“Yes, but I didn’t know. I think, ‘There, now, I have betrayed him.’ I

walk and walk up and down from wall to wall, and cannot help thinking.

I think, ‘I have betrayed him.’ I lie down and cover myself up, and hear

something whispering, ‘Betrayed! betrayed Mitin! Mitin betrayed!’ I

know it is an hallucination, but cannot help listening. I wish to

fall asleep, I cannot. I wish not to think, and cannot cease. That is

terrible!” and as Shoustova spoke she got more and more excited, and

twisted and untwisted the lock of hair round her finger.

“Lydia, dear, be calm,” the mother said, touching her shoulder.

But Shoustova could not stop herself.

“It is all the more terrible--” she began again, but did not finish, and

jumping up with a cry rushed out of the room.

Her mother turned to follow her.

“They ought to be hanged, the rascals!” said the schoolboy who was

sitting on the window-sill.

“What’s that?” said the mother.

“I only said--Oh, it’s nothing,” the schoolboy answered, and taking a

cigarette that lay on the table, he began to smoke.

CHAPTER XXVI.

LYDIA’S AUNT.

“Yes, that solitary confinement is terrible for the young,” said the

aunt, shaking her head and also lighting a cigarette.

“I should say for every one,” Nekhludoff replied.

“No, not for all,” answered the aunt. “For the real revolutionists, I

have been told, it is rest and quiet. A man who is wanted by the police

lives in continual anxiety, material want, and fear for himself and

others, and for his cause, and at last, when he is taken up and it is

all over, and all responsibility is off his shoulders, he can sit and

rest. I have been told they actually feel joyful when taken up. But the

young and innocent (they always first arrest the innocent, like Lydia),

for them the first shock is terrible. It is not that they deprive you of

freedom; and the bad food and bad air--all that is nothing. Three times

as many privations would be easily borne if it were not for the moral

shock when one is first taken.”

“Have you experienced it?”

“I? I was twice in prison,” she answered, with a sad, gentle smile.

“When I was arrested for the first time I had done nothing. I was 22,

had a child, and was expecting another. Though the loss of freedom and

the parting with my child and husband were hard, they were nothing when

compared with what I felt when I found out that I had ceased being a

human creature and had become a thing. I wished to say good-bye to my

little daughter. I was told to go and get into the trap. I asked where I

was being taken to. The answer was that I should know when I got there.

I asked what I was accused of, but got no reply. After I had been

examined, and after they had undressed me and put numbered prison

clothes on me, they led me to a vault, opened a door, pushed me in, and

left me alone; a sentinel, with a loaded gun, paced up and down in front

of my door, and every now and then looked in through a crack--I felt

terribly depressed. What struck me most at the time was that the

gendarme officer who examined me offered me a cigarette. So he knew that

people liked smoking, and must know that they liked freedom and light;

and that mothers love their children, and children their mothers. Then

how could they tear me pitilessly from all that was dear to me, and

lock me up in prison like a wild animal? That sort of thing could not

be borne without evil effects. Any one who believes in God and men, and

believes that men love one another, will cease to believe it after all

that. I have ceased to believe in humanity since then, and have grown

embittered,” she finished, with a smile.

Shoustova’s mother came in at the door through which her daughter had

gone out, and said that Lydia was very much upset, and would not come in

again.

“And what has this young life been ruined for?” said the aunt. “What is

especially painful to me is that I am the involuntary cause of it.”

“She will recover in the country, with God’s help,” said the mother. “We

shall send her to her father.”

“Yes, if it were not for you she would have perished altogether,” said

the aunt. “Thank you. But what I wished to see you for is this: I wished

to ask you to take a letter to Vera Doukhova,” and she got the letter

out of her pocket.

“The letter is not closed; you may read and tear it up, or hand it to

her, according to how far it coincides with your principles,” she said.

“It contains nothing compromising.”

Nekhludoff took the letter, and, having promised to give it to Vera

Doukhova, he took his leave and went away. He sealed the letter without

reading it, meaning to take it to its destination.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE STATE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE.

The last thing that kept Nekhludoff in Petersburg was the case of the

sectarians, whose petition he intended to get his former fellow-officer,

Aide-de-camp Bogatyreff, to hand to the Tsar. He came to Bogatyreff in

the morning, and found him about to go out, though still at breakfast.

Bogatyreff was not tall, but firmly built and wonderfully strong (he

could bend a horseshoe), a kind, honest, straight, and even liberal man.

In spite of these qualities, he was intimate at Court, and very fond of

the Tsar and his family, and by some strange method he managed, while

living in that highest circle, to see nothing but the good in it and to

take no part in the evil and corruption. He never condemned anybody

nor any measure, and either kept silent or spoke in a bold, loud voice,

almost shouting what he had to say, and often laughing in the same

boisterous manner. And he did not do it for diplomatic reasons, but

because such was his character.

“Ah, that’s right that you have come. Would you like some breakfast?

Sit down, the beefsteaks are fine! I always begin with something

substantial--begin and finish, too. Ha! ha! ha! Well, then, have a glass

of wine,” he shouted, pointing to a decanter of claret. “I have been

thinking of you. I will hand on the petition. I shall put it into his

own hands. You may count on that, only it occurred to me that it would

be best for you to call on Toporoff.”

Nekhludoff made a wry face at the mention of Toporoff.

“It all depends on him. He will be consulted, anyhow. And perhaps he may

himself meet your wishes.”

“If you advise it I shall go.”

“That’s right. Well, and how does Petersburg agree with you?” shouted

Bogatyreff. “Tell me. Eh?”

“I feel myself getting hypnotised,” replied Nekhludoff.

“Hypnotised!” Bogatyreff repeated, and burst out laughing. “You won’t

have anything? Well, just as you please,” and he wiped his moustaches

with his napkin. “Then you’ll go? Eh? If he does not do it, give the

petition to me, and I shall hand it on to-morrow.” Shouting these words,

he rose, crossed himself just as naturally as he had wiped his mouth,

and began buckling on his sword.

“And now good-bye; I must go. We are both going out,” said Nekhludoff,

and shaking Bogatyreff’s strong, broad hand, and with the sense of

pleasure which the impression of something healthy and unconsciously

fresh always gave him, Nekhludoff parted from Bogatyreff on the

door-steps.

Though he expected no good result from his visit, still Nekhludoff,

following Bogatyreff’s advice, went to see Toporoff, on whom the

sectarians’ fate depended.

The position occupied by Toporoff, involving as it did an incongruity of

purpose, could only be held by a dull man devoid of moral sensibility.

Toporoff possessed both these negative qualities. The incongruity of the

position he occupied was this. It was his duty to keep up and to defend,

by external measures, not excluding violence, that Church which, by its

own declaration, was established by God Himself and could not be shaken

by the gates of hell nor by anything human. This divine and immutable

God-established institution had to be sustained and defended by a human

institution--the Holy Synod, managed by Toporoff and his officials.

Toporoff did not see this contradiction, nor did he wish to see it, and

he was therefore much concerned lest some Romish priest, some pastor, or

some sectarian should destroy that Church which the gates of hell could

not conquer.

Toporoff, like all those who are quite destitute of the fundamental

religious feeling that recognises the equality and brotherhood of men,

was fully convinced that the common people were creatures entirely

different from himself, and that the people needed what he could very

well do without, for at the bottom of his heart he believed in nothing,

and found such a state very convenient and pleasant. Yet he feared lest

the people might also come to such a state, and looked upon it as his

sacred duty, as he called it, to save the people therefrom.

A certain cookery book declares that some crabs like to be boiled alive.

In the same way he thought and spoke as if the people liked being kept

in superstition; only he meant this in a literal sense, whereas the

cookery book did not mean its words literally.

His feelings towards the religion he was keeping up were the same as

those of the poultry-keeper towards the carrion he fed his fowls on.

Carrion was very disgusting, but the fowls liked it; therefore it was

right to feed the fowls on carrion. Of course all this worship of the

images of the Iberian, Kasan and Smolensk Mothers of God was a gross

superstition, but the people liked it and believed in it, and therefore

the superstition must be kept up.

