“You should not speak like that,” she said.

“I am saying it so that you should know.”

“Everything has been said about that, and there is no use speaking,” she

said, with difficulty repressing a smile.

A sudden noise came from the hospital ward, and the sound of a child

crying.

“I think they are calling me,” she said, and looked round uneasily.

“Well, good-bye, then,” he said. She pretended not to see his extended

hand, and, without taking it, turned away and hastily walked along the

strip of carpet, trying to hide the triumph she felt.

“What is going on in her? What is she thinking? What does she feel? Does

she mean to prove me, or can she really not forgive me? Is it that she

cannot or that she will not express what she feels and thinks? Has she

softened or hardened?” he asked himself, and could find no answer. He

only knew that she had altered and that an important change was going on

in her soul, and this change united him not only to her but also to Him

for whose sake that change was being wrought. And this union brought on

a state of joyful animation and tenderness.

When she returned to the ward, in which there stood eight small beds,

Maslova began, in obedience to the nurse’s order, to arrange one of the

beds; and, bending over too far with the sheet, she slipped and nearly

fell down.

A little convalescent boy with a bandaged neck, who was looking at her,

laughed. Maslova could no longer contain herself and burst into loud

laughter, and such contagious laughter that several of the children also

burst out laughing, and one of the sisters rebuked her angrily.

“What are you giggling at? Do you think you are where you used to be?

Go and fetch the food.” Maslova obeyed and went where she was sent; but,

catching the eye of the bandaged boy who was not allowed to laugh, she

again burst out laughing.

Whenever she was alone Maslova again and again pulled the photograph

partly out of the envelope and looked at it admiringly; but only in the

evening when she was off duty and alone in the bedroom which she shared

with a nurse, did she take it quite out of the envelope and gaze long

at the faded yellow photograph, caressing with, her eyes every detail

of faces and clothing, the steps of the veranda, and the bushes which

served as a background to his and hers and his aunts’ faces, and could

not cease from admiring especially herself--her pretty young face with

the curly hair round the forehead. She was so absorbed that she did not

hear her fellow-nurse come into the room.

“What is it that he’s given you?” said the good-natured, fat nurse,

stooping over the photograph.

“Who’s this? You?”

“Who else?” said Maslova, looking into her companion’s face with a

smile.

“And who’s this?”

“Himself.”

“And is this his mother?”

“No, his aunt. Would you not have known me?”

“Never. The whole face is altered. Why, it must be 10 years since then.”

“Not years, but a lifetime,” said Maslova. And suddenly her animation

went, her face grew gloomy, and a deep line appeared between her brows.

“Why so? Your way of life must have been an easy one.”

“Easy, indeed,” Maslova reiterated, closing her eyes and shaking her

head. “It is hell.”

“Why, what makes it so?”

“What makes it so! From eight till four in the morning, and every night

the same!”

“Then why don’t they give it up?”

“They can’t give it up if they want to. But what’s the use of talking?”

Maslova said, jumping up and throwing the photograph into the drawer of

the table. And with difficulty repressing angry tears, she ran out into

the passage and slammed the door.

While looking at the group she imagined herself such as she was there

and dreamt of her happiness then and of the possibility of happiness

with him now. But her companion’s words reminded her of what she was now

and what she had been, and brought back all the horrors of that life,

which she had felt but dimly, and not allowed herself to realise.

It was only now that the memory of all those terrible nights came

vividly back to her, especially one during the carnival when she was

expecting a student who had promised to buy her out. She remembered how

she--wearing her low necked silk dress stained with wine, a red bow in

her untidy hair, wearied, weak, half tipsy, having seen her visitors

off, sat down during an interval in the dancing by the piano beside the

bony pianiste with the blotchy face, who played the accompaniments

to the violin, and began complaining of her hard fate; and how this

pianiste said that she, too, was feeling how heavy her position was and

would like to change it; and how Clara suddenly came up to them; and how

they all three decided to change their life. They thought that the night

was over, and were about to go away, when suddenly the noise of tipsy

voices was heard in the ante-room. The violinist played a tune and the

pianiste began hammering the first figure of a quadrille on the piano,

to the tune of a most merry Russian song. A small, perspiring man,

smelling of spirits, with a white tie and swallow-tail coat, which he

took off after the first figure, came up to her, hiccoughing, and

caught her up, while another fat man, with a beard, and also wearing a

dress-coat (they had come straight from a ball) caught Clara up, and for

a long time they turned, danced, screamed, drank. . . . And so it

went on for another year, and another, and a third. How could she help

changing? And he was the cause of it all. And, suddenly, all her former

bitterness against him reawoke; she wished to scold, to reproach him.

She regretted having neglected the opportunity of repeating to him once

more that she knew him, and would not give in to him--would not let him

make use of her spiritually as he had done physically.

And she longed for drink in order to stifle the feeling of pity to

herself and the useless feeling of reproach to him. And she would have

broken her word if she had been inside the prison. Here she could not

get any spirits except by applying to the medical assistant, and she was

afraid of him because he made up to her, and intimate relations with

men were disgusting to her now. After sitting a while on a form in the

passage she returned to her little room, and without paying any heed to

her companion’s words, she wept for a long time over her wrecked life.

CHAPTER XIV.

AN ARISTOCRATIC CIRCLE.

Nekhludoff had four matters to attend to in Petersburg. The first was

the appeal to the Senate in Maslova’s case; the second, to hand in

Theodosia Birukoff’s petition to the committee; the third, to comply

with Vera Doukhova’s requests--i.e., try to get her friend Shoustova

released from prison, and get permission for a mother to visit her son

in prison. Vera Doukhova had written to him about this, and he was

going to the Gendarmerie Office to attend to these two matters, which he

counted as one.

The fourth matter he meant to attend to was the case of some sectarians

who had been separated from their families and exiled to the Caucasus

because they read and discussed the Gospels. It was not so much to

them as to himself he had promised to do all he could to clear up this

affair.

Since his last visit to Maslennikoff, and especially since he had been

in the country, Nekhludoff had not exactly formed a resolution but felt

with his whole nature a loathing for that society in which he had lived

till then, that society which so carefully hides the sufferings of

millions in order to assure ease and pleasure to a small number of

people, that the people belonging to this society do not and cannot

see these sufferings, nor the cruelty and wickedness of their life.

Nekhludoff could no longer move in this society without feeling ill at

ease and reproaching himself. And yet all the ties of relationship and

friendship, and his own habits, were drawing him back into this society.

Besides, that which alone interested him now, his desire to help Maslova

and the other sufferers, made it necessary to ask for help and service

from persons belonging to that society, persons whom he not only could

not respect, but who often aroused in him indignation and a feeling of

contempt.

When he came to Petersburg and stopped at his aunt’s--his mother’s

sister, the Countess Tcharsky, wife of a former minister--Nekhludoff at

once found himself in the very midst of that aristocratic circle which

had grown so foreign to him. This was very unpleasant, but there was no

possibility of getting out of it. To put up at an hotel instead of at

his aunt’s house would have been to offend his aunt, and, besides, his

aunt had important connections and might be extremely useful in all

these matters he meant to attend to.

“What is this I hear about you? All sorts of marvels,” said the Countess

Katerina Ivanovna Tcharsky, as she gave him his coffee immediately after

his arrival. “_Vous posez pour un Howard_. Helping criminals, going the

round of prisons, setting things right.”

“Oh, no. I never thought of it.”

“Why not? It is a good thing, only there seems to be some romantic story

connected with it. Let us hear all about it.”

Nekhludoff told her the whole truth about his relations to Maslova.

“Yes, yes, I remember your poor mother telling me about it. That was

when you were staying with those old women. I believe they wished to

marry you to their ward (the Countess Katerina Ivanovna had always

despised Nekhludoff’s aunts on his father’s side). So it’s she. _Elle

est encore jolie?_”

Katerina Ivanovna was a strong, bright, energetic, talkative woman of

60. She was tall and very stout, and had a decided black moustache

on her lip. Nekhludoff was fond of her and had even as a child been

infected by her energy and mirth.

“No, ma tante, that’s at an end. I only wish to help her, because she is

innocently accused. I am the cause of it and the cause of her fate being

what it is. I feel it my duty to do all I can for her.”

“But what is this I have heard about your intention of marrying her?”

“Yes, it was my intention, but she does not wish it.”

Katerina Ivanovna looked at her nephew with raised brows and drooping

eyeballs, in silent amazement. Suddenly her face changed, and with a

look of pleasure she said: “Well, she is wiser than you. Dear me, you

are a fool. And you would have married her?”

“Most certainly.”

“After her having been what she was?”

“All the more, since I was the cause of it.”

“Well, you are a simpleton,” said his aunt, repressing a smile, “a

terrible simpleton; but it is just because you are such a terrible

simpleton that I love you.” She repeated the word, evidently liking it,

as it seemed to correctly convey to her mind the idea of her nephew’s

moral state. “Do you know--What a lucky chance. Aline has a wonderful

home--the Magdalene Home. I went there once. They are terribly

disgusting. After that I had to pray continually. But Aline is devoted

to it, body and soul, so we shall place her there--yours, I mean.”

“But she is condemned to Siberia. I have come on purpose to appeal about

it. This is one of my requests to you.”

“Dear me, and where do you appeal to in this case?”

“To the Senate.”

“Ah, the Senate! Yes, my dear Cousin Leo is in the Senate, but he is in

the heraldry department, and I don’t know any of the real ones. They are

all some kind of Germans--Gay, Fay, Day--tout l’alphabet, or else all

sorts of Ivanoffs, Simenoffs, Nikitines, or else Ivanenkos, Simonenkos,

Nikitenkos, pour varier. Des gens de l’autre monde. Well, it is all the

same. I’ll tell my husband, he knows them. He knows all sorts of people.

I’ll tell him, but you will have to explain, he never understands me.

Whatever I may say, he always maintains he does not understand it. C’est

un parti pris, every one understands but only not he.”

At this moment a footman with stockinged legs came in with a note on a

silver platter.

“There now, from Aline herself. You’ll have a chance of hearing

Kiesewetter.”

“Who is Kiesewetter?”

“Kiesewetter? Come this evening, and you will find out who he is. He

speaks in such a way that the most hardened criminals sink on their

knees and weep and repent.”

The Countess Katerina Ivanovna, however strange it may seem, and however

little it seemed in keeping with the rest of her character, was a

staunch adherent to that teaching which holds that the essence of

Christianity lies in the belief in redemption. She went to meetings

where this teaching, then in fashion, was being preached, and assembled

the “faithful” in her own house. Though this teaching repudiated all

ceremonies, icons, and sacraments, Katerina Ivanovna had icons in every

room, and one on the wall above her bed, and she kept all that the

Church prescribed without noticing any contradiction in that.

“There now; if your Magdalene could hear him she would be converted,”

said the Countess. “Do stay at home to-night; you will hear him. He is a

wonderful man.”

“It does not interest me, ma tante.”

“But I tell you that it is interesting, and you must come home. Now you

may go. What else do you want of me? _Videz votre sac_.”

“The next is in the fortress.”

“In the fortress? I can give you a note for that to the Baron

Kriegsmuth. _Cest un tres brave homme_. Oh, but you know him; he was a

comrade of your father’s. _Il donne dans le spiritisme_. But that does

not matter, he is a good fellow. What do you want there?”

“I want to get leave for a mother to visit her son who is imprisoned

there. But I was told that this did not depend on Kriegsmuth but on

Tcherviansky.”

