred of the leaders are exiled to the remote parts of Siberia.
Anything I may receive for my work in translating the book will go to
the same cause. “Prevention is better than cure,” and I would rather
help people to abstain from killing and wounding each other than devote
the money to patch up their wounds after the battle.
LOUISE MAUDE
RESURRECTION
CHAPTER I.
MASLOVA IN PRISON.
Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to disfigure the
small piece of land on which they were crowded together, by paving the
ground with stones, scraping away every vestige of vegetation, cutting
down the trees, turning away birds and beasts, and filling the air with
the smoke of naphtha and coal, still spring was spring, even in the
town.
The sun shone warm, the air was balmy; everywhere, where it did not get
scraped away, the grass revived and sprang up between the paving-stones
as well as on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards. The birches,
the poplars, and the wild cherry unfolded their gummy and fragrant
leaves, the limes were expanding their opening buds; crows, sparrows,
and pigeons, filled with the joy of spring, were getting their nests
ready; the flies were buzzing along the walls, warmed by the sunshine.
All were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the children. But
men, grown-up men and women, did not leave off cheating and tormenting
themselves and each other. It was not this spring morning men thought
sacred and worthy of consideration not the beauty of God’s world, given
for a joy to all creatures, this beauty which inclines the heart to
peace, to harmony, and to love, but only their own devices for enslaving
one another.
Thus, in the prison office of the Government town, it was not the fact
that men and animals had received the grace and gladness of spring that
was considered sacred and important, but that a notice, numbered and
with a superscription, had come the day before, ordering that on this
28th day of April, at 9 a.m., three prisoners at present detained in the
prison, a man and two women (one of these women, as the chief criminal,
to be conducted separately), had to appear at Court. So now, on the 28th
of April, at 8 o’clock, a jailer and soon after him a woman warder with
curly grey hair, dressed in a jacket with sleeves trimmed with gold,
with a blue-edged belt round her waist, and having a look of suffering
on her face, came into the corridor.
“You want Maslova?” she asked, coming up to the cell with the jailer who
was on duty.
The jailer, rattling the iron padlock, opened the door of the cell, from
which there came a whiff of air fouler even than that in the corridor,
and called out, “Maslova! to the Court,” and closed the door again.
Even into the prison yard the breeze had brought the fresh vivifying air
from the fields. But in the corridor the air was laden with the germs of
typhoid, the smell of sewage, putrefaction, and tar; every newcomer felt
sad and dejected in it. The woman warder felt this, though she was
used to bad air. She had just come in from outside, and entering the
corridor, she at once became sleepy.
From inside the cell came the sound of bustle and women’s voices, and
the patter of bare feet on the floor.
“Now, then, hurry up, Maslova, I say!” called out the jailer, and in a
minute or two a small young woman with a very full bust came briskly out
of the door and went up to the jailer. She had on a grey cloak over a
white jacket and petticoat. On her feet she wore linen stockings and
prison shoes, and round her head was tied a white kerchief, from under
which a few locks of black hair were brushed over the forehead with
evident intent. The face of the woman was of that whiteness peculiar to
people who have lived long in confinement, and which puts one in mind of
shoots of potatoes that spring up in a cellar. Her small broad hands and
full neck, which showed from under the broad collar of her cloak, were
of the same hue. Her black, sparkling eyes, one with a slight squint,
appeared in striking contrast to the dull pallor of her face.
She carried herself very straight, expanding her full bosom.
With her head slightly thrown back, she stood in the corridor, looking
straight into the eyes of the jailer, ready to comply with any order.
The jailer was about to lock the door when a wrinkled and severe-looking
old woman put out her grey head and began speaking to Maslova. But the
jailer closed the door, pushing the old woman’s head with it. A woman’s
laughter was heard from the cell, and Maslova smiled, turning to the
little grated opening in the cell door. The old woman pressed her face
to the grating from the other side, and said, in a hoarse voice:
“Now mind, and when they begin questioning you, just repeat over the
same thing, and stick to it; tell nothing that is not wanted.”
“Well, it could not be worse than it is now, anyhow; I only wish it was
settled one way or another.”
“Of course, it will be settled one way or another,” said the jailer,
with a superior’s self-assured witticism. “Now, then, get along! Take
your places!”
The old woman’s eyes vanished from the grating, and Maslova stepped out
into the middle of the corridor. The warder in front, they descended
the stone stairs, past the still fouler, noisy cells of the men’s
ward, where they were followed by eyes looking out of every one of the
gratings in the doors, and entered the office, where two soldiers were
waiting to escort her. A clerk who was sitting there gave one of the
soldiers a paper reeking of tobacco, and pointing to the prisoner,
remarked, “Take her.”
The soldier, a peasant from Nijni Novgorod, with a red, pock-marked
face, put the paper into the sleeve of his coat, winked to his
companion, a broad-shouldered Tchouvash, and then the prisoner and the
soldiers went to the front entrance, out of the prison yard, and through
the town up the middle of the roughly-paved street.
Isvostchiks [cabmen], tradespeople, cooks, workmen, and government
clerks, stopped and looked curiously at the prisoner; some shook their
heads and thought, “This is what evil conduct, conduct unlike ours,
leads to.” The children stopped and gazed at the robber with frightened
looks; but the thought that the soldiers were preventing her from doing
more harm quieted their fears. A peasant, who had sold his charcoal, and
had had some tea in the town, came up, and, after crossing himself, gave
her a copeck. The prisoner blushed and muttered something; she noticed
that she was attracting everybody’s attention, and that pleased her. The
comparatively fresh air also gladdened her, but it was painful to step
on the rough stones with the ill-made prison shoes on her feet, which
had become unused to walking. Passing by a corn-dealer’s shop, in front
of which a few pigeons were strutting about, unmolested by any one, the
prisoner almost touched a grey-blue bird with her foot; it fluttered up
and flew close to her ear, fanning her with its wings. She smiled, then
sighed deeply as she remembered her present position.