Thus thought Toporoff, not considering that the people only liked

superstition because there always have been, and still are, men like

himself who, being enlightened, instead of using their light to help

others to struggle out of their dark ignorance, use it to plunge them

still deeper into it.

When Nekhludoff entered the reception-room Toporoff was in his study

talking with an abbess, a lively and aristocratic lady, who was

spreading the Greek orthodox faith in Western Russia among the Uniates

(who acknowledge the Pope of Rome), and who have the Greek religion

enforced on them. An official who was in the reception-room inquired

what Nekhludoff wanted, and when he heard that Nekhludoff meant to

hand in a petition to the Emperor, he asked him if he would allow the

petition to be read first. Nekhludoff gave it him, and the official took

it into the study. The abbess, with her hood and flowing veil and her

long train trailing behind, left the study and went out, her white hands

(with their well-tended nails) holding a topaz rosary. Nekhludoff was

not immediately asked to come in. Toporoff was reading the petition

and shaking his head. He was unpleasantly surprised by the clear and

emphatic wording of it.

“If it gets into the hands of the Emperor it may cause

misunderstandings, and unpleasant questions may be asked,” he thought

as he read. Then he put the petition on the table, rang, and ordered

Nekhludoff to be asked in.

He remembered the case of the sectarians; he had had a petition from

them before. The case was this: These Christians, fallen away from the

Greek Orthodox Church, were first exhorted and then tried by law, but

were acquitted. Then the Archdeacon and the Governor arranged, on the

plea that their marriages were illegal, to exile these sectarians,

separating the husbands, wives, and children. These fathers and

wives were now petitioning that they should not be parted. Toporoff

recollected the first time the case came to his notice: he had at that

time hesitated whether he had not better put a stop to it. But then

he thought no harm could result from his confirming the decision to

separate and exile the different members of the sectarian families,

whereas allowing the peasant sect to remain where it was might have a

bad effect on the rest of the inhabitants of the place and cause them

to fall away from Orthodoxy. And then the affair also proved the zeal

of the Archdeacon, and so he let the case proceed along the lines it had

taken. But now that they had a defender such as Nekhludoff, who had some

influence in Petersburg, the case might be specially pointed out to the

Emperor as something cruel, or it might get into the foreign papers.

Therefore he at once took an unexpected decision.

“How do you do?” he said, with the air of a very busy man, receiving

Nekhludoff standing, and at once starting on the business. “I know

this case. As soon as I saw the names I recollected this unfortunate

business,” he said, taking up the petition and showing it to Nekhludoff.

“And I am much indebted to you for reminding me of it. It is the

over-zealousness of the provincial authorities.”

Nekhludoff stood silent, looking with no kindly feelings at the

immovable, pale mask of a face before him.

“And I shall give orders that these measures should be revoked and the

people reinstated in their homes.”

“So that I need not make use of this petition?”

“I promise you most assuredly,” answered Toporoff, laying a stress on

the word I, as if quite convinced that his honesty, his word was the

best guarantee. “It will be best if I write at once. Take a seat,

please.”

He went up to the table and began to write. As Nekhludoff sat down he

looked at the narrow, bald skull, at the fat, blue-veined hand that was

swiftly guiding the pen, and wondered why this evidently indifferent man

was doing what he did and why he was doing it with such care.

“Well, here you are,” said Toporoff, sealing the envelope; “you may let

your clients know,” and he stretched his lips to imitate a smile.

“Then what did these people suffer for?” Nekhludoff asked, as he took

the envelope.

Toporoff raised his head and smiled, as if Nekhludoff’s question gave

him pleasure. “That I cannot tell. All I can say is that the interests

of the people guarded by us are so important that too great a zeal

in matters of religion is not so dangerous or so harmful as the

indifference which is now spreading--”

“But how is it that in the name of religion the very first demands of

righteousness are violated--families are separated?”

Toporoff continued to smile patronisingly, evidently thinking what

Nekhludoff said very pretty. Anything that Nekhludoff could say he would

have considered very pretty and very one-sided, from the height of what

he considered his far-reaching office in the State.

“It may seem so from the point of view of a private individual,” he

said, “but from an administrative point of view it appears in a rather

different light. However, I must bid you good-bye, now,” said Toporoff,

bowing his head and holding out his hand, which Nekhludoff pressed.

“The interests of the people! Your interests is what you mean!” thought

Nekhludoff as he went out. And he ran over in his mind the people in

whom is manifested the activity of the institutions that uphold religion

and educate the people. He began with the woman punished for the

illicit sale of spirits, the boy for theft, the tramp for tramping, the

incendiary for setting a house on fire, the banker for fraud, and that

unfortunate Lydia Shoustova imprisoned only because they hoped to get

such information as they required from her. Then he thought of the

sectarians punished for violating Orthodoxy, and Gourkevitch for wanting

constitutional government, and Nekhludoff clearly saw that all these

people were arrested, locked up, exiled, not really because they

transgressed against justice or behaved unlawfully, but only because

they were an obstacle hindering the officials and the rich from enjoying

the property they had taken away from the people. And the woman who sold

wine without having a license, and the thief knocking about the town,

and Lydia Shoustova hiding proclamations, and the sectarians upsetting

superstitions, and Gourkevitch desiring a constitution, were a real

hindrance. It seemed perfectly clear to Nekhludoff that all these

officials, beginning with his aunt’s husband, the Senators, and

Toporoff, down to those clean and correct gentlemen who sat at the

tables in the Ministry Office, were not at all troubled by the fact that

that in such a state of things the innocent had to suffer, but were only

concerned how to get rid of the really dangerous, so that the rule

that ten guilty should escape rather than that one innocent should

be condemned was not observed, but, on the contrary, for the sake of

getting rid of one really dangerous person, ten who seemed dangerous

were punished, as, when cutting a rotten piece out of anything, one has

to cut away some that is good.

This explanation seemed very simple and clear to Nekhludoff; but its

very simplicity and clearness made him hesitate to accept it. Was it

possible that so complicated a phenomenon could have so simple and

terrible an explanation? Was it possible that all these words about

justice, law, religion, and God, and so on, were mere words, hiding the

coarsest cupidity and cruelty?

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE MEANING OF MARIETTE’S ATTRACTION.

Nekhludoff would have left Petersburg on the evening of the same day,

but he had promised Mariette to meet her at the theatre, and though he

knew that he ought not to keep that promise, he deceived himself into

the belief that it would not be right to break his word.

“Am I capable of withstanding these temptations?” he asked himself not

quite honestly. “I shall try for the last time.”

He dressed in his evening clothes, and arrived at the theatre during the

second act of the eternal Dame aux Camelias, in which a foreign actress

once again, and in a novel manner, showed how women die of consumption.

The theatre was quite full. Mariette’s box was at once, and with great

deference, shown to Nekhludoff at his request. A liveried servant stood

in the corridor outside; he bowed to Nekhludoff as to one whom he knew,

and opened the door of the box.

All the people who sat and stood in the boxes on the opposite side,

those who sat near and those who were in the parterre, with their grey,

grizzly, bald, or curly heads--all were absorbed in watching the thin,

bony actress who, dressed in silks and laces, was wriggling before them,

and speaking in an unnatural voice.

Some one called “Hush!” when the door opened, and two streams, one of

cool, the other of hot, air touched Nekhludoff’s face.

Mariette and a lady whom he did not know, with a red cape and a big,

heavy head-dress, were in the box, and two men also, Mariette’s

husband, the General, a tall, handsome man with a severe, inscrutable

countenance, a Roman nose, and a uniform padded round the chest, and a

fair man, with a bit of shaved chin between pompous whiskers.

Mariette, graceful, slight, elegant, her low-necked dress showing her

firm, shapely, slanting shoulders, with a little black mole where they

joined her neck, immediately turned, and pointed with her face to a

chair behind her in an engaging manner, and smiled a smile that seemed

full of meaning to Nekhludoff.

The husband looked at him in the quiet way in which he did everything,

and bowed. In the look he exchanged with his wife, the master, the owner

of a beautiful woman, was to be seen at once.