“I do not like Tcherviansky, but he is Mariette’s husband; we might ask

her. She will do it for me. _Elle est tres gentille_.”

“I have also to petition for a woman who is imprisoned there without

knowing what for.”

“No fear; she knows well enough. They all know it very well, and it

serves them right, those short-haired [many advanced women wear their

hair short, like men] ones.”

“We do not know whether it serves them right or not. But they suffer.

You are a Christian and believe in the Gospel teaching and yet you are

so pitiless.”

“That has nothing to do with it. The Gospels are the Gospels, but what

is disgusting remains disgusting. It would be worse if I pretended to

love Nihilists, especially short-haired women Nihilists, when I cannot

bear them.”

“Why can you not bear them?”

“You ask why, after the 1st of March?” [The Emperor Alexander II was

killed on the first of March, old style.]

“They did not all take part in it on the 1st of March.”

“Never mind; they should not meddle with what is no business of theirs.

It’s not women’s business.”

“Yet you consider that Mariette may take part in business.”

“Mariette? Mariette is Mariette, and these are goodness knows what. Want

to teach everybody.”

“Not to teach but simply to help the people.”

“One knows whom to help and whom not to help without them.”

“But the peasants are in great need. I have just returned from the

country. Is it necessary, that the peasants should work to the very

limits of their strength and never have sufficient to eat while we are

living in the greatest luxury?” said Nekhludoff, involuntarily led on by

his aunt’s good nature into telling her what he was in his thoughts.

“What do you want, then? That I should work and not eat anything?”

“No, I do not wish you not to eat. I only wish that we should all work

and all eat.” He could not help smiling as he said it.

Again raising her brow and drooping her eyeballs his aunt looked at him

curiously. “_Mon cher vous finirez mal_,” she said.

Just then the general, and former minister, Countess Tcharsky’s husband,

a tall, broad-shouldered man, came into the room.

“Ah, Dmitri, how d’you do?” he said, turning his freshly-shaved cheek to

Nekhludoff to be kissed. “When did you get here?” And he silently kissed

his wife on the forehead.

“_Non il est impayable_,” the Countess said, turning to her husband.

“He wants me to go and wash clothes and live on potatoes. He is an awful

fool, but all the same do what he is going to ask of you. A terrible

simpleton,” she added. “Have you heard? Kamenskaya is in such despair

that they fear for her life,” she said to her husband. “You should go

and call there.”

“Yes; it is dreadful,” said her husband.

“Go along, then, and talk to him. I must write some letters.”

Hardly had Nekhludoff stepped into the room next the drawing-room than

she called him back.

“Shall I write to Mariette, then?”

“Please, ma tante.”

“I shall leave a blank for what you want to say about the short-haired

one, and she will give her husband his orders, and he’ll do it. Do not

think me wicked; they are all so disgusting, your prologues, but _je

ne leur veux pas de mal_, bother them. Well, go, but be sure to stay at

home this evening to hear Kiesewetter, and we shall have some prayers.

And if only you do not resist _cela vous fera beaucoup de bien_. I

know your poor mother and all of you were always very backward in these

things.”

CHAPTER XV.

AN AVERAGE STATESMAN.

Count Ivan Michaelovitch had been a minister, and was a man of strong

convictions. The convictions of Count Ivan Michaelovitch consisted in

the belief that, just as it was natural for a bird to feed on worms,

to be clothed in feathers and down, and to fly in the air, so it

was natural for him to feed on the choicest and most expensive food,

prepared by highly-paid cooks, to wear the most comfortable and most

expensive clothing, to drive with the best and fastest horses, and that,

therefore, all these things should be ready found for him. Besides this,

Count Ivan Michaelovitch considered that the more money he could get out

of the treasury by all sorts of means, the more orders he had, including

different diamond insignia of something or other, and the oftener he

spoke to highly-placed individuals of both sexes, so much the better it

was.

All the rest Count Ivan Michaelovitch considered insignificant and

uninteresting beside these dogmas. All the rest might be as it was, or

just the reverse. Count Ivan Michaelovitch lived and acted according

to these lights for 40 years, and at the end of 40 years reached the

position of a Minister of State. The chief qualities that enabled

Count Ivan Michaelovitch to reach this position were his capacity of

understanding the meaning of documents and laws and of drawing up,

though clumsily, intelligible State papers, and of spelling them

correctly; secondly, his very stately appearance, which enabled him,

when necessary, to seem not only extremely proud, but unapproachable

and majestic, while at other times he could be abjectly and almost

passionately servile; thirdly, the absence of any general principles

or rules, either of personal or administrative morality, which made it

possible for him either to agree or disagree with anybody according to

what was wanted at the time. When acting thus his only endeavour was

to sustain the appearance of good breeding and not to seem too plainly

inconsistent. As for his actions being moral or not, in themselves, or

whether they were going to result in the highest welfare or greatest

evil for the whole of the Russian Empire, or even the entire world, that

was quite indifferent to him. When he became minister, not only

those dependent on him (and there were great many of them) and people

connected with him, but many strangers and even he himself were

convinced that he was a very clever statesman. But after some time had

elapsed and he had done nothing and had nothing to show, and when in

accordance with the law of the struggle for existence others, like

himself, who had learnt to write and understand documents, stately and

unprincipled officials, had displaced him, he turned out to be not

only far from clever but very limited and badly educated. Though

self-assured, his views hardly reaching the level of those in the

leading articles of the Conservative papers, it became apparent

that there was nothing in him to distinguish him from those other

badly-educated and self-assured officials who had pushed him out, and

he himself saw it. But this did not shake his conviction that he had to

receive a great deal of money out of the Treasury every year, and new

decorations for his dress clothes. This conviction was so firm that no

one had the pluck to refuse these things to him, and he received yearly,

partly in form of a pension, partly as a salary for being a member in

a Government institution and chairman of all sorts of committees

and councils, several tens of thousands of roubles, besides the

right--highly prized by him--of sewing all sorts of new cords to his

shoulders and trousers, and ribbons to wear under and enamel stars

to fix on to his dress coat. In consequence of this Count Ivan

Michaelovitch had very high connections.

Count Ivan Michaelovitch listened to Nekhludoff as he was wont to listen

to the reports of the permanent secretary of his department, and, having

heard him, said he would give him two notes, one to the Senator Wolff,

of the Appeal Department. “All sorts of things are reported of him, but

dans tous les cas c’est un homme tres comme ii faut,” he said. “He is

indebted to me, and will do all that is possible.” The other note Count

Ivan Michaelovitch gave Nekhludoff was to an influential member of

the Petition Committee. The story of Theodosia Birukoff as told by

Nekhludoff interested him very much. When Nekhludoff said that he

thought of writing to the Empress, the Count replied that it certainly

was a very touching story, and might, if occasion presented itself, he

told her, but he could not promise. Let the petition be handed in in due

form.

Should there be an opportunity, and if a petit comite were called on

Thursday, he thought he would tell her the story. As soon as Nekhludoff

had received these two notes, and a note to Mariette from his aunt, he

at once set off to these different places.

First he went to Mariette’s. He had known her as a half-grown girl, the

daughter of an aristocratic but not wealthy family, and had heard how

she had married a man who was making a career, whom Nekhludoff had heard

badly spoken of; and, as usual, he felt it hard to ask a favour of a man

he did not esteem. In these cases he always felt an inner dissension

and dissatisfaction, and wavered whether to ask the favour or not, and

always resolved to ask. Besides feeling himself in a false position

among those to whose set he no longer regarded himself as belonging, who

yet regarded him as belonging to them, he felt himself getting into the

old accustomed rut, and in spite of himself fell into the thoughtless

and immoral tone that reigned in that circle. He felt that from the

first, with his aunt, he involuntarily fell into a bantering tone while

talking about serious matters.

Petersburg in general affected him with its usual physically

invigorating and mentally dulling effect.

Everything so clean, so comfortably well-arranged and the people so

lenient in moral matters, that life seemed very easy.

A fine, clean, and polite isvostchik drove him past fine, clean, polite

policemen, along the fine, clean, watered streets, past fine, clean

houses to the house in which Mariette lived. At the front door stood

a pair of English horses, with English harness, and an English-looking

coachman on the box, with the lower part of his face shaved, proudly

holding a whip. The doorkeeper, dressed in a wonderfully clean livery,

opened the door into the hall, where in still cleaner livery with gold

cords stood the footman with his splendid whiskers well combed out,

and the orderly on duty in a brand-new uniform. “The general does not

receive, and the generaless does not receive either. She is just going

to drive out.”

Nekhludoff took out Katerina Ivanovna’s letter, and going up to a table

on which lay a visitors’ book, began to write that he was sorry not to

have been able to see any one; when the footman went up the staircase

the doorkeeper went out and shouted to the coachman, and the orderly

stood up rigid with his arms at his sides following with his eyes a

little, slight lady, who was coming down the stairs with rapid steps not

in keeping with all the grandeur.

Mariette had a large hat on, with feathers, a black dress and cape, and

new black gloves. Her face was covered by a veil.

When she saw Nekhludoff she lifted the veil off a very pretty face with

bright eyes that looked inquiringly at him.

“Ah, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff,” she said, with a soft,

pleasant voice. “I should have known--”

“What! you even remember my name?”

“I should think so. Why, I and my sisters have even been in love with

you,” she said, in French. “But, dear me, how you have altered. Oh, what

a pity I have to go out. But let us go up again,” she said and stopped

hesitatingly. Then she looked at the clock. “No, I can’t. I am going to

Kamenskaya’s to attend a mass for the dead. She is terribly afflicted.”

“Who is this Kamenskaya?”

“Have you not heard? Her son was killed in a duel. He fought Posen. He

was the only son. Terrible I The mother is very much afflicted.”

“Yes. I have heard of it.”

“No, I had better go, and you must come again, to-night or to-morrow,”

she said, and went to the door with quick, light steps.

“I cannot come to-night,” he said, going out after her; “but I have

a request to make you,” and he looked at the pair of bays that were

drawing up to the front door.

“What is this?”

“This is a letter from aunt to you,” said Nekhludoff, handing her

a narrow envelope, with a large crest. “You’ll find all about it in

there.”

“I know Countess Katerina Ivanovna thinks I have some influence with my

husband in business matters. She is mistaken. I can do nothing and do

not like to interfere. But, of course, for you I am willing to be false

to my principle. What is this business about?” she said, searching in

vain for her pocket with her little black gloved hand.

“There is a girl imprisoned in the fortress, and she is ill and

innocent.”

“What is her name?”

“Lydia Shoustova. It’s in the note.”

“All right; I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and lightly jumped into

her little, softly upholstered, open carriage, its brightly-varnished

splash-guards glistening in the sunshine, and opened her parasol. The

footman got on the box and gave the coachman a sign. The carriage moved,

but at that moment she touched the coachman with her parasol and the

slim-legged beauties, the bay mares, stopped, bending their beautiful

necks and stepping from foot to foot.

“But you must come, only, please, without interested motives,” and she

looked at him with a smile, the force of which she well knew, and, as if

the performance over and she were drawing the curtain, she dropped

the veil over her face again. “All right,” and she again touched the

coachman.

Nekhludoff raised his hat, and the well-bred bays, slightly snorting,

set off, their shoes clattering on the pavement, and the carriage rolled

quickly and smoothly on its new rubber tyres, giving a jump only now and

then over some unevenness of the road.

CHAPTER XVI.

AN UP-TO-DATE SENATOR.

When Nekhludoff remembered the smiles that had passed between him and

Mariette, he shook his head.