When the monologue was over the theatre resounded with the clapping of

hands. Mariette rose, and holding up her rustling silk skirt, went into

the back of the box and introduced Nekhludoff to her husband.

The General, without ceasing to smile with his eyes, said he was very

pleased, and then sat inscrutably silent.

“I ought to have left to-day, had I not promised,” said Nekhludoff to

Mariette.

“If you do not care to see me,” said Mariette, in answer to what his

words implied, “you will see a wonderful actress. Was she not splendid

in the last scene?” she asked, turning to her husband.

The husband bowed his head.

“This sort of thing does not touch me,” said Nekhludoff. “I have seen so

much real suffering lately that--”

“Yes, sit down and tell me.”

The husband listened, his eyes smiling more and more ironically. “I have

been to see that woman whom they have set free, and who has been kept in

prison for so long; she is quite broken down.”

“That is the woman I spoke to you about,” Mariette said to her husband.

“Oh, yes, I was very pleased that she could be set free,” said the

husband quietly, nodding and smiling under his moustache with evident

irony, so it seemed to Nekhludoff. “I shall go and have a smoke.”

Nekhludoff sat waiting to hear what the something was that Mariette had

to tell him. She said nothing, and did not even try to say anything, but

joked and spoke about the performance, which she thought ought to touch

Nekhludoff. Nekhludoff saw that she had nothing to tell, but only wished

to show herself to him in all the splendour of her evening toilet, with

her shoulders and little mole; and this was pleasant and yet repulsive

to him.

The charm that had veiled all this sort of thing from Nekhludoff was

not removed, but it was as if he could see what lay beneath. Looking at

Mariette, he admired her, and yet he knew that she was a liar, living

with a husband who was making his career by means of the tears and lives

of hundreds and hundreds of people, and that she was quite indifferent

about it, and that all she had said the day before was untrue. What she

wanted--neither he nor she knew why--was to make him fall in love with

her. This both attracted and disgusted him. Several times, on the point

of going away, he took up his hat, and then stayed on.

But at last, when the husband returned with a strong smell of tobacco

in his thick moustache, and looked at Nekhludoff with a patronising,

contemptuous air, as if not recognising him, Nekhludoff left the box

before the door was closed again, found his overcoat, and went out of

the theatre. As he was walking home along the Nevski, he could not help

noticing a well-shaped and aggressively finely-dressed woman, who was

quietly walking in front of him along the broad asphalt pavement. The

consciousness of her detestable power was noticeable in her face and

the whole of her figure. All who met or passed that woman looked at her.

Nekhludoff walked faster than she did and, involuntarily, also looked

her in the face. The face, which was probably painted, was handsome,

and the woman looked at him with a smile and her eyes sparkled. And,

curiously enough, Nekhludoff was suddenly reminded of Mariette, because

he again felt both attracted and disgusted just as when in the theatre.

Having hurriedly passed her, Nekhludoff turned off on to the Morskaya,

and passed on to the embankment, where, to the surprise of a policeman,

he began pacing up and down the pavement.

“The other one gave me just such a smile when I entered the theatre,” he

thought, “and the meaning of the smile was the same. The only difference

is, that this one said plainly, ‘If you want me, take me; if not, go

your way,’ and the other one pretended that she was not thinking of

this, but living in some high and refined state, while this was really

at the root. Besides, this one was driven to it by necessity, while

the other amused herself by playing with that enchanting, disgusting,

frightful passion. This woman of the street was like stagnant, smelling

water offered to those whose thirst was greater than their disgust; that

other one in the theatre was like the poison which, unnoticed, poisons

everything it gets into.”

Nekhludoff recalled his liaison with the Marechal’s wife, and shameful

memories rose before him.

“The animalism of the brute nature in man is disgusting,” thought he,

“but as long as it remains in its naked form we observe it from the

height of our spiritual life and despise it; and--whether one has

fallen or resisted--one remains what one was before. But when that

same animalism hides under a cloak of poetry and aesthetic feeling and

demands our worship--then we are swallowed up by it completely, and

worship animalism, no longer distinguishing good from evil. Then it is

awful.”

Nekhludoff perceived all this now as clearly as he saw the palace, the

sentinels, the fortress, the river, the boats, and the Stock Exchange.

And just as on this northern summer night there was no restful darkness

on the earth, but only a dismal, dull light coming from an invisible

source, so in Nekhludoff’s soul there was no longer the restful

darkness, ignorance. Everything seemed clear. It was clear that

everything considered important and good was insignificant and

repulsive, and that all the glamour and luxury hid the old, well-known

crimes, which not only remained unpunished but were adorned with all the

splendour which men were capable of inventing.

Nekhludoff wished to forget all this, not to see it, but he could no

longer help seeing it. Though he could not see the source of the light

which revealed it to him any more than he could see the source of the

light which lay over Petersburg; and though the light appeared to

him dull, dismal, and unnatural, yet he could not help seeing what it

revealed, and he felt both joyful and anxious.

CHAPTER XXIX.

FOR HER SAKE AND FOR GOD’S.

On his return to Moscow Nekhludoff went at once to the prison hospital

to bring Maslova the sad news that the Senate had confirmed the decision

of the Court, and that she must prepare to go to Siberia. He had little

hope of the success of his petition to the Emperor, which the advocate

had written for him, and which he now brought with him for Maslova to

sign. And, strange to say, he did not at present even wish to succeed;

he had got used to the thought of going to Siberia and living among the

exiled and the convicts, and he could not easily picture to himself how

his life and Maslova’s would shape if she were acquitted. He remembered

the thought of the American writer, Thoreau, who at the time when

slavery existed in America said that “under a government that

imprisons any unjustly the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

Nekhludoff, especially after his visit to Petersburg and all he

discovered there, thought in the same way.

“Yes, the only place befitting an honest man in Russia at the present

time is a prison,” he thought, and even felt that this applied to him

personally, when he drove up to the prison and entered its walls.

The doorkeeper recognised Nekhludoff, and told him at once that Maslova

was no longer there.

“Where is she, then?”

“In the cell again.”

“Why has she been removed?” Nekhludoff asked.

“Oh, your excellency, what are such people?” said the doorkeeper,

contemptuously. “She’s been carrying on with the medical assistant, so

the head doctor ordered her back.”

Nekhludoff had had no idea how near Maslova and the state of her mind

were to him. He was stunned by the news.

He felt as one feels at the news of a great and unforeseen misfortune,

and his pain was very severe. His first feeling was one of shame. He,

with his joyful idea of the change that he imagined was going on in her

soul, now seemed ridiculous in his own eyes. He thought that all her

pretence of not wishing to accept his sacrifice, all the reproaches and

tears, were only the devices of a depraved woman, who wished to use

him to the best advantage. He seemed to remember having seen signs of

obduracy at his last interview with her. All this flashed through his

mind as he instinctively put on his hat and left the hospital.

“What am I to do now? Am I still bound to her? Has this action of hers

not set me free?” And as he put these questions to himself he knew at

once that if he considered himself free, and threw her up, he would be

punishing himself, and not her, which was what he wished to do, and he

was seized with fear.

“No, what has happened cannot alter--it can only strengthen my resolve.

Let her do what flows from the state her mind is in. If it is carrying

on with the medical assistant, let her carry on with the medical

assistant; that is her business. I must do what my conscience demands of

me. And my conscience expects me to sacrifice my freedom. My resolution

to marry her, if only in form, and to follow wherever she may be sent,

remains unalterable.” Nekhludoff said all this to himself with vicious

obstinacy as he left the hospital and walked with resolute steps towards

the big gates of the prison. He asked the warder on duty at the gate

to inform the inspector that he wished to see Maslova. The warder knew

Nekhludoff, and told him of an important change that had taken place

in the prison. The old inspector had been discharged, and a new, very

severe official appointed in his place.

“They are so strict nowadays, it’s just awful,” said the jailer. “He is

in here; they will let him know directly.”

The new inspector was in the prison and soon came to Nekhludoff. He was

a tall, angular man, with high cheek bones, morose, and very slow in his

movements.