“You have hardly time to turn round before you are again drawn into

this life,” he thought, feeling that discord and those doubts which the

necessity to curry favour from people he did not esteem caused.

After considering where to go first, so as not to have to retrace his

steps, Nekhludoff set off for the Senate. There he was shown into the

office where he found a great many very polite and very clean officials

in the midst of a magnificent apartment. Maslova’s petition was received

and handed on to that Wolf, to whom Nekhludoff had a letter from his

uncle, to be examined and reported on.

“There will be a meeting of the Senate this week,” the official said to

Nekhludoff, “but Maslova’s case will hardly come before that meeting.”

“It might come before the meeting on Wednesday, by special request,” one

of the officials remarked.

During the time Nekhludoff waited in the office, while some information

was being taken, he heard that the conversation in the Senate was all

about the duel, and he heard a detailed account of how a young man,

Kaminski, had been killed. It was here he first heard all the facts of

the case which was exciting the interest of all Petersburg. The story

was this: Some officers were eating oysters and, as usual, drinking very

much, when one of them said something ill-natured about the regiment to

which Kaminski belonged, and Kaminski called him a liar. The other hit

Kaminski. The next day they fought. Kaminski was wounded in the stomach

and died two hours later. The murderer and the seconds were arrested,

but it was said that though they were arrested and in the guardhouse

they would be set free in a fortnight.

From the Senate Nekhludoff drove to see an influential member of the

petition Committee, Baron Vorobioff, who lived in a splendid house

belonging to the Crown. The doorkeeper told Nekhludoff in a severe tone

that the Baron could not be seen except on his reception days; that he

was with His Majesty the Emperor to-day, and the next day he would again

have to deliver a report. Nekhludoff left his uncle’s letter with the

doorkeeper and went on to see the Senator Wolf. Wolf had just had his

lunch, and was as usual helping digestion by smoking a cigar and pacing

up and down the room, when Nekhludoff came in. Vladimir Vasilievitch

Wolf was certainly _un homme tres comme il faut_, and prized this

quality very highly, and from that elevation he looked down at everybody

else. He could not but esteem this quality of his very highly, because

it was thanks to it alone that he had made a brilliant career, the very

career he desired, i.e., by marriage he obtained a fortune which brought

him in 18,000 roubles a year, and by his own exertions the post of a

senator. He considered himself not only _un homme tres comme il faut_,

but also a man of knightly honour. By honour he understood not accepting

secret bribes from private persons. But he did not consider it dishonest

to beg money for payment of fares and all sorts of travelling expenses

from the Crown, and to do anything the Government might require of him

in return. To ruin hundreds of innocent people, to cause them to be

imprisoned, to be exiled because of their love for their people and the

religion of their fathers, as he had done in one of the governments of

Poland when he was governor there. He did not consider it dishonourable,

but even thought it a noble, manly and patriotic action. Nor did he

consider it dishonest to rob his wife and sister-in-law, as he had

done, but thought it a wise way of arranging his family life. His family

consisted of his commonplace wife, his sister-in-law, whose fortune

he had appropriated by selling her estate and putting the money to his

account, and his meek, frightened, plain daughter, who lived a lonely,

weary life, from which she had lately begun to look for relaxation in

evangelicism, attending meetings at Aline’s, and the Countess Katerina

Ivanovna. Wolf’s son, who had grown a beard at the age of 15, and had at

that age begun to drink and lead a depraved life, which he continued to

do till the age of 20, when he was turned out by his father because

he never finished his studies, moved in a low set and made debts which

committed the father. The father had once paid a debt of 250 roubles for

his son, then another of 600 roubles, but warned the son that he did it

for the last time, and that if the son did not reform he would be turned

out of the house and all further intercourse between him and his family

would he put a stop to. The son did not reform, but made a debt of a

thousand roubles, and took the liberty of telling his father that life

at home was a torment anyhow. Then Wolf declared to his son that he

might go where he pleased--that he was no son of his any longer. Since

then Wolf pretended he had no son, and no one at home dared speak to him

about his son, and Vladimir Vasilievitch Wolf was firmly convinced that

he had arranged his family life in the best way. Wolf stopped pacing

up and down his study, and greeted Nekhludoff with a friendly though

slightly ironical smile. This was his way of showing how comme il faut

he was, and how superior to the majority of men. He read the note which

Nekhludoff handed to him.

“Please take a seat, and excuse me if I continue to walk up and down,

with your permission,” he said, putting his hands into his coat pockets,

and began again to walk with light, soft steps across his large, quietly

and stylishly furnished study. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance

and of course very glad to do anything that Count Ivan Michaelovitch

wishes,” he said, blowing the fragrant blue smoke out of his mouth and

removing his cigar carefully so as not to drop the ash.

“I should only like to ask that the case might come on soon, so that

if the prisoner has to go to Siberia she might set off early,” said

Nekhludoff.

“Yes, yes, with one of the first steamers from Nijni. I know,” said

Wolf, with his patronising smile, always knowing in advance whatever one

wanted to tell him.

“What is the prisoner’s name?”

“Maslova.”

Wolf went up to the table and looked at a paper that lay on a piece of

cardboard among other business papers.

“Yes, yes. Maslova. All right, I will ask the others. We shall hear the

case on Wednesday.”

“Then may I telegraph to the advocate?”

“The advocate! What’s that for? But if you like, why not?”

“The causes for appeal may be insufficient,” said Nekhludoff, “but

I think the case will show that the sentence was passed owing to a

misunderstanding.”

“Yes, yes; it may be so, but the Senate cannot decide the case on its

merits,” said Wolf, looking seriously at the ash of his cigar. “The

Senate only considers the exactness of the application of the laws and

their right interpretation.”

“But this seems to me to be an exceptional case.”

“I know, I know! All cases are exceptional. We shall do our duty. That’s

all.” The ash was still holding on, but had began breaking, and was in

danger of falling.

“Do you often come to Petersburg?” said Wolf, holding his cigar so that

the ash should not fall. But the ash began to shake, and Wolf carefully

carried it to the ashpan, into which it fell.

“What a terrible thing this is with regard to Kaminski,” he said. “A

splendid young man. The only son. Especially the mother’s position,” he

went on, repeating almost word for word what every one in Petersburg

was at that time saying about Kaminski. Wolf spoke a little about the

Countess Katerina Ivanovna and her enthusiasm for the new religious

teaching, which he neither approved nor disapproved of, but which was

evidently needless to him who was so comme il faut, and then rang the

bell.

Nekhludoff bowed.

“If it is convenient, come and dine on Wednesday, and I will give you a

decisive answer,” said Wolf, extending his hand.

It was late, and Nekhludoff returned to his aunt’s.

CHAPTER XVII.

COUNTESS KATERINA IVANOVNA’S DINNER PARTY.

Countess Katerina Ivanovna’s dinner hour was half-past seven, and the

dinner was served in a new manner that Nekhludoff had not yet seen

anywhere. After they had placed the dishes on the table the waiters left

the room and the diners helped themselves. The men would not let the

ladies take the trouble of moving, and, as befitted the stronger sex,

they manfully took on themselves the burden of putting the food on

the ladies’ plates and of filling their glasses. When one course was

finished, the Countess pressed the button of an electric bell fitted

to the table and the waiters stepped in noiselessly and quickly carried

away the dishes, changed the plates, and brought in the next course.

The dinner was very refined, the wines very costly. A French chef was

working in the large, light kitchens, with two white-clad assistants.

There were six persons at dinner, the Count and Countess, their son

(a surly officer in the Guards who sat with his elbows on the table),

Nekhludoff, a French lady reader, and the Count’s chief steward, who

had come up from the country. Here, too, the conversation was about the

duel, and opinions were given as to how the Emperor regarded the case.

It was known that the Emperor was very much grieved for the mother’s

sake, and all were grieved for her, and as it was also known that the

Emperor did not mean to be very severe to the murderer, who defended

the honour of his uniform, all were also lenient to the officer who had

defended the honour of his uniform. Only the Countess Katerina Ivanovna,

with her free thoughtlessness, expressed her disapproval.

“They get drunk, and kill unobjectionable young men. I should not

forgive them on any account,” she said.

“Now, that’s a thing I cannot understand,” said the Count.

“I know that you never can understand what I say,” the Countess began,

and turning to Nekhludoff, she added:

“Everybody understands except my husband. I say I am sorry for the

mother, and I do not wish him to be contented, having killed a man.”

Then her son, who had been silent up to then, took the murderer’s part,

and rudely attacked his mother, arguing that an officer could not behave

in any other way, because his fellow-officers would condemn him and turn

him out of the regiment. Nekhludoff listened to the conversation without

joining in. Having been an officer himself, he understood, though he

did not agree with, young Tcharsky’s arguments, and at the same time

he could not help contrasting the fate of the officer with that of a

beautiful young convict whom he had seen in the prison, and who was

condemned to the mines for having killed another in a fight. Both had

turned murderers through drunkenness. The peasant had killed a man in

a moment of irritation, and he was parted from his wife and family, had

chains on his legs, and his head shaved, and was going to hard labour in

Siberia, while the officer was sitting in a fine room in the guardhouse,

eating a good dinner, drinking good wine, and reading books, and would

be set free in a day or two to live as he had done before, having only

become more interesting by the affair. Nekhludoff said what he had been

thinking, and at first his aunt, Katerina Ivanovna, seemed to agree with

him, but at last she became silent as the rest had done, and Nekhludoff

felt that he had committed something akin to an impropriety. In the

evening, soon after dinner, the large hall, with high-backed carved

chairs arranged in rows as for a meeting, and an armchair next to a

little table, with a bottle of water for the speaker, began to fill

with people come to hear the foreigner, Kiesewetter, preach. Elegant

equipages stopped at the front entrance. In the hall sat richly-dressed

ladies in silks and velvets and lace, with false hair and false busts

and drawn-in waists, and among them men in uniform and evening dress,

and about five persons of the common class, i.e., two men-servants, a

shop-keeper, a footman, and a coachman. Kiesewetter, a thick-set, grisly

man, spoke English, and a thin young girl, with a pince-nez, translated

it into Russian promptly and well. He was saying that our sins were so

great, the punishment for them so great and so unavoidable, that it was

impossible to live anticipating such punishment. “Beloved brothers and

sisters, let us for a moment consider what we are doing, how we are

living, how we have offended against the all-loving Lord, and how

we make Christ suffer, and we cannot but understand that there is no

forgiveness possible for us, no escape possible, that we are all doomed

to perish. A terrible fate awaits us---everlasting torment,” he said,

with tears in his trembling voice. “Oh, how can we be saved, brothers?

How can we be saved from this terrible, unquenchable fire? The house is

in flames; there is no escape.”

He was silent for a while, and real tears flowed down his cheeks. It

was for about eight years that each time when he got to this part of his

speech, which he himself liked so well, he felt a choking in his throat

and an irritation in his nose, and the tears came in his eyes, and these

tears touched him still more. Sobs were heard in the room. The Countess

Katerina Ivanovna sat with her elbows on an inlaid table, leaning her

head on her hands, and her shoulders were shaking. The coachman looked

with fear and surprise at the foreigner, feeling as if he was about to

run him down with the pole of his carriage and the foreigner would

not move out of his way. All sat in positions similar to that Katerina

Ivanovna had assumed. Wolf’s daughter, a thin, fashionably-dressed girl,

very like her father, knelt with her face in her hands.