“Interviews are allowed in the visiting room on the appointed days,” he

said, without looking at Nekhludoff.

“But I have a petition to the Emperor, which I want signed.”

“You can give it to me.”

“I must see the prisoner myself. I was always allowed to before.”

“That was so, before,” said the inspector, with a furtive glance at

Nekhludoff.

“I have a permission from the governor,” insisted Nekhludoff, and took

out his pocket-book.

“Allow me,” said the inspector, taking the paper from Nekhludoff with

his long, dry, white fingers, on the first of which was a gold ring,

still without looking him in the eyes. He read the paper slowly. “Step

into the office, please.”

This time the office was empty. The inspector sat down by the table

and began sorting some papers that lay on it, evidently intending to be

present at the interview.

When Nekhludoff asked whether he might see the political prisoner,

Doukhova, the inspector answered, shortly, that he could not.

“Interviews with political prisoners are not permitted,” he said, and

again fixed his attention on his papers. With a letter to Doukhova in

his pocket, Nekhludoff felt as if he had committed some offence, and his

plans had been discovered and frustrated.

When Maslova entered the room the inspector raised his head, and,

without looking at either her or Nekhludoff, remarked: “You may talk,”

and went on sorting his papers. Maslova had again the white jacket,

petticoat and kerchief on. When she came up to Nekhludoff and saw his

cold, hard look, she blushed scarlet, and crumbling the hem of her

jacket with her hand, she cast down her eyes. Her confusion, so it

seemed to Nekhludoff, confirmed the hospital doorkeeper’s words.

Nekhludoff had meant to treat her in the same way as before, but could

not bring himself to shake hands with her, so disgusting was she to him

now.

“I have brought you bad news,” he said, in a monotonous voice, without

looking at her or taking her hand. “The Senate has refused.”

“I knew it would,” she said, in a strange tone, as if she were gasping

for breath.

Formerly Nekhludoff would have asked why she said she knew it would;

now he only looked at her. Her eyes were full of tears. But this did not

soften him; it roused his irritation against her even more.

The inspector rose and began pacing up and down the room.

In spite of the disgust Nekhludoff was feeling at the moment, he

considered it right to express his regret at the Senate’s decision.

“You must not despair,” he said. “The petition to the Emperor may meet

with success, and I hope---”

“I’m not thinking of that,” she said, looking piteously at him with her

wet, squinting eyes.

“What is it, then?”

“You have been to the hospital, and they have most likely told you about

me--”

“What of that? That is your affair,” said Nekhludoff coldly, and

frowned. The cruel feeling of wounded pride that had quieted down rose

with renewed force when she mentioned the hospital.

“He, a man of the world, whom any girl of the best families would think

it happiness to marry, offered himself as a husband to this woman,

and she could not even wait, but began intriguing with the medical

assistant,” thought he, with a look of hatred.

“Here, sign this petition,” he said, taking a large envelope from his

pocket, and laying the paper on the table. She wiped the tears with a

corner of her kerchief, and asked what to write and where.

He showed her, and she sat down and arranged the cuff of her right

sleeve with her left hand; he stood behind her, and silently looked

at her back, which shook with suppressed emotion, and evil and good

feelings were fighting in his breast--feelings of wounded pride and of

pity for her who was suffering--and the last feeling was victorious.

He could not remember which came first; did the pity for her first enter

his heart, or did he first remember his own sins--his own repulsive

actions, the very same for which he was condemning her? Anyhow, he both

felt himself guilty and pitied her.

Having signed the petition and wiped her inky finger on her petticoat,

she got up and looked at him.

“Whatever happens, whatever comes of it, my resolve remains unchanged,”

said Nekhludoff. The thought that he had forgiven her heightened his

feeling of pity and tenderness for her, and he wished to comfort her. “I

will do what I have said; wherever they take you I shall be with you.”

“What’s the use?” she interrupted hurriedly, though her whole face

lighted up.

“Think what you will want on the way--”

“I don’t know of anything in particular, thank you.”

The inspector came up, and without waiting for a remark from him

Nekhludoff took leave, and went out with peace, joy, and love towards

everybody in his heart such as he had never felt before. The certainty

that no action of Maslova could change his love for her filled him with

joy and raised him to a level which he had never before attained. Let

her intrigue with the medical assistant; that was her business. He loved

her not for his own but for her sake and for God’s.

And this intrigue, for which Maslova was turned out of the hospital,

and of which Nekhludoff believed she was really guilty, consisted of the

following:

Maslova was sent by the head nurse to get some herb tea from the

dispensary at the end of the corridor, and there, all alone, she found

the medical assistant, a tall man, with a blotchy face, who had for a

long time been bothering her. In trying to get away from him Maslova

gave him such a push that he knocked his head against a shelf, from

which two bottles fell and broke. The head doctor, who was passing at

that moment, heard the sound of breaking glass, and saw Maslova run out,

quite red, and shouted to her:

“Ah, my good woman, if you start intriguing here, I’ll send you about

your business. What is the meaning of it?” he went on, addressing the

medical assistant, and looking at him over his spectacles.

The assistant smiled, and began to justify himself. The doctor gave no

heed to him, but, lifting his head so that he now looked through his

spectacles, he entered the ward. He told the inspector the same day to

send another more sedate assistant-nurse in Maslova’s place. And this

was her “intrigue” with the medical assistant.

Being turned out for a love intrigue was particularly painful to

Maslova, because the relations with men, which had long been repulsive

to her, had become specially disgusting after meeting Nekhludoff. The

thought that, judging her by her past and present position, every man,

the blotchy assistant among them, considered he had a right to offend

her, and was surprised at her refusal, hurt her deeply, and made her

pity herself and brought tears to her eyes.

When she went out to Nekhludoff this time she wished to clear herself of

the false charge which she knew he would certainly have heard about. But

when she began to justify herself she felt he did not believe her, and

that her excuses would only strengthen his suspicions; tears choked her,

and she was silent.

Maslova still thought and continued to persuade herself that she had

never forgiven him, and hated him, as she told him at their second

interview, but in reality she loved him again, and loved him so that she

did all he wished her to do; left off drinking, smoking, coquetting, and

entered the hospital because she knew he wished it. And if every time he

reminded her of it, she refused so decidedly to accept his sacrifice and

marry him, it was because she liked repeating the proud words she had

once uttered, and because she knew that a marriage with her would be a

misfortune for him.

She had resolutely made up her mind that she would not accept his

sacrifice, and yet the thought that he despised her and believed that

she still was what she had been, and did not notice the change that had

taken place in her, was very painful. That he could still think she had

done wrong while in the hospital tormented her more than the news that

her sentence was confirmed.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE ASTONISHING INSTITUTION CALLED CRIMINAL LAW.

Maslova might be sent off with the first gang of prisoners, therefore

Nekhludoff got ready for his departure. But there was so much to be done

that he felt that he could not finish it, however much time he might

have. It was quite different now from what it had been. Formerly he used

to be obliged to look for an occupation, the interest of which always

centred in one person, i.e., Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff, and

yet, though every interest of his life was thus centred, all these

occupations were very wearisome. Now all his occupations related to

other people and not to Dmitri Ivanovitch, and they were all interesting

and attractive, and there was no end to them. Nor was this all. Formerly

Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff’s occupations always made him feel vexed

and irritable; now they produced a joyful state of mind. The business at

present occupying Nekhludoff could be divided under three headings.

He himself, with his usual pedantry, divided it in that way, and

accordingly kept the papers referring to it in three different

portfolios. The first referred to Maslova, and was chiefly that of

taking steps to get her petition to the Emperor attended to, and

preparing for her probable journey to Siberia.

The second was about his estates. In Panovo he had given the land to

the peasants on condition of their paying rent to be put to their own

communal use. But he had to confirm this transaction by a legal deed,

and to make his will, in accordance with it. In Kousminski the state of

things was still as he had first arranged it, i.e., he was to receive

the rent; but the terms had to be fixed, and also how much of the money

he would use to live on, and how much he would leave for the peasants’

use. As he did not know what his journey to Siberia would cost him, he

could not decide to lose this revenue altogether, though he reduced the

income from it by half.