The orator suddenly uncovered his face, and smiled a very real-looking

smile, such as actors express joy with, and began again with a sweet,

gentle voice:

“Yet there is a way to be saved. Here it is--a joyful, easy way. The

salvation is the blood shed for us by the only son of God, who gave

himself up to torments for our sake. His sufferings, His blood, will

save us. Brothers and sisters,” he said, again with tears in his voice,

“let us praise the Lord, who has given His only begotten son for the

redemption of mankind. His holy blood . . .”

Nekhludoff felt so deeply disgusted that he rose silently, and frowning

and keeping back a groan of shame, he left on tiptoe, and went to his

room.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OFFICIALDOM.

Hardly had Nekhludoff finished dressing the next morning, just as he

was about to go down, the footman brought him a card from the Moscow

advocate. The advocate had come to St. Petersburg on business of his

own, and was going to be present when Maslova’s case was examined in the

Senate, if that would be soon. The telegram sent by Nekhludoff crossed

him on the way. Having found out from Nekhludoff when the case was going

to be heard, and which senators were to be present, he smiled. “Exactly,

all the three types of senators,” he said. “Wolf is a Petersburg

official; Skovorodnikoff is a theoretical, and Bay a practical lawyer,

and therefore the most alive of them all,” said the advocate. “There is

most hope of him. Well, and how about the Petition Committee?”

“Oh, I’m going to Baron Vorobioff to-day. I could not get an audience

with him yesterday.”

“Do you know why he is _Baron_ Vorobioff?” said the advocate, noticing

the slightly ironical stress that Nekhludoff put on this foreign title,

followed by so very Russian a surname.

“That was because the Emperor Paul rewarded the grandfather--I think he

was one of the Court footmen--by giving him this title. He managed to

please him in some way, so he made him a baron. ‘It’s my wish, so don’t

gainsay me!’ And so there’s a _Baron_ Vorobioff, and very proud of the

title. He is a dreadful old humbug.”

“Well, I’m going to see him,” said Nekhludoff.

“That’s good; we can go together. I shall give you a lift.”

As they were going to start, a footman met Nekhludoff in the ante-room,

and handed him a note from Mariette:

_Pour vous faire plaisir, f’ai agi tout a fait contre mes principes et

j’ai intercede aupres de mon mari pour votre protegee. Il se trouve

que cette personne pout etre relaxee immediatement. Mon mari a ecrit au

commandant. Venez donc disinterestedly. Je vous attends._

_M._

“Just fancy!” said Nekhludoff to the advocate. “Is this not dreadful?

A woman whom they are keeping in solitary confinement for seven months

turns out to be quite innocent, and only a word was needed to get her

released.”

“That’s always so. Well, anyhow, you have succeeded in getting what you

wanted.”

“Yes, but this success grieves me. Just think what must be going on

there. Why have they been keeping her?”

“Oh, it’s best not to look too deeply into it. Well, then, I shall give

you a lift, if I may,” said the advocate, as they left the house, and

a fine carriage that the advocate had hired drove up to the door. “It’s

Baron Vorobioff you are going to see?”

The advocate gave the driver his directions, and the two good horses

quickly brought Nekhludoff to the house in which the Baron lived. The

Baron was at home. A young official in uniform, with a long, thin neck,

a much protruding Adam’s apple, and an extremely light walk, and two

ladies were in the first room.

“Your name, please?” the young man with the Adam’s apple asked, stepping

with extreme lightness and grace across from the ladies to Nekhludoff.

Nekhludoff gave his name.

“The Baron was just mentioning you,” said the young man, the Baron’s

adjutant, and went out through an inner door. He returned, leading a

weeping lady dressed in mourning. With her bony fingers the lady was

trying to pull her tangled veil over her face in order to hide her

tears.

“Come in, please,” said the young man to Nekhludoff, lightly stepping up

to the door of the study and holding it open. When Nekhludoff came in,

he saw before him a thick-set man of medium height, with short hair,

in a frock coat, who was sitting in an armchair opposite a large

writing-table, and looking gaily in front of himself. The kindly, rosy

red face, striking by its contrast with the white hair, moustaches, and

beard, turned towards Nekhludoff with a friendly smile.

“Very glad to see you. Your mother and I were old acquaintances and

friends. I have seen you as a boy, and later on as an officer. Sit

down and tell me what I can do for you. Yes, yes,” he said, shaking his

cropped white head, while Nekhludoff was telling him Theodosia’s story.

“Go on, go on. I quite understand. It is certainly very touching. And

have you handed in the petition?”

“I have got the petition ready,” Nekhludoff said, getting it out of his

pocket; “but I thought of speaking to you first in hopes that the case

would then get special attention paid to it.”

“You have done very well. I shall certainly report it myself,” said the

Baron, unsuccessfully trying to put an expression of pity on his merry

face. “Very touching! It is clear she was but a child; the husband

treated her roughly, this repelled her, but as time went on they fell in

love with each other. Yes I will report the case.”

“Count Ivan Michaelovitch was also going to speak about it.”

Nekhludoff had hardly got these words out when the Baron’s face changed.

“You had better hand in the petition into the office, after all, and I

shall do what I can,” he said.

At this moment the young official again entered the room, evidently

showing off his elegant manner of walking.

“That lady is asking if she may say a few words more.”

“Well, ask her in. Ah, mon cher, how many tears we have to see shed! If

only we could dry them all. One does all that lies within one’s power.”

The lady entered.

“I forgot to ask you that he should not be allowed to give up the

daughter, because he is ready . . .”

“But I have already told you that I should do all I can.”

“Baron, for the love of God! You will save the mother?”

She seized his hand, and began kissing it.

“Everything shall be done.”

When the lady went out Nekhludoff also began to take leave.

“We shall do what we can. I shall speak about it at the Ministry of

Justice, and when we get their answer we shall do what we can.”

Nekhludoff left the study, and went into the office again. Just as in

the Senate office, he saw, in a splendid apartment, a number of very

elegant officials, clean, polite, severely correct and distinguished in

dress and in speech.

“How many there are of them; how very many and how well fed they all

look! And what clean shirts and hands they all have, and how well all

their boots are polished! Who does it for them? How comfortable they

all are, as compared not only with the prisoners, but even with the

peasants!” These thoughts again involuntarily came to Nekhludoff’s mind.

CHAPTER XIX.

AN OLD GENERAL OF REPUTE.

The man on whom depended the easing of the fate of the Petersburg

prisoners was an old General of repute--a baron of German descent,

who, as it was said of him, had outlived his wits. He had received a

profusion of orders, but only wore one of them, the Order of the White

Cross. He had received this order, which he greatly valued, while

serving in the Caucasus, because a number of Russian peasants, with

their hair cropped, and dressed in uniform and armed with guns and

bayonets, had killed at his command more than a thousand men who were

defending their liberty, their homes, and their families. Later on

he served in Poland, and there also made Russian peasants commit many

different crimes, and got more orders and decorations for his uniform.

Then he served somewhere else, and now that he was a weak, old man

he had this position, which insured him a good house, an income and

respect. He strictly observed all the regulations which were prescribed

“from above,” and was very zealous in the fulfilment of these

regulations, to which he ascribed a special importance, considering that

everything else in the world might be changed except the regulations

prescribed “from above.” His duty was to keep political prisoners,

men and women, in solitary confinement in such a way that half of them

perished in 10 years’ time, some going out of their minds, some dying

of consumption, some committing suicide by starving themselves to death,

cutting their veins with bits of glass, hanging, or burning themselves

to death.

The old General was not ignorant of this; it all happened within his

knowledge; but these cases no more touched his conscience than accidents

brought on by thunderstorms, floods, etc. These cases occurred as a

consequence of the fulfilment of regulations prescribed “from above” by

His Imperial Majesty. These regulations had to be carried out

without fail, and therefore it was absolutely useless to think of the

consequences of their fulfilment. The old General did not even allow

himself to think of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a

soldier not to think of them for fear of getting weak in the carrying

out of these, according to his opinion, very important obligations. Once

a week the old General made the round of the cells, one of the duties of

his position, and asked the prisoners if they had any requests to make.

The prisoners had all sorts of requests. He listened to them quietly, in

impenetrable silence, and never fulfilled any of their requests, because

they were all in disaccord with the regulations. Just as Nekhludoff

drove up to the old General’s house, the high notes of the bells on the

belfry clock chimed “Great is the Lord,” and then struck two. The sound

of these chimes brought back to Nekhludoff’s mind what he had read

in the notes of the Decembrists [the Decembrists were a group who

attempted, but failed, to put an end to absolutism in Russia at the time

of the accession of Nicholas the First] about the way this sweet music

repeated every hour re-echoes in the hearts of those imprisoned for

life.

Meanwhile the old General was sitting in his darkened drawing-room at

an inlaid table, turning a saucer on a piece of paper with the aid of

a young artist, the brother of one of his subordinates. The thin,

weak, moist fingers of the artist were pressed against the wrinkled and

stiff-jointed fingers of the old General, and the hands joined in this

manner were moving together with the saucer over a paper that had all

the letters of the alphabet written on it. The saucer was answering the

questions put by the General as to how souls will recognise each other

after death.

When Nekhludoff sent in his card by an orderly acting as footman, the

soul of Joan of Arc was speaking by the aid of the saucer. The soul of

Joan of Arc had already spelt letter by letter the words: “They well

knew each other,” and these words had been written down. When the

orderly came in the saucer had stopped first on b, then on y, and began

jerking hither and thither. This jerking was caused by the General’s

opinion that the next letter should be b, i.e., Joan of Arc ought to

say that the souls will know each other by being cleansed of all that

is earthly, or something of the kind, clashing with the opinion of the

artist, who thought the next letter should be l, i.e., that the souls

should know each other by light emanating from their astral bodies. The

General, with his bushy grey eyebrows gravely contracted, sat gazing at

the hands on the saucer, and, imagining that it was moving of its own

accord, kept pulling the saucer towards b. The pale-faced young artist,

with his thin hair combed back behind his cars, was looking with his

lifeless blue eyes into a dark corner of the drawing-room, nervously

moving his lips and pulling the saucer towards l.

The General made a wry face at the interruption, but after a moment’s

pause he took the card, put on his pince-nez, and, uttering a groan,

rose, in spite of the pain in his back, to his full height, rubbing his

numb fingers.

“Ask him into the study.”

“With your excellency’s permission I will finish it alone,” said the

artist, rising. “I feel the presence.”

“All right, finish alone,” the General said, severely and decidedly, and

stepped quickly, with big, firm and measured strides, into his study.

“Very pleased to see you,” said the General to Nekhludoff, uttering the

friendly words in a gruff tone, and pointing to an armchair by the side

of the writing-table. “Have you been in Petersburg long?”

Nekhludoff replied that he had only lately arrived.

“Is the Princess, your mother, well?”

“My mother is dead.”

“Forgive me; I am very sorry. My son told me he had met you.”

The General’s son was making the same kind of career for himself that

the father had done, and, having passed the Military Academy, was now

serving in the Inquiry Office, and was very proud of his duties there.

His occupation was the management of Government spies.

“Why, I served with your father. We were friends--comrades. And you; are

you also in the Service?”

“No, I am not.”

The General bent his head disapprovingly.

“I have a request to make, General.”

“Very pleased. In what way can I be of service to you?”

“If my request is out of place pray pardon me. But I am obliged to make

it.”

“What is it?”

“There is a certain Gourkevitch imprisoned in the fortress; his mother

asks for an interview with him, or at least to be allowed to send him

some books.”

The General expressed neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction at

Nekhludoff’s request, but bending his head on one side he closed his

eyes as if considering. In reality he was not considering anything, and

was not even interested in Nekhludoff’s questions, well knowing that he

would answer them according to the law. He was simply resting mentally

and not thinking at all.

“You see,” he said at last, “this does not depend on me. There is a

regulation, confirmed by His Majesty, concerning interviews; and as to

books, we have a library, and they may have what is permitted.”

“Yes, but he wants scientific books; he wishes to study.”

“Don’t you believe it,” growled the General. “It’s not study he wants;

it is just only restlessness.”

“But what is to be done? They must occupy their time somehow in their

hard condition,” said Nekhludoff.

“They are always complaining,” said the General. “We know them.”

He spoke of them in a general way, as if they were all a specially bad

race of men. “They have conveniences here which can be found in few

places of confinement,” said the General, and he began to enumerate the

comforts the prisoners enjoyed, as if the aim of the institution was to

give the people imprisoned there a comfortable home.

“It is true it used to be rather rough, but now they are very well kept

here,” he continued. “They have three courses for dinner--and one of

them meat--cutlets, or rissoles; and on Sundays they get a fourth--a

sweet dish. God grant every Russian may eat as well as they do.”

Like all old people, the General, having once got on to a familiar

topic, enumerated the various proofs he had often given before of the

prisoners being exacting and ungrateful.

“They get books on spiritual subjects and old journals. We have a

library. Only they rarely read. At first they seem interested, later on

the new books remain uncut, and the old ones with their leaves unturned.

We tried them,” said the old General, with the dim likeness of a smile.

“We put bits of paper in on purpose, which remained just as they had

been placed. Writing is also not forbidden,” he continued. “A slate is

provided, and a slate pencil, so that they can write as a pastime. They

can wipe the slate and write again. But they don’t write, either. Oh,

they very soon get quite tranquil. At first they seem restless, but

later on they even grow fat and become very quiet.” Thus spoke the

General, never suspecting the terrible meaning of his words.

Nekhludoff listened to the hoarse old voice, looked at the stiff limbs,

the swollen eyelids under the grey brows, at the old, clean-shaved,

flabby jaw, supported by the collar of the military uniform, at the

white cross that this man was so proud of, chiefly because he had gained

it by exceptionally cruel and extensive slaughter, and knew that it was

useless to reply to the old man or to explain the meaning of his own

words to him.

He made another effort, and asked about the prisoner Shoustova, for

whose release, as he had been informed that morning, orders were given.

“Shoustova--Shoustova? I cannot remember all their names, there are so

many of them,” he said, as if reproaching them because there were so

many. He rang, and ordered the secretary to be called. While waiting for

the latter, he began persuading Nekhludoff to serve, saying that “honest

noblemen,” counting himself among the number, “were particularly needed

by the Tsar and--the country,” he added, evidently only to round off

his sentence. “I am old, yet I am serving still, as well as my strength

allows.”

The secretary, a dry, emaciated man, with restless, intelligent eyes,

came in and reported that Shoustova was imprisoned in some queer,

fortified place, and that he had received no orders concerning her.

“When we get the order we shall let her out the same day. We do not keep

them; we do not value their visits much,” said the General, with another

attempt at a playful smile, which only distorted his old face.

Nekhludoff rose, trying to keep from expressing the mixed feelings of

repugnance and pity which he felt towards this terrible old man. The

old man on his part considered that he should not be too severe on the

thoughtless and evidently misguided son of his old comrade, and should

not leave him without advice.

“Good-bye, my dear fellow; do not take it amiss. It is my affection that

makes me say it. Do not keep company with such people as we have at our

place here. There are no innocent ones among them. All these people

are most immoral. We know them,” he said, in a tone that admitted no

possibility of doubt. And he did not doubt, not because the thing was

so, but because if it was not so, he would have to admit himself to

be not a noble hero living out the last days of a good life, but a

scoundrel, who sold, and still continued in his old age to sell, his

conscience.

“Best of all, go and serve,” he continued; “the Tsar needs honest

men--and the country,” he added. “Well, supposing I and the others

refused to serve, as you are doing? Who would be left? Here we are,

finding fault with the order of things, and yet not wishing to help the

Government.”

With a deep sigh Nekhludoff made a low bow, shook the large, bony hand

condescendingly stretched out to him and left the room.

The General shook his head reprovingly, and rubbing his back, he again

went into the drawing-room where the artist was waiting for him. He had

already written down the answer given by the soul of Joan of Arc. The

General put on his pince-nez and read, “Will know one another by light

emanating from their astral bodies.”

“Ah,” said the General, with approval, and closed his eyes. “But how is

one to know if the light of all is alike?” he asked, and again crossed

fingers with the artist on the saucer.

The isvostchik drove Nekhludoff out of the gate.

It is dull here, sir, he said, turning to Nekhludoff. “I almost wished

to drive off without waiting for you.”

Nekhludoff agreed. “Yes, it is dull,” and he took a deep breath, and

looked up with a sense of relief at the grey clouds that were floating

in the sky, and at the glistening ripples made by the boats and steamers

on the Neva.

CHAPTER XX.

MASLOVA’S APPEAL.

The next day Maslova’s case was to be examined at the Senate, and

Nekhludoff and the advocate met at the majestic portal of the building,

where several carriages were waiting. Ascending the magnificent and

imposing staircase to the first floor, the advocate, who knew all the

ins and outs of the place, turned to the left and entered through a door

which had the date of the introduction of the Code of Laws above it.

After taking off his overcoat in the first narrow room, he found out

from the attendant that the Senators had all arrived, and that the last

had just come in. Fanarin, in his swallow-tail coat, a white tie above

the white shirt-front, and a self-confident smile on his lips, passed

into the next room. In this room there were to the right a large

cupboard and a table, and to the left a winding staircase, which an

elegant official in uniform was descending with a portfolio under his

arm. In this room an old man with long, white hair and a patriarchal

appearance attracted every one’s attention. He wore a short coat and

grey trousers. Two attendants stood respectfully beside him. The old man

with white hair entered the cupboard and shut himself in.

Fanarin noticed a fellow-advocate dressed in the same way as himself,

with a white tie and dress coat, and at once entered into an animated

conversation with him.

Nekhludoff was meanwhile examining the people in the room. The public

consisted of about 15 persons, of whom two were ladies--a young one with

a pince-nez, and an old, grey-haired one.

A case of libel was to be heard that day, and therefore the public were

more numerous than usual--chiefly persons belonging to the journalistic

world.

The usher, a red-cheeked, handsome man in a fine uniform, came up to

Fanarin and asked him what his business was. When he heard that it was

the case of Maslova, he noted something down and walked away. Then the

cupboard door opened and the old man with the patriarchal appearance

stepped out, no longer in a short coat but in a gold-trimmed attire,

which made him look like a bird, and with metal plates on his

breast. This funny costume seemed to make the old man himself feel

uncomfortable, and, walking faster than his wont, he hurried out of the

door opposite the entrance.

“That is Bay, a most estimable man,” Fanarin said to Nekhludoff, and

then having introduced him to his colleague, he explained the case that

was about to be heard, which he considered very interesting.

The hearing of the case soon commenced, and Nekhludoff, with the

public, entered the left side of the Senate Chamber. They all, including

Fanarin, took their places behind a grating. Only the Petersburg

advocate went up to a desk in front of the grating.

The Senate Chamber was not so big as the Criminal Court; and was more

simply furnished, only the table in front of the senators was covered

with crimson, gold-trimmed velvet, instead of green cloth; but the

attributes of all places of judgment, i.e., the mirror of justice, the

icon, the emblem of hypocrisy, and the Emperor’s portrait, the emblem of

servility, were there.

The usher announced, in the same solemn manner: “The Court is coming.”

Every one rose in the same way, and the senators entered in their

uniforms and sat down on highbacked chairs and leant on the table,

trying to appear natural, just in the same way as the judges in the

Court of Law. There were four senators present--Nikitin, who took the

chair, a clean-shaved man with a narrow face and steely eyes; Wolf, with

significantly compressed lips, and little white hands, with which he

kept turning over the pages of the business papers; Skovorodnikoff,

a heavy, fat, pockmarked man--the learned lawyer; and Bay, the

patriarchal-looking man who had arrived last.

With the advocates entered the chief secretary and public prosecutor, a

lean, clean-shaven young man of medium height, a very dark complexion,

and sad, black eyes. Nekhludoff knew him at once, in spite of his

curious uniform and the fact that he had not seen him for six years. He

had been one of his best friends in Nekhludoff’s student days.

“The public prosecutor Selenin?” Nekhludoff asked, turning to the

advocate.

“Yes. Why?”

“I know him well. He is a fine fellow.”

“And a good public prosecutor; business-like. Now he is the man you

should have interested.”

“He will act according to his conscience in any case,” said Nekhludoff,

recalling the intimate relations and friendship between himself and

Selenin, and the attractive qualities of the latter--purity, honesty,

and good breeding in its best sense.

“Yes, there is no time now,” whispered Fanarin, who was listening to the

report of the case that had commenced.

The Court of Justice was accused of having left a decision of the Court

of Law unaltered.

Nekhludoff listened and tried to make out the meaning of what was going

on; but, just as in the Criminal Court, his chief difficulty was

that not the evidently chief point, but some side issues, were being

discussed. The case was that of a newspaper which had published the

account of a swindle arranged by a director of a limited liability

company. It seemed that the only important question was whether the

director of the company really abused his trust, and how to stop him

from doing it. But the questions under consideration were whether the

editor had a right to publish this article of his contributor, and what

he had been guilty of in publishing it: slander or libel, and in what

way slander included libel, or libel included slander, and something

rather incomprehensible to ordinary people about all sorts of statutes

and resolutions passed by some General Department.

The only thing clear to Nekhludoff was that, in spite of what Wolf had

so strenuously insisted on, the day before, i.e., that the Senate could

not try a case on its merits, in this case he was evidently strongly

in favour of repealing the decision of the Court of Justice, and that

Selenin, in spite of his characteristic reticence, stated the opposite

opinion with quite unexpected warmth. The warmth, which surprised

Nekhludoff, evinced by the usually self-controlled Selenin, was due to

his knowledge of the director’s shabbiness in money matters, and the

fact, which had accidentally come to his cars, that Wolf had been to a

swell dinner party at the swindler’s house only a few days before.

Now that Wolf spoke on the case, guardedly enough, but with evident

bias, Selenin became excited, and expressed his opinion with too much

nervous irritation for an ordinary business transaction.

It was clear that Selenin’s speech had offended Wolf. He grew red, moved

in his chair, made silent gestures of surprise, and at last rose, with

a very dignified and injured look, together with the other senators, and

went out into the debating-room.

“What particular case have you come about?” the usher asked again,

addressing Fanarin.

“I have already told you: Maslova’s case.”

“Yes, quite so. It is to be heard to-day, but--”

“But what?” the advocate asked.

“Well, you see, this case was to be examined without taking sides,

so that the senators will hardly come out again after passing the

resolution. But I will inform them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll inform them; I’ll inform them.” And the usher again put something

down on his paper.

The Senators really meant to pronounce their decision concerning the

libel case, and then to finish the other business, Maslova’s case among

it, over their tea and cigarettes, without leaving the debating-room.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE APPEAL DISMISSED.