The third part of his business was to help the convicts, who applied

more and more often to him. At first when he came in contact with

the prisoners, and they appealed to him for help, he at once began

interceding for them, hoping to lighten their fate, but he soon had so

many applications that he felt the impossibility of attending to all of

them, and that naturally led him to take up another piece of work, which

at last roused his interest even more than the three first. This new

part of his business was finding an answer to the following questions:

What was this astonishing institution called criminal law, of which the

results were that in the prison, with some of the inmates of which

he had lately become acquainted, and in all those other places of

confinement, from the Peter and Paul Fortress in Petersburg to the

island of Sakhalin, hundreds and thousands of victims were pining? What

did this strange criminal law exist for? How had it originated?

From his personal relations with the prisoners, from notes by some of

those in confinement, and by questioning the advocate and the prison

priest, Nekhludoff came to the conclusion that the convicts, the

so-called criminals, could be divided into five classes. The first were

quite innocent people, condemned by judicial blunder. Such were the

Menshoffs, supposed to be incendiaries, Maslova, and others. There

were not many of these; according to the priest’s words, only seven per

cent., but their condition excited particular interest.

To the second class belong persons condemned for actions done under

peculiar circumstances, i.e., in a fit of passion, jealousy, or

drunkenness, circumstances under which those who judged them would

surely have committed the same actions.

The third class consisted of people punished for having committed

actions which, according to their understanding, were quite natural,

and even good, but which those other people, the men who made the laws,

considered to be crimes. Such were the persons who sold spirits without

a license, smugglers, those who gathered grass and wood on large estates

and in the forests belonging to the Crown; the thieving miners; and

those unbelieving people who robbed churches.

To the fourth class belonged those who were imprisoned only because they

stood morally higher than the average level of society. Such were the

Sectarians, the Poles, the Circassians rebelling in order to regain

their independence, the political prisoners, the Socialists, the

strikers condemned for withstanding the authorities. There was,

according to Nekhludoff’s observations, a very large percentage

belonging to this class; among them some of the best of men.

The fifth class consisted of persons who had been far more sinned

against by society than they had sinned against it. These were

castaways, stupefied by continual oppression and temptation, such as the

boy who had stolen the rugs, and hundreds of others whom Nekhludoff had

seen in the prison and out of it. The conditions under which they lived

seemed to lead on systematically to those actions which are termed

crimes. A great many thieves and murderers with whom he had lately come

in contact, according to Nekhludoff’s estimate, belonged to this class.

To this class Nekhludoff also reckoned those depraved, demoralised

creatures whom the new school of criminology classify as the criminal

type, and the existence of which is considered to be the chief proof

of the necessity of criminal law and punishment. This demoralised,

depraved, abnormal type was, according to Nekhludoff, exactly the same

as that against whom society had sinned, only here society had sinned

not directly against them, but against their parents and forefathers.

Among this latter class Nekhludoff was specially struck by one Okhotin,

an inveterate thief, the illegitimate son of a prostitute, brought up

in a doss-house, who, up to the age of 30, had apparently never met with

any one whose morality was above that of a policeman, and who had

got into a band of thieves when quite young. He was gifted with an

extraordinary sense of humour, by means of which he made himself very

attractive. He asked Nekhludoff for protection, at the same time making

fun of himself, the lawyers, the prison, and laws human and divine.

Another was the handsome Fedoroff, who, with a band of robbers, of

whom he was the chief, had robbed and murdered an old man, an official.

Fedoroff was a peasant, whose father had been unlawfully deprived of his

house, and who, later on, when serving as a soldier, had suffered much

because he had fallen in love with an officer’s mistress. He had a

fascinating, passionate nature, that longed for enjoyment at any cost.

He had never met anybody who restrained himself for any cause whatever,

and had never heard a word about any aim in life other than enjoyment.

Nekhludoff distinctly saw that both these men were richly endowed by

nature, but had been neglected and crippled like uncared-for plants.

He had also met a tramp and a woman who had repelled him by their

dulness and seeming cruelty, but even in them he could find no trace of

the criminal type written about by the Italian school, but only saw in

them people who were repulsive to him personally, just in the same way

as some he had met outside the prison, in swallow-tail coats wearing

epaulettes, or bedecked with lace. And so the investigation of the

reasons why all these very different persons were put in prison, while

others just like them were going about free and even judging them,

formed a fourth task for Nekhludoff.

He hoped to find an answer to this question in books, and bought all

that referred to it. He got the works of Lombroso, Garofalo, Ferry,

List, Maudsley, Tard, and read them carefully. But as he read he became

more and more disappointed. It happened to him as it always happens

to those who turn to science not in order to play a part in it, nor

to write, nor to dispute, nor to teach, but simply for an answer to an

every-day question of life. Science answered thousands of different very

subtle and ingenious questions touching criminal law, but not the one

he was trying to solve. He asked a very simple question: “Why, and

with what right, do some people lock up, torment, exile, flog, and kill

others, while they are themselves just like those whom they torment,

flog, and kill?” And in answer he got deliberations as to whether human

beings had free will or not. Whether signs of criminality could be

detected by measuring the skulls or not. What part heredity played in

crime. Whether immorality could be inherited. What madness is, what

degeneration is, and what temperament is. How climate, food, ignorance,

imitativeness, hypnotism, or passion act. What society is. What are its

duties, etc., etc.

These disquisitions reminded him of the answer he once got from a little

boy whom he met coming home from school. Nekhludoff asked him if he had

learned his spelling.

“I have,” answered the boy.

“Well, then, tell me, how do you spell ‘leg’?”

“A dog’s leg, or what kind of leg?” the boy answered, with a sly look.

Answers in the form of new questions, like the boy’s, was all Nekhludoff

got in reply to his one primary question. He found much that was clever,

learned much that was interesting, but what he did not find was an

answer to the principal question: By what right some people punish

others?

Not only did he not find any answer, but all the arguments were brought

forward in order to explain and vindicate punishment, the necessity of

which was taken as an axiom.

Nekhludoff read much, but only in snatches, and putting down his failure

to this superficial way of reading, hoped to find the answer later on.

He would not allow himself to believe in the truth of the answer which

began, more and more often, to present itself to him.

CHAPTER XXXI.

NEKHLUDOFF’S SISTER AND HER HUSBAND.

The gang of prisoners, with Maslova among them, was to start on the 5th

July. Nekhludoff arranged to start on the same day.

The day before, Nekhludoff’s sister and her husband came to town to see

him.

Nekhludoff’s sister, Nathalie Ivanovna Rogozhinsky, was 10 years older

than her brother. She had been very fond of him when he was a boy, and

later on, just before her marriage, they grew very close to each other,

as if they were equals, she being a young woman of 25, he a lad of 15.

At that time she was in love with his friend, Nikolenka Irtenieff, since

dead. They both loved Nikolenka, and loved in him and in themselves that

which is good, and which unites all men. Since then they had both been

depraved, he by military service and a vicious life, she by marriage

with a man whom she loved with a sensual love, who did not care for the

things that had once been so dear and holy to her and to her brother,

nor even understand the meaning of those aspirations towards moral

perfection and the service of mankind, which once constituted her life,

and put them down to ambition and the wish to show off; that being the

only explanation comprehensible to him.

Nathalie’s husband had been a man without a name and without means, but

cleverly steering towards Liberalism or Conservatism, according to which

best suited his purpose, he managed to make a comparatively brilliant

judicial career. Some peculiarity which made him attractive to women

assisted him when he was no longer in his first youth. While travelling

abroad he made Nekhludoff’s acquaintance, and managed to make Nathalie,

who was also no longer a girl, fall in love with him, rather against her

mother’s wishes who considered a marriage with him to be a misalliance

for her daughter. Nekhludoff, though he tried to hide it from himself,

though he fought against it, hated his brother-in-law.

Nekhludoff had a strong antipathy towards him because of the vulgarity

of his feelings, his assurance and narrowness, but chiefly because of

Nathalie, who managed to love him in spite of the narrowness of his

nature, and loved him so selfishly, so sensually, and stifled for his

sake all the good that had been in her.

It always hurt Nekhludoff to think of Nathalie as the wife of that

hairy, self-assured man with the shiny, bald patch on his head. He could

not even master a feeling of revulsion towards their children, and when

he heard that she was again going to have a baby, he felt something like

sorrow that she had once more been infected with something bad by this

man who was so foreign to him. The Rogozhinskys had come to Moscow

alone, having left their two children--a boy and a girl--at home, and

stopped in the best rooms of the best hotel. Nathalie at once went to

her mother’s old house, but hearing from Agraphena Petrovna that her

brother had left, and was living in a lodging-house, she drove there.

The dirty servant met her in the stuffy passage, dark but for a lamp

which burnt there all day. He told her that the Prince was not in.

Nathalie asked to be shown into his rooms, as she wished to leave a note

for him, and the man took her up.

Nathalie carefully examined her brother’s two little rooms. She noticed

in everything the love of cleanliness and order she knew so well in

him, and was struck by the novel simplicity of the surroundings. On his

writing-table she saw the paper-weight with the bronze dog on the top

which she remembered; the tidy way in which his different portfolios and

writing utensils were placed on the table was also familiar, and so was

the large, crooked ivory paper knife which marked the place in a French

book by Tard, which lay with other volumes on punishment and a book

in English by Henry George. She sat down at the table and wrote a note

asking him to be sure to come that same day, and shaking her head in

surprise at what she saw, she returned to her hotel.

Two questions regarding her brother now interested Nathalie: his

marriage with Katusha, which she had heard spoken about in their

town--for everybody was speaking about it--and his giving away the land

to the peasants, which was also known, and struck many as something of

a political nature, and dangerous. The marriage with Katusha pleased

her in a way. She admired that resoluteness which was so like him and

herself as they used to be in those happy times before her marriage. And

yet she was horrified when she thought her brother was going to marry

such a dreadful woman. The latter was the stronger feeling of the two,

and she decided to use all her influence to prevent him from doing it,

though she knew how difficult this would be.

The other matter, the giving up of the land to the peasants, did not

touch her so nearly, but her husband was very indignant about it, and

expected her to influence her brother against it.

Rogozhinsky said that such an action was the height of inconsistency,

flightiness, and pride, the only possible explanation of which was the

desire to appear original, to brag, to make one’s self talked about.

“What sense could there be in letting the land to the peasants, on

condition that they pay the rent to themselves?” he said. “If he was

resolved to do such a thing, why not sell the land to them through the

Peasants’ Bank? There might have been some sense in that. In fact, this

act verges on insanity.”

And Rogozhinsky began seriously thinking about putting Nekhludoff under

guardianship, and demanded of his wife that she should speak seriously

to her brother about his curious intention.

CHAPTER XXXII.

NEKHLUDOFF’S ANARCHISM.

As soon as Nekhludoff returned that evening and saw his sister’s note

on the table he started to go and see her. He found Nathalie alone,

her husband having gone to take a rest in the next room. She wore a

tightly-fitting black silk dress, with a red bow in front. Her black

hair was crimped and arranged according to the latest fashion.

The pains she took to appear young, for the sake of her husband, whose

equal she was in years, were very obvious.

When she saw her brother she jumped up and hurried towards him, with her

silk dress rustling. They kissed, and looked smilingly at each other.

There passed between them that mysterious exchange of looks, full of

meaning, in which all was true, and which cannot be expressed in words.

Then came words which were not true. They had not met since their

mother’s death.

“You have grown stouter and younger,” he said, and her lips puckered up

with pleasure.

“And you have grown thinner.”

“Well, and how is your husband?” Nekhludoff asked.

“He is taking a rest; he did not sleep all night.” There was much to

say, but it was not said in words; only their looks expressed what their

words failed to say.

“I went to see you.”

“Yes, I know. I moved because the house is too big for me. I was lonely

there, and dull. I want nothing of all that is there, so that you had

better take it all--the furniture, I mean, and things.”

“Yes, Agraphena Petrovna told me. I went there. Thanks, very much.

But--”

At this moment the hotel waiter brought in a silver tea-set. While he

set the table they were silent. Then Nathalie sat down at the table and

made the tea, still in silence. Nekhludoff also said nothing.

At last Nathalie began resolutely. “Well, Dmitri, I know all about it.”

And she looked at him.

“What of that? l am glad you know.”

“How can you hope to reform her after the life she has led?” she asked.

He sat quite straight on a small chair, and listened attentively, trying

to understand her and to answer rightly. The state of mind called forth

in him by his last interview with Maslova still filled his soul with

quiet joy and good will to all men.

“It is not her but myself I wish to reform,” he replied.

Nathalie sighed.

“There are other means besides marriage to do that.”

“But I think it is the best. Besides, it leads me into that world in

which I can be of use.”

“I cannot believe you will be happy,” said Nathalie.

“It’s not my happiness that is the point.”

“Of course, but if she has a heart she cannot be happy--cannot even wish

it.”

“She does not wish it.”

“I understand; but life--”

“Yes--life?”

“Demands something different.”

“It demands nothing but that we should do what is right,” said

Nekhludoff, looking into her face, still handsome, though slightly

wrinkled round eyes and mouth.

“I do not understand,” she said, and sighed.

“Poor darling; how could she change so?” he thought, calling back to his

mind Nathalie as she had been before her marriage, and feeling towards

her a tenderness woven out of innumerable memories of childhood. At that

moment Rogozhinsky entered the room, with head thrown back and expanded

chest, and stepping lightly and softly in his usual manner, his

spectacles, his bald patch, and his black beard all glistening.

“How do you do? How do you do?” he said, laying an unnatural and

intentional stress on his words. (Though, soon after the marriage,

they had tried to be more familiar with each other, they had never

succeeded.)

They shook hands, and Rogozhinsky sank softly into an easy-chair.

“Am I not interrupting your conversation?”

“No, I do not wish to hide what I am saying or doing from any one.”

As soon as Nekhludoff saw the hairy hands, and heard the patronising,

self-assured tones, his meekness left him in a moment.

“Yes, we were talking about his intentions,” said Nathalie. “Shall I

give you a cup of tea?” she added, taking the teapot.

“Yes, please. What particular intentions do you mean?”

“That of going to Siberia with the gang of prisoners, among whom is the

woman I consider myself to have wronged,” uttered Nekhludoff.

“I hear not only to accompany her, but more than that.”

“Yes, and to marry her if she wishes it.”

“Dear me! But if you do not object I should like to ask you to explain

your motives. I do not understand them.”

“My motives are that this woman--that this woman’s first step on her way

to degradation--” Nekhludoff got angry with himself, and was unable to

find the right expression. “My motives are that I am the guilty one, and

she gets the punishment.”

“If she is being punished she cannot be innocent, either.”

“She is quite innocent.” And Nekhludoff related the whole incident with

unnecessary warmth.

“Yes, that was a case of carelessness on the part of the president, the

result of which was a thoughtless answer on the part of the jury; but

there is the Senate for cases like that.”

“The Senate has rejected the appeal.”

“Well, if the Senate has rejected it, there cannot have been sufficient

reasons for an appeal,” said Rogozhinsky, evidently sharing the

prevailing opinion that truth is the product of judicial decrees. “The

Senate cannot enter into the question on its merits. If there is a real

mistake, the Emperor should be petitioned.”

“That has been done, but there is no probability of success. They will

apply to the Department of the Ministry, the Department will consult the

Senate, the Senate will repeat its decision, and, as usual, the innocent

will get punished.”

“In the first place, the Department of the Ministry won’t consult the

Senate,” said Rogozhinsky, with a condescending smile; “it will give

orders for the original deeds to be sent from the Law Court, and if

it discovers a mistake it will decide accordingly. And, secondly, the

innocent are never punished, or at least in very rare, exceptional

cases. It is the guilty who are punished,” Rogozhinsky said

deliberately, and smiled self-complacently.

“And I have become fully convinced that most of those condemned by law

are innocent.”