As soon as the Senators were seated round the table in the

debating-room, Wolf began to bring forward with great animation all the

motives in favour of a repeal. The chairman, an ill-natured man at

best, was in a particularly bad humour that day. His thoughts were

concentrated on the words he had written down in his memoranda on the

occasion when not he but Viglanoff was appointed to the important post

he had long coveted. It was the chairman, Nikitin’s, honest conviction

that his opinions of the officials of the two upper classes with which

he was in connection would furnish valuable material for the historians.

He had written a chapter the day before in which the officials of the

upper classes got it hot for preventing him, as he expressed it, from

averting the ruin towards which the present rulers of Russia were

driving it, which simply meant that they had prevented his getting a

better salary. And now he was considering what a new light to posterity

this chapter would shed on events.

“Yes, certainly,” he said, in reply to the words addressed to him by

Wolf, without listening to them.

Bay was listening to Wolf with a sad face and drawing a garland on the

paper that lay before him. Bay was a Liberal of the very first water. He

held sacred the Liberal traditions of the sixth decade of this century,

and if he ever overstepped the limits of strict neutrality it was always

in the direction of Liberalism. So in this case; beside the fact that

the swindling director, who was prosecuting for libel, was a bad lot,

the prosecution of a journalist for libel in itself tending, as it did,

to restrict the freedom of the press, inclined Bay to reject the appeal.

When Wolf concluded his arguments Bay stopped drawing his garland and

began in a sad and gentle voice (he was sad because he was obliged to

demonstrate such truisms) concisely, simply and convincingly to show

how unfounded the accusation was, and then, bending his white head, he

continued drawing his garland.

Skovorodnikoff, who sat opposite Wolf, and, with his fat fingers, kept

shoving his beard and moustaches into his mouth, stopped chewing his

beard as soon as Bay was silent, and said with a loud, grating voice,

that, notwithstanding the fact of the director being a terrible

scoundrel, he would have been for the repeal of the sentence if there

were any legal reasons for it; but, as there were none, he was of Bay’s

opinion. He was glad to put this spoke in Wolf’s wheel.

The chairman agreed with Skovorodnikoff, and the appeal was rejected.

Wolf was dissatisfied, especially because it was like being caught

acting with dishonest partiality; so he pretended to be indifferent,

and, unfolding the document which contained Maslova’s case, he became

engrossed in it. Meanwhile the Senators rang and ordered tea, and began

talking about the event that, together with the duel, was occupying the

Petersburgers.

It was the case of the chief of a Government department, who was accused

of the crime provided for in Statute 995.

“What nastiness,” said Bay, with disgust.

“Why; where is the harm of it? I can show you a Russian book containing

the project of a German writer, who openly proposes that it should not

be considered a crime,” said Skovorodnikoff, drawing in greedily the

fumes of the crumpled cigarette, which he held between his fingers close

to the palm, and he laughed boisterously.

“Impossible!” said Bay.

“I shall show it you,” said Skovorodnikoff, giving the full title of the

book, and even its date and the name of its editor.

“I hear he has been appointed governor to some town in Siberia.”

“That’s fine. The archdeacon will meet him with a crucifix. They ought

to appoint an archdeacon of the same sort,” said Skovorodnikoff. “I

could recommend them one,” and he threw the end of his cigarette into

his saucer, and again shoved as much of his beard and moustaches as he

could into his mouth and began chewing them.

The usher came in and reported the advocate’s and Nekhludoff’s desire to

be present at the examination of Maslova’s case.

“This case,” Wolf said, “is quite romantic,” and he told them what he

knew about Nekhludoff’s relations with Maslova. When they had spoken

a little about it and finished their tea and cigarettes, the Senators

returned into the Senate Chamber and proclaimed their decision in the

libel case, and began to hear Maslova’s case.

Wolf, in his thin voice, reported Maslova’s appeal very fully, but

again not without some bias and an evident wish for the repeal of the

sentence.

“Have you anything to add?” the chairman said, turning to Fanarin.

Fanarin rose, and standing with his broad white chest expanded, proved

point by point, with wonderful exactness and persuasiveness, how the

Court had in six points strayed from the exact meaning of the law; and

besides this he touched, though briefly, on the merits of the case, and

on the crying injustice of the sentence. The tone of his speech was one

of apology to the Senators, who, with their penetration and judicial

wisdom, could not help seeing and understanding it all better than he

could. He was obliged to speak only because the duty he had undertaken

forced him to do so.

After Fanarin’s speech one might have thought that there could not

remain the least doubt that the Senate ought to repeal the decision of

the Court. When he had finished his speech, Fanarin looked round with a

smile of triumph, seeing which Nekhludoff felt certain that the case was

won. But when he looked at the Senators he saw that Fanarin smiled and

triumphed all alone. The Senators and the Public Prosecutor did not

smile nor triumph, but looked like people wearied, and who were thinking

“We have often heard the like of you; it is all in vain,” and were only

too glad when he stopped and ceased uselessly detaining them there.

Immediately after the end of the advocate’s speech the chairman turned

to the Public Prosecutor. Selenin briefly and clearly expressed

himself in favour of leaving the decision of the Court unaltered, as

he considered all the reasons for appealing inadequate. After this the

Senators went out into the debating-room. They were divided in their

opinions. Wolf was in favour of altering the decision. Bay, when he

had understood the case, took up the same side with fervour, vividly

presenting the scene at the court to his companions as he clearly saw it

himself. Nikitin, who always was on the side of severity and formality,

took up the other side. All depended on Skovorodnikoff’s vote, and he

voted for rejecting the appeal, because Nekhludoff’s determination to

marry the woman on moral grounds was extremely repugnant to him.

Skovorodnikoff was a materialist, a Darwinian, and counted every

manifestation of abstract morality, or, worse still, religion, not only

as a despicable folly, but as a personal affront to himself. All this

bother about a prostitute, and the presence of a celebrated advocate and

Nekhludoff in the Senate were in the highest degree repugnant to him.

So he shoved his beard into his mouth and made faces, and very skilfully

pretended to know nothing of this case, excepting that the reasons for

an appeal were insufficient, and that he, therefore, agreed with the

chairman to leave the decision of the Court unaltered.

So the sentence remained unrepealed.

CHAPTER XXII.

AN OLD FRIEND.

“Terrible,” said Nekhludoff, as he went out into the waiting-room with

the advocate, who was arranging the papers in his portfolio. “In a

matter which is perfectly clear they attach all the importance to the

form and reject the appeal. Terrible!”

“The case was spoiled in the Criminal Court,” said the advocate.

“And Selenin, too, was in favour of the rejection. Terrible! terrible!”

Nekhludoff repeated. “What is to be done now?”

“We will appeal to His Majesty, and you can hand in the petition

yourself while you are here. I will write it for you.”

At this moment little Wolf, with his stars and uniform, came out into

the waiting-room and approached Nekhludoff. “It could not be helped,

dear Prince. The reasons for an appeal were not sufficient,” he said,

shrugging his narrow shoulders and closing his eyes, and then he went

his way.

After Wolf, Selenin came out too, having heard from the Senators that

his old friend Nekhludoff was there.

“Well, I never expected to see you here,” he said, coming up to

Nekhludoff, and smiling only with his lips while his eyes remained sad.

“I did not know you were in Petersburg.”

“And I did not know you were Public Prosecutor-in-Chief.”

“How is it you are in the Senate?” asked Selenin. “I had heard, by the

way, that you were in Petersburg. But what are you doing here?”

“Here? I am here because I hoped to find justice and save a woman

innocently condemned.”

“What woman?”

“The one whose case has just been decided.”

“Oh! Maslova’s case,” said Selenin, suddenly remembering it. “The appeal

had no grounds whatever.”

“It is not the appeal; it’s the woman who is innocent, and is being

punished.”

Selenin sighed. “That may well be, but----”

“Not _may be_, but is.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was on the jury. I know how we made the mistake.”

Selenin became thoughtful. “You should have made a statement at the

time,” he said.

“I did make the statement.”

“It should have been put down in an official report. If this had been

added to the petition for the appeal--”

“Yes, but still, as it is, the verdict is evidently absurd.”

“The Senate has no right to say so. If the Senate took upon itself to

repeal the decision of the law courts according to its own views as

to the justice of the decisions in themselves, the verdict of the jury

would lose all its meaning, not to mention that the Senate would have

no basis to go upon, and would run the risk of infringing justice rather

than upholding it,” said Selenin, calling to mind the case that had just

been heard.

“All I know is that this woman is quite innocent, and that the last

hope of saving her from an unmerited punishment is gone. The grossest

injustice has been confirmed by the highest court.”

“It has not been confirmed. The Senate did not and cannot enter into

the merits of the case in itself,” said Selenin. Always busy and rarely

going out into society, he had evidently heard nothing of Nekhludoff’s

romance. Nekhludoff noticed it, and made up his mind that it was best to

say nothing about his special relations with Maslova.

“You are probably staying with your aunt,” Selenin remarked, apparently

wishing to change the subject. “She told me you were here yesterday, and

she invited me to meet you in the evening, when some foreign preacher

was to lecture,” and Selenin again smiled only with his lips.

“Yes, I was there, but left in disgust,” said Nekhludoff angrily, vexed

that Selenin had changed the subject.

“Why with disgust? After all, it is a manifestation of religious

feeling, though one-sided and sectarian,” said Selenin.

“Why, it’s only some kind of whimsical folly.”

“Oh, dear, no. The curious thing is that we know the teaching of our

church so little that we see some new kind of revelation in what are,

after all, our own fundamental dogmas,” said Selenin, as if hurrying to

let his old friend know his new views.

Nekhludoff looked at Selenin scrutinisingly and with surprise, and

Selenin dropped his eyes, in which appeared an expression not only of

sadness but also of ill-will.

“Do you, then, believe in the dogmas of the church?” Nekhludoff asked.

“Of course I do,” replied Selenin, gazing straight into Nekhludoff’s

eyes with a lifeless look.

Nekhludoff sighed. “It is strange,” he said.

“However, we shall have a talk some other time,” said Selenin. “I

am coming,” he added, in answer to the usher, who had respectfully

approached him. “Yes, we must meet again,” he went on with a sigh. “But

will it be possible for me to find you? You will always find me in at

seven o’clock. My address is Nadejdinskaya,” and he gave the number.

“Ah, time does not stand still,” and he turned to go, smiling only with

his lips.

“I will come if I can,” said Nekhludoff, feeling that a man once

near and dear to him had, by this brief conversation, suddenly become

strange, distant, and incomprehensible, if not hostile to him.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR.

When Nekhludoff knew Selenin as a student, he was a good son, a true

friend, and for his years an educated man of the world, with much tact;

elegant, handsome, and at the same time truthful and honest. He learned

well, without much exertion and with no pedantry, receiving gold medals

for his essays. He considered the service of mankind, not only in words

but in acts, to be the aim of his young life. He saw no other way of

being useful to humanity than by serving the State. Therefore, as soon

as he had completed his studies, he systematically examined all the

activities to which he might devote his life, and decided to enter the

Second Department of the Chancellerie, where the laws are drawn up, and

he did so. But, in spite of the most scrupulous and exact discharge of

the duties demanded of him, this service gave no satisfaction to his

desire of being useful, nor could he awake in himself the consciousness

that he was doing “the right thing.”

This dissatisfaction was so much increased by the friction with his very

small-minded and vain fellow officials that he left the Chancellerie and

entered the Senate. It was better there, but the same dissatisfaction

still pursued him; he felt it to be very different from what he had

expected, and from what ought to be.

And now that he was in the Senate his relatives obtained for him the

post of Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and he had to go in a carriage,

dressed in an embroidered uniform and a white linen apron, to thank

all sorts of people for having placed him in the position of a lackey.