“How’s that?”

“Innocent in the literal sense. Just as this woman is innocent of

poisoning any one; as innocent as a peasant I have just come to know, of

the murder he never committed; as a mother and son who were on the point

of being condemned for incendiarism, which was committed by the owner of

the house that was set on fire.”

“Well, of course there always have been and always will be judicial

errors. Human institutions cannot be perfect.”

“And, besides, there are a great many people convicted who are innocent

of doing anything considered wrong by the society they have grown up

in.”

“Excuse me, this is not so; every thief knows that stealing is wrong,

and that we should not steal; that it is immoral,” said Rogozhinsky,

with his quiet, self-assured, slightly contemptuous smile, which

specially irritated Nekhludoff.

“No, he does not know it; they say to him ‘don’t steal,’ and he knows

that the master of the factory steals his labour by keeping back his

wages; that the Government, with its officials, robs him continually by

taxation.”

“Why, this is anarchism,” Rogozhinsky said, quietly defining his

brother-in-law’s words.

“I don’t know what it is; I am only telling you the truth,” Nekhludoff

continued. “He knows that the Government is robbing him, knows that we

landed proprietors have robbed him long since, robbed him of the land

which should be the common property of all, and then, if he picks up dry

wood to light his fire on that land stolen from him, we put him in jail,

and try to persuade him that he is a thief. Of course he knows that not

he but those who robbed him of the land are thieves, and that to get any

restitution of what has been robbed is his duty towards his family.”

“I don’t understand, or if I do I cannot agree with it. The land must

be somebody’s property,” began Rogozhinsky quietly, and, convinced that

Nekhludoff was a Socialist, and that Socialism demands that all the land

should be divided equally, that such a division would be very foolish,

and that he could easily prove it to be so, he said. “If you divided

it equally to-day, it would to-morrow be again in the hands of the most

industrious and clever.”

“Nobody is thinking of dividing the land equally. The land must not

be anybody’s property; must not be a thing to be bought and sold or

rented.”

“The rights of property are inborn in man; without them the cultivation

of land would present no interest. Destroy the rights of property and

we lapse into barbarism.” Rogozhinsky uttered this authoritatively,

repeating the usual argument in favour of private ownership of land

which is supposed to be irrefutable, based on the assumption that

people’s desire to possess land proves that they need it.

“On the contrary, only when the land is nobody’s property will it cease

to lie idle, as it does now, while the landlords, like dogs in the

manger, unable themselves to put it to use, will not let those use it

who are able.”

“But, Dmitri Ivanovitch, what you are saying is sheer madness. Is it

possible to abolish property in land in our age? I know it is your old

hobby. But allow me to tell you straight,” and Rogozhinsky grew pale,

and his voice trembled. It was evident that this question touched him

very nearly. “I should advise you to consider this question well before

attempting to solve it practically.”

“Are you speaking of my personal affairs?”

“Yes, I hold that we who are placed in special circumstances should

bear the responsibilities which spring from those circumstances, should

uphold the conditions in which we were born, and which we have

inherited from our predecessors, and which we ought to pass on to our

descendants.”

“I consider it my duty--”

“Wait a bit,” said Rogozhinsky, not permitting the interruption. “I am

not speaking for myself or my children. The position of my children is

assured, and I earn enough for us to live comfortably, and I expect my

children will live so too, so that my interest in your action--which,

if you will allow me to say so, is not well considered--is not based

on personal motives; it is on principle that I cannot agree with you. I

should advise you to think it well over, to read---?”

“Please allow me to settle my affairs, and to choose what to read and

what not to read, myself,” said Nekhludoff, turning pale. Feeling

his hands grow cold, and that he was no longer master of himself, he

stopped, and began drinking his tea.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE AIM OF THE LAW.

“Well, and how are the children?” Nekhludoff asked his sister when he

was calmer. The sister told him about the children. She said they were

staying with their grandmother (their father’s mother), and, pleased

that his dispute with her husband had come to an end, she began telling

him how her children played that they were travelling, just as he used

to do with his three dolls, one of them a negro and another which he

called the French lady.

“Can you really remember it all?” said Nekhludoff, smiling.

“Yes, and just fancy, they play in the very same way.”

The unpleasant conversation had been brought to an end, and Nathalie was

quieter, but she did not care to talk in her husband’s presence of what

could be comprehensible only to her brother, so, wishing to start a

general conversation, she began talking about the sorrow of Kamenski’s

mother at losing her only son, who had fallen in a duel, for this

Petersburg topic of the day had now reached Moscow. Rogozhinsky

expressed disapproval at the state of things that excluded murder in a

duel from the ordinary criminal offences. This remark evoked a rejoinder

from Nekhludoff, and a new dispute arose on the subject. Nothing was

fully explained, neither of the antagonists expressed all he had in

his mind, each keeping to his conviction, which condemned the other.

Rogozhinsky felt that Nekhludoff condemned him and despised his

activity, and he wished to show him the injustice of his opinions.

Nekhludoff, on the other hand, felt provoked by his brother-in-law’s

interference in his affairs concerning the land. And knowing in his

heart of hearts that his sister, her husband, and their children, as his

heirs, had a right to do so, was indignant that this narrow-minded

man persisted with calm assurance to regard as just and lawful what

Nekhludoff no longer doubted was folly and crime.

This man’s arrogance annoyed Nekhludoff.

“What could the law do?” he asked.

“It could sentence one of the two duellists to the mines like an

ordinary murderer.”

Nekhludoff’s hands grew cold.

“Well, and what good would that be?” he asked, hotly.

“It would be just.”

“As if justice were the aim of the law,” said Nekhludoff.

“What else?”

“The upholding of class interests! I think the law is only an instrument

for upholding the existing order of things beneficial to our class.”

“This is a perfectly new view,” said Rogozhinsky with a quiet smile;

“the law is generally supposed to have a totally different aim.”

“Yes, so it has in theory but not in practice, as I have found out. The

law aims only at preserving the present state of things, and therefore

it persecutes and executes those who stand above the ordinary level and

wish to raise it--the so-called political prisoners, as well as those

who are below the average--the so-called criminal types.”

“I do not agree with you. In the first place, I cannot admit that the

criminals classed as political are punished because they are above the

average. In most cases they are the refuse of society, just as much

perverted, though in a different way, as the criminal types whom you

consider below the average.”

“But I happen to know men who are morally far above their judges; all

the sectarians are moral, from--”

But Rogozhinsky, a man not accustomed to be interrupted when he spoke,

did not listen to Nekhludoff, but went on talking at the same time,

thereby irritating him still more.

“Nor can I admit that the object of the law is the upholding of the

present state of things. The law aims at reforming--”

“A nice kind of reform, in a prison!” Nekhludoff put in.

“Or removing,” Rogozhinsky went on, persistently, “the perverted and

brutalised persons that threaten society.”

“That’s just what it doesn’t do. Society has not the means of doing

either the one thing or the other.”

“How is that? I don’t understand,” said Rogozhinsky with a forced smile.

“I mean that only two reasonable kinds of punishment exist. Those used

in the old days: corporal and capital punishment, which, as human nature

gradually softens, come more and more into disuse,” said Nekhludoff.

“There, now, this is quite new and very strange to hear from your lips.”

“Yes, it is reasonable to hurt a man so that he should not do in future

what he is hurt for doing, and it is also quite reasonable to cut a

man’s head off when he is injurious or dangerous to society. These

punishments have a reasonable meaning. But what sense is there in

locking up in a prison a man perverted by want of occupation and bad

example; to place him in a position where he is provided for, where

laziness is imposed on him, and where he is in company with the most

perverted of men? What reason is there to take a man at public cost (it

comes to more than 500 roubles per head) from the Toula to the Irkoatsk

government, or from Koursk--”

“Yes, but all the same, people are afraid of those journeys at public

cost, and if it were not for such journeys and the prisons, you and I

would not be sitting here as we are.”

“The prisons cannot insure our safety, because these people do not

stay there for ever, but are set free again. On the contrary, in those

establishments men are brought to the greatest vice and degradation, so

that the danger is increased.”