However much he tried he could find no reasonable explanation for the

existence of this post, and felt, more than in the Senate, that it

was not “the right thing,” and yet he could not refuse it for fear of

hurting those who felt sure they were giving him much pleasure by this

appointment, and because it flattered the lowest part of his nature. It

pleased him to see himself in a mirror in his gold-embroidered uniform,

and to accept the deference paid him by some people because of his

position.

Something of the same kind happened when he married. A very brilliant

match, from a worldly point of view, was arranged for him, and he

married chiefly because by refusing he would have had to hurt the

young lady who wished to be married to him, and those who arranged the

marriage, and also because a marriage with a nice young girl of noble

birth flattered his vanity and gave him pleasure. But this marriage

very soon proved to be even less “the right thing” than the Government

service and his position at Court.

After the birth of her first child the wife decided to have no more,

and began leading that luxurious worldly life in which he now had to

participate whether he liked or not.

She was not particularly handsome, and was faithful to him, and she

seemed, in spite of all the efforts it cost her, to derive nothing but

weariness from the life she led, yet she perseveringly continued to live

it, though it was poisoning her husband’s life. And all his efforts

to alter this life was shattered, as against a stone wall, by her

conviction, which all her friends and relatives supported, that all was

as it should be.

The child, a little girl with bare legs and long golden curls, was a

being perfectly foreign to him, chiefly because she was trained quite

otherwise than he wished her to be. There sprung up between the husband

and wife the usual misunderstanding, without even the wish to understand

each other, and then a silent warfare, hidden from outsiders and

tempered by decorum. All this made his life at home a burden, and became

even less “the right thing” than his service and his post.

But it was above all his attitude towards religion which was not “the

right thing.” Like every one of his set and his time, by the growth of

his reason he broke without the least effort the nets of the religious

superstitions in which he was brought up, and did not himself exactly

know when it was that he freed himself of them. Being earnest and

upright, he did not, during his youth and intimacy with Nekhludoff as a

student, conceal his rejection of the State religion. But as years

went on and he rose in the service, and especially at the time of the

reaction towards conservatism in society, his spiritual freedom stood in

his way.

At home, when his father died, he had to be present at the masses

said for his soul, and his mother wished him to go to confession or to

communion, and it was in a way expected, by public opinion, but above

all, Government service demanded that he should be present at all sorts

of services, consecrations, thanksgivings, and the like. Hardly a day

passed without some outward religious form having to be observed.

When present at these services he had to pretend that he believed in

something which he did not believe in, and being truthful he could not

do this. The alternative was, having made up his mind that all these

outward signs were deceitful, to alter his life in such a way that he

would not have to be present at such ceremonials. But to do what

seemed so simple would have cost a great deal. Besides encountering the

perpetual hostility of all those who were near to him, he would have to

give up the service and his position, and sacrifice his hopes of being

useful to humanity by his service, now and in the future. To make such a

sacrifice one would have to be firmly convinced of being right.

And he was firmly convinced he was right, as no educated man of our

time can help being convinced who knows a little history and how the

religions, and especially Church Christianity, originated.

But under the stress of his daily life he, a truthful man, allowed a

little falsehood to creep in. He said that in order to do justice to

an unreasonable thing one had to study the unreasonable thing. It was a

little falsehood, but it sunk him into the big falsehood in which he was

now caught.

Before putting to himself the question whether the orthodoxy in which

he was born and bred, and which every one expected him to accept, and

without which he could not continue his useful occupation, contained the

truth, he had already decided the answer. And to clear up the question

he did not read Voltaire, Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, or Comte, but

the philosophical works of Hegel and the religious works of Vinet and

Khomyakoff, and naturally found in them what he wanted, i.e., something

like peace of mind and a vindication of that religious teaching in which

he was educated, which his reason had long ceased to accept, but without

which his whole life was filled with unpleasantness which could all be

removed by accepting the teaching.

And so he adopted all the usual sophistries which go to prove that

a single human reason cannot know the truth, that the truth is only

revealed to an association of men, and can only be known by revelation,

that revelation is kept by the church, etc. And so he managed to be

present at prayers, masses for the dead, to confess, make signs of the

cross in front of icons, with a quiet mind, without being conscious of

the lie, and to continue in the service which gave him the feeling of

being useful and some comfort in his joyless family life. Although he

believed this, he felt with his entire being that this religion of his,

more than all else, was not “the right thing,” and that is why his eyes

always looked sad.

And seeing Nekhludoff, whom he had known before all these lies had

rooted themselves within him, reminded him of what he then was. It was

especially after he had hurried to hint at his religious views that he

had most strongly felt all this “not the right thing,” and had become

painfully sad. Nekhludoff felt it also after the first joy of meeting

his old friend had passed, and therefore, though they promised each

other to meet, they did not take any steps towards an interview, and did

not again see each other during this stay of Nekhludoff’s in Petersburg.

CHAPTER XXIV.

MARIETTE TEMPTS NEKHLUDOFF.

When they left the Senate, Nekhludoff and the advocate walked on

together, the advocate having given the driver of his carriage orders

to follow them. The advocate told Nekhludoff the story of the chief of a

Government department, about whom the Senators had been talking: how the

thing was found out, and how the man, who according to law should

have been sent to the mines, had been appointed Governor of a town

in Siberia. Then he related with particular pleasure how several

high-placed persons stole a lot of money collected for the erection of

the still unfinished monument which they had passed that morning; also,

how the mistress of So-and-so got a lot of money at the Stock Exchange,

and how So-and-so agreed with So-and-so to sell him his wife. The

advocate began another story about a swindle, and all sorts of crimes

committed by persons in high places, who, instead of being in prison,

sat on presidential chairs in all sorts of Government institutions.

These tales, of which the advocate seemed to have an unending supply,

gave him much pleasure, showing as they did, with perfect clearness,

that his means of getting money were quite just and innocent compared

to the means which the highest officials in Petersburg made use of.

The advocate was therefore surprised when Nekhludoff took an isvostchik

before hearing the end of the story, said good-bye, and left him.

Nekhludoff felt very sad. It was chiefly the rejection of the appeal by

the Senate, confirming the senseless torments that the innocent Maslova

was enduring, that saddened him, and also the fact that this rejection

made it still harder for him to unite his fate with hers. The stories

about existing evils, which the advocate recounted with such relish,

heightened his sadness, and so did the cold, unkind look that the

once sweet-natured, frank, noble Selenin had given him, and which kept

recurring to his mind.

On his return the doorkeeper handed him a note, and said, rather

scornfully, that some kind of woman had written it in the hall. It was

a note from Shoustova’s mother. She wrote that she had come to thank

her daughter’s benefactor and saviour, and to implore him to come to see

them on the Vasilievsky, 5th Line, house No. --. This was very necessary

because of Vera Doukhova. He need not be afraid that they would weary

him with expressions of gratitude. They would not speak their gratitude,

but be simply glad to see him. Would he not come next morning, if he

could?

There was another note from Bogotyreff, a former fellow-officer,

aide-de-camp to the Emperor, whom Nekhludoff had asked to hand

personally to the Emperor his petition on behalf of the sectarians.

Bogotyreff wrote, in his large, firm hand, that he would put the

petition into the Emperor’s own hands, as he had promised; but that it

had occurred to him that it might be better for Nekhludoff first to go

and see the person on whom the matter depended.

After the impressions received during the last few days, Nekhludoff felt

perfectly hopeless of getting anything done. The plans he had formed

in Moscow seemed now something like the dreams of youth, which are

inevitably followed by disillusion when life comes to be faced. Still,

being now in Petersburg, he considered it his duty to do all he had

intended, and he resolved next day, after consulting Bogotyreff, to

act on his advice and see the person on whom the case of the sectarians

depended.

He got out the sectarians’ petition from his portfolio, and began

reading it over, when there was a knock at his door, and a footman came

in with a message from the Countess Katerina Ivanovna, who asked him to

come up and have a cup of tea with her.

Nekhludoff said he would come at once, and having put the papers back

into the portfolio, he went up to his aunt’s. He looked out of a window

on his way, and saw Mariette’s pair of bays standing in front of the

house, and he suddenly brightened and felt inclined to smile.

Mariette, with a hat on her head, not in black but with a light dress

of many shades, sat with a cup in her hand beside the Countess’s easy

chair, prattling about something while her beautiful, laughing

eyes glistened. She had said something funny--something indecently

funny--just as Nekhludoff entered the room. He knew it by the way she

laughed, and by the way the good-natured Countess Katerina Ivanovna’s

fat body was shaking with laughter; while Mariette, her smiling mouth

slightly drawn to one side, her head a little bent, a peculiarly

mischievous expression in her merry, energetic face, sat silently

looking at her companion. From a few words which he overheard,

Nekhludoff guessed that they were talking of the second piece of

Petersburg news, the episode of the Siberian Governor, and that it was

in reference to this subject that Mariette had said something so funny

that the Countess could not control herself for a long time.

“You will kill me,” she said, coughing.

After saying “How d’you do?” Nekhludoff sat down. He was about to

censure Mariette in his mind for her levity when, noticing the serious

and even slightly dissatisfied look in his eyes, she suddenly, to please

him, changed not only the expression of her face, but also the attitude

of her mind; for she felt the wish to please him as soon as she looked

at him. She suddenly turned serious, dissatisfied with her life, as if

seeking and striving after something; it was not that she pretended, but

she really reproduced in herself the very same state of mind that he was

in, although it would have been impossible for her to express in words

what was the state of Nekhludoff’s mind at that moment.

She asked him how he had accomplished his tasks. He told her about his

failure in the Senate and his meeting Selenin.

“Oh, what a pure soul! He is, indeed, a chevalier sans peur et sans

reproche. A pure soul!” said both ladies, using the epithet commonly

applied to Selenin in Petersburg society.

“What is his wife like?” Nekhludoff asked.

“His wife? Well, I do not wish to judge, but she does not understand

him.”

“Is it possible that he, too, was for rejecting the appeal?” Mariette

asked with real sympathy. “It is dreadful. How sorry I am for her,” she

added with a sigh.

He frowned, and in order to change the subject began to speak about

Shoustova, who had been imprisoned in the fortress and was now set free

through the influence of Mariette’s husband. He thanked her for her

trouble, and was going on to say how dreadful he thought it, that this

woman and the whole of her family had suffered merely, because no one

had reminded the authorities about them, but Mariette interrupted him

and expressed her own indignation.

“Say nothing about it to me,” she said. “When my husband told me she

could be set free, it was this that struck me, ‘What was she kept in

prison for if she is innocent?’” She went on expressing what Nekhludoff

was about to say.

“It is revolting--revolting.”

Countess Katerina Ivanovna noticed that Mariette was coquetting with her

nephew, and this amused her. “What do you think?” she said, when they

were silent. “Supposing you come to Aline’s to-morrow night. Kiesewetter

will be there. And you, too,” she said, turning to Mariette. “_Il vous a

remarque_,” she went on to her nephew. “He told me that what you say (I

repeated it all to him) is a very good sign, and that you will certainly

come to Christ. You must come absolutely. Tell him to, Mariette, and

come yourself.”

“Countess, in the first place, I have no right whatever to give any kind

of advice to the Prince,” said Mariette, and gave Nekhludoff a look that

somehow established a full comprehension between them of their attitude

in relation to the Countess’s words and evangelicalism in general.

“Secondly, I do not much care, you know.”

“Yes, I know you always do things the wrong way round, and according to

your own ideas.”

“My own ideas? I have faith like the most simple peasant woman,” said

Mariette with a smile. “And, thirdly, I am going to the French Theatre

to-morrow night.”

“Ah! And have you seen that--What’s her name?” asked Countess Katerina

Ivanovna. Mariette gave the name of a celebrated French actress.

“You must go, most decidedly; she is wonderful.”

“Whom am I to see first, ma tante--the actress or the preacher?”

Nekhludoff said with a smile.

“Please don’t catch at my words.”

“I should think the preacher first and then the actress, or else the

desire for the sermon might vanish altogether,” said Nekhludoff.

“No; better begin with the French Theatre, and do penance afterwards.”

“Now, then, you are not to hold me up for ridicule. The preacher is the

preacher and the theatre is the theatre. One need not weep in order to

be saved. One must have faith, and then one is sure to be gay.”

“You, ma tante, preach better than any preacher.”

“Do you know what?” said Mariette. “Come into my box to-morrow.”

“I am afraid I shall not be able to.”

The footman interrupted the conversation by announcing a visitor. It

was the secretary of a philanthropic society of which the Countess was

president.

“Oh, that is the dullest of men. I think I shall receive him out there,

and return to you later on. Mariette, give him his tea,” said the

Countess, and left the room, with her quick, wriggling walk.

Mariette took the glove off her firm, rather flat hand, the fourth

finger of which was covered with rings.

“Want any?” she said, taking hold of the silver teapot, under which a

spirit lamp was burning, and extending her little finger curiously. Her

face looked sad and serious.

“It is always terribly painful to me to notice that people whose opinion

I value confound me with the position I am placed in.” She seemed ready

to cry as she said these last words. And though these words had no

meaning, or at any rate a very indefinite meaning, they seemed to be of

exceptional depth, meaning, or goodness to Nekhludoff, so much was he

attracted by the look of the bright eyes which accompanied the words of

this young, beautiful, and well-dressed woman.

Nekhludoff looked at her in silence, and could not take his eyes from

her face.

“You think I do not understand you and all that goes on in you. Why,

everybody knows what you are doing. _C’est le secret de polichinelle_.

And I am delighted with your work, and think highly of you.”

“Really, there is nothing to be delighted with; and I have done so

little as Yet.”

“No matter. I understand your feelings, and I understand her. All

right, all right. I will say nothing more about it,” she said, noticing

displeasure on his face. “But I also understand that after seeing all

the suffering and the horror in the prisons,” Mariette went on, her only

desire that of attracting him, and guessing with her woman’s instinct

what was dear and important to him, “you wish to help the sufferers,

those who are made to suffer so terribly by other men, and their cruelty

and indifference. I understand the willingness to give one’s life, and

could give mine in such a cause, but we each have our own fate.”

“Are you, then, dissatisfied with your fate?”

“I?” she asked, as if struck with surprise that such a question could

be put to her. “I have to be satisfied, and am satisfied. But there is a

worm that wakes up--”

“And he must not be allowed to fall asleep again. It is a voice that

must be obeyed,” Nekhludoff said, falling into the trap.

Many a time later on Nekhludoff remembered with shame his talk with her.

He remembered her words, which were not so much lies as imitations of

his own, and her face, which seemed looking at him with sympathetic

attention when he told her about the terrors of the prison and of his

impressions in the country.

When the Countess returned they were talking not merely like old, but

like exclusive friends who alone understood one another. They were

talking about the injustice of power, of the sufferings of the

unfortunate, the poverty of the people, yet in reality in the midst of

the sound of their talk their eyes, gazing at each other, kept asking,

“Can you love me?” and answering, “I can,” and the sex-feeling, taking

the most unexpected and brightest forms, drew them to each other. As she

was going away she told him that she would always be willing to serve

him in any way she could, and asked him to come and see her, if only for

a moment, in the theatre next day, as she had a very important thing to

tell him about.

“Yes, and when shall I see you again?” she added, with a sigh, carefully

drawing the glove over her jewelled hand.

“Say you will come.”

Nekhludoff promised.

That night, when Nekhludoff was alone in his room, and lay down after

putting out his candle, he could not sleep. He thought of Maslova, of

the decision of the Senate, of his resolve to follow her in any case, of

his having given up the land. The face of Mariette appeared to him as if

in answer to those thoughts--her look, her sigh, her words, “When shall

I see you again?” and her smile seemed vivid as if he really saw her,

and he also smiled. “Shall I be doing right in going to Siberia? And

have I done right in divesting myself of my wealth?” And the answers to

the questions on this Petersburg night, on which the daylight streamed

into the window from under the blind, were quite indefinite. All seemed

mixed in his head. He recalled his former state of mind, and the former

sequence of his thoughts, but they had no longer their former power or

validity.

“And supposing I have invented all this, and am unable to live it

through--supposing I repent of having acted right,” he thought; and

unable to answer he was seized with such anguish and despair as he had

long not felt. Unable to free himself from his perplexity, he fell into

a heavy sleep, such as he had slept after a heavy loss at cards.

CHAPTER XXV.

LYDIA SHOUSTOVA’S HOME.

Nekhludoff awoke next morning feeling as if he had been guilty of some

iniquity the day before. He began considering. He could not remember

having done anything wrong; he had committed no evil act, but he had had

evil thoughts. He had thought that all his present resolutions to marry

Katusha and to give up his land were unachievable dreams; that he should

be unable to bear it; that it was artificial, unnatural; and that he

would have to go on living as he lived.

He had committed no evil action, but, what was far worse than an

evil action, he had entertained evil thoughts whence all evil actions

proceed. An evil action may not be repeated, and can be repented of; but

evil thoughts generate all evil actions.

An evil action only smooths the path for other evil acts; evil thoughts

uncontrollably drag one along that path.

When Nekhludoff repeated in his mind the thoughts of the day before, he

was surprised that he could for a moment have believed these thoughts.

However new and difficult that which he had decided to do might be, he

knew that it was the only possible way of life for him now, and however

easy and natural it might have been to return to his former state, he

knew that state to be death.

Yesterday’s temptation seemed like the feeling when one awakes from deep

sleep, and, without feeling sleepy, wants to lie comfortably in bed a

little longer, yet knows that it is time to rise and commence the glad

and important work that awaits one.

On that, his last day in Petersburg, he went in the morning to the

Vasilievski Ostrov to see Shoustova. Shoustova lived on the second

floor, and having been shown the back stairs, Nekhludoff entered

straight into the hot kitchen, which smelt strongly of food. An elderly

woman, with turned-up sleeves, with an apron and spectacles, stood by

the fire stirring something in a steaming pan.

“Whom do you want?” she asked severely, looking at him over her

spectacles.

Before Nekhludoff had time to answer, an expression of fright and joy

appeared on her face.

“Oh, Prince!” she exclaimed, wiping her hands on her apron. “But why

have you come the back way? Our Benefactor! I am her mother. They have

nearly killed my little girl. You have saved us,” she said, catching

hold of Nekhludoff’s hand and trying to kiss it.

“I went to see you yesterday. My sister asked me to. She is here. This

way, this way, please,” said Shoustova’s mother, as she led the way

through a narrow door, and a dark passage, arranging her hair and

pulling at her tucked-up skirt. “My sister’s name is Kornilova. You must

have heard of her,” she added, stopping before a closed door. “She was

mixed up in a political affair. An extremely clever woman!”

Shoustova’s mother opened the door and showed Nekhludoff into a little

room where on a sofa with a table before it sat a plump, short girl with

fair hair that curled round her pale, round face, which was very like

her mother’s. She had a striped cotton blouse on.

Opposite her, in an armchair, leaning forward, so that he was nearly

bent double, sat a young fellow with a slight, black beard and

moustaches.

“Lydia, Prince Nekhludoff!” he said.

The pale girl jumped up, nervously pushing back a lock of hair behind

her ear, and gazing at the newcomer with a frightened look in her large,

grey eyes.

“So you are that dangerous woman whom Vera Doukhova wished me to

intercede for?” Nekhludoff asked, with a smile.

“Yes, I am,” said Lydia Shoustova, her broad, kind, child-like smile

disclosing a row of beautiful teeth. “It was aunt who was so anxious to

see you. Aunt!” she called out, in a pleasant, tender voice through a

door.

“Your imprisonment grieved Vera Doukhova very much,” said Nekhludoff.

“Take a seat here, or better here,” said Shoustova, pointing to the

battered easy-chair from which the young man had just risen.

“My cousin, Zakharov,” she said, noticing that Nekhludoff looked at the

young man.

The young man greeted the visitor with a smile as kindly as Shoustova’s,

and when Nekhludoff sat down he brought himself another chair, and sat

by his side. A fair-haired schoolboy of about 10 also came into the room

and silently sat down on the window-sill.

“Vera Doukhova is a great friend of my aunt’s, but I hardly know her,”

said Shoustova.

Then a woman with a very pleasant face, with a white blouse and leather

belt, came in from the next room.

“How do you do? Thanks for coming,” she began as soon as she had taken

the place next Shoustova’s on the sofa.

“Well, and how is Vera. You have seen her? How does she bear her fate?”

“She does not complain,” said Nekhludoff. “She says she feels perfectly

happy.”’

“Ah, that’s like Vera. I know her,” said the aunt, smiling and shaking

her head. “One must know her. She has a fine character. Everything for

others; nothing for herself.”

“No, she asked nothing for herself, but only seemed concerned about your

niece. What seemed to trouble her most was, as she said, that your niece

was imprisoned for nothing.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said the aunt. “It is a dreadful business. She

suffered, in reality, because of me.”

“Not at all, aunt. I should have taken the papers without you all the

same.”

“Allow me to know better,” said the aunt. “You see,” she went on to

Nekhludoff, “it all happened because a certain person asked me to keep

his papers for a time, and I, having no house at the time, brought them

to her. And that very night the police searched her room and took her

and the papers, and have kept her up to now, demanding that she should

say from whom she had them.”

“But I never told them,” said Shoustova quickly, pulling nervously at a

lock that was not even out of place.

“I never said you did,” answered the aunt.

“If they took Mitin up it was certainly not through me,” said Shoustova,

blushing, and looking round uneasily.

“Don’t speak about it, Lydia dear,” said her mother.

“Why not? I should like to relate it,” said Shoustova, no longer smiling

nor pulling her lock, but twisting it round her finger and getting

redder.

“Don’t forget what happened yesterday when you began talking about it.”

“Not at all---Leave me alone, mamma. I did not tell, I only kept quiet.

When he examined me about Mitin and about aunt, I said nothing, and told

him I would not answer.”

“Then this--Petrov--”

“Petrov is a spy, a gendarme, and a blackguard,” put in the aunt, to

explain her niece’s words to Nekhludoff.

“Then he began persuading,” continued Shoustova, excitedly and

hurriedly. “‘Anything you tell me,’ he said, ‘can harm no one; on the

contrary, if you tell me, we may be able to set free innocent people

whom we may be uselessly tormenting.’ Well, I still said I would not

tell. Then he said, ‘All right, don’t tell, but do not deny what I am

going to say.’ And he named Mitin.”

“Don’t talk about it,” said the aunt.

“Oh, aunt, don’t interrupt,” and she went on pulling the lock of hair

and looking round. “And then, only fancy, the next day I hear--they let

me know by knocking at the wall--that Mitin is arrested. Well, I think

I have betrayed him, and this tormented me so--it tormented me so that I

nearly went mad.”

“And it turned out that it was not at all because of you he was taken

up?”