“You mean to say that the penitentiary system should be improved.”

“It cannot be improved. Improved prisons would cost more than all that

is being now spent on the people’s education, and would lay a still

heavier burden on the people.”

“The shortcomings of the penitentiary system in nowise invalidate

the law itself,” Rogozhinsky continued again, without heeding his

brother-in-law.

“There is no remedy for these shortcomings,” said Nekhludoff, raising

his voice.

“What of that? Shall we therefore go and kill, or, as a certain

statesman proposed, go putting out people’s eyes?” Rogozhinsky remarked.

“Yes; that would be cruel, but it would be effective. What is done

now is cruel, and not only ineffective, but so stupid that one cannot

understand how people in their senses can take part in so absurd and

cruel a business as criminal law.”

“But I happen to take part in it,” said Rogozhinsky, growing pale.

“That is your business. But to me it is incomprehensible.”

“I think there are a good many things incomprehensible to you,” said

Rogozhinsky, with a trembling voice.

“I have seen how one public prosecutor did his very best to get an

unfortunate boy condemned, who could have evoked nothing but sympathy in

an unperverted mind. I know how another cross-examined a sectarian and

put down the reading of the Gospels as a criminal offence; in fact, the

whole business of the Law Courts consists in senseless and cruel actions

of that sort.”

“I should not serve if I thought so,” said Rogozhinsky, rising.

Nekhludoff noticed a peculiar glitter under his brother-in-law’s

spectacles. “Can it be tears?” he thought. And they were really tears

of injured pride. Rogozhinsky went up to the window, got out his

handkerchief, coughed and rubbed his spectacles, took them off, and

wiped his eyes.

When he returned to the sofa he lit a cigar, and did not speak any more.

Nekhludoff felt pained and ashamed of having offended his brother-in-law

and his sister to such a degree, especially as he was going away the

next day.

He parted with them in confusion, and drove home.

“All I have said may be true--anyhow he did not reply. But it was not

said in the right way. How little I must have changed if I could be

carried away by ill-feeling to such an extent as to hurt and wound poor

Nathalie in such a way!” he thought.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE PRISONERS START FOR SIBERIA.

The gang of prisoners, among whom was Maslova, was to leave Moscow by

rail at 3 p.m.; therefore, in order to see the gang start, and walk

to the station with the prisoners Nekhludoff meant to reach the prison

before 12 o’clock.

The night before, as he was packing up and sorting his papers, he came

upon his diary, and read some bits here and there. The last bit written

before he left for Petersburg ran thus: “Katusha does not wish to accept

my sacrifice; she wishes to make a sacrifice herself. She has conquered,

and so have I. She makes me happy by the inner change, which seems

to me, though I fear to believe it, to be going on in her. I fear to

believe it, yet she seems to be coming back to life.” Then further on

he read. “I have lived through something very hard and very joyful. I

learnt that she has behaved very badly in the hospital, and I suddenly

felt great pain. I never expected that it could be so painful. I spoke

to her with loathing and hatred, then all of a sudden I called to mind

how many times I have been, and even still am, though but in thought,

guilty of the thing that I hated her for, and immediately I became

disgusting to myself, and pitied her and felt happy again. If only we

could manage to see the beam in our own eye in time, how kind we

should be.” Then he wrote: “I have been to see Nathalie, and again

self-satisfaction made me unkind and spiteful, and a heavy feeling

remains. Well, what is to be done? Tomorrow a new life will begin. A

final good-bye to the old! Many new impressions have accumulated, but I

cannot yet bring them to unity.”

When he awoke the next morning Nekhludoff’s first feeling was regret

about the affair between him and his brother-in-law.

“I cannot go away like this,” he thought. “I must go and make it up with

them.” But when he looked at his watch he saw that he had not time to

go, but must hurry so as not to be too late for the departure of the

gang. He hastily got everything ready, and sent the things to the

station with a servant and Taras, Theodosia’s husband, who was going

with them. Then he took the first isvostchik he could find and drove off

to the prison.

The prisoners’ train started two hours before the train by which he was

going, so Nekhludoff paid his bill in the lodgings and left for good.

It was July, and the weather was unbearably hot. From the stones, the

walls, the iron of the roofs, which the sultry night had not cooled, the

heat streamed into the motionless air. When at rare intervals a slight

breeze did arise, it brought but a whiff of hot air filled with dust and

smelling of oil paint.

There were few people in the streets, and those who were out tried to

keep on the shady side. Only the sunburnt peasants, with their bronzed

faces and bark shoes on their feet, who were mending the road, sat

hammering the stones into the burning sand in the sun; while the

policemen, in their holland blouses, with revolvers fastened with

orange cords, stood melancholy and depressed in the middle of the road,

changing from foot to foot; and the tramcars, the horses of which wore

holland hoods on their heads, with slits for the ears, kept passing up

and down the sunny road with ringing bells.

When Nekhludoff drove up to the prison the gang had not left the yard.

The work of delivering and receiving the prisoners that had commenced

at 4 A.M. was still going on. The gang was to consist of 623 men and 64

women; they had all to be received according to the registry lists.

The sick and the weak to be sorted out, and all to be delivered to the

convoy. The new inspector, with two assistants, the doctor and medical

assistant, the officer of the convoy, and the clerk, were sitting in the

prison yard at a table covered with writing materials and papers, which

was placed in the shade of a wall. They called the prisoners one by one,

examined and questioned them, and took notes. The rays of the sun had

gradually reached the table, and it was growing very hot and oppressive

for want of air and because of the breathing crowd of prisoners that

stood close by.

“Good gracious, will this never come to an end!” the convoy officer,

a tall, fat, red-faced man with high shoulders, who kept puffing the

smoke, of his cigarette into his thick moustache, asked, as he drew in

a long puff. “You are killing me. From where have you got them all? Are

there many more?” the clerk inquired.

“Twenty-four men and the women.”

“What are you standing there for? Come on,” shouted the convoy officer

to the prisoners who had not yet passed the revision, and who stood

crowded one behind the other. The prisoners had been standing there more

than three hours, packed in rows in the full sunlight, waiting their

turns.

While this was going on in the prison yard, outside the gate, besides

the sentinel who stood there as usual with a gun, were drawn up about 20

carts, to carry the luggage of the prisoners and such prisoners as were

too weak to walk, and a group of relatives and friends waiting to see

the prisoners as they came out and to exchange a few words if a chance

presented itself and to give them a few things. Nekhludoff took his

place among the group. He had stood there about an hour when the

clanking of chains, the noise of footsteps, authoritative voices, the

sound of coughing, and the low murmur of a large crowd became audible.

This continued for about five minutes, during which several jailers went

in and out of the gateway. At last the word of command was given. The

gate opened with a thundering noise, the clattering of the chains became

louder, and the convoy soldiers, dressed in white blouses and carrying

guns, came out into the street and took their places in a large, exact

circle in front of the gate; this was evidently a usual, often-practised

manoeuvre. Then another command was given, and the prisoners began

coming out in couples, with flat, pancake-shaped caps on their shaved

heads and sacks over their shoulders, dragging their chained legs and

swinging one arm, while the other held up a sack.

First came the men condemned to hard labour, all dressed alike in grey

trousers and cloaks with marks on the back. All of them--young and old,

thin and fat, pale and red, dark and bearded and beardless, Russians,

Tartars, and Jews--came out, clattering with their chains and briskly

swinging their arms as if prepared to go a long distance, but stopped

after having taken ten steps, and obediently took their places behind

each other, four abreast. Then without interval streamed out more shaved

men, dressed in the same manner but with chains only on their legs.

These were condemned to exile. They came out as briskly and stopped as

suddenly, taking their places four in a row. Then came those exiled by

their Communes. Then the women in the same order, first those condemned

to hard labour, with grey cloaks and kerchiefs; then the exiled women,

and those following their husbands of their own free will, dressed in

their own town or village clothing. Some of the women were carrying

babies wrapped in the fronts of their grey cloaks.

With the women came the children, boys and girls, who, like colts in a

herd of horses, pressed in among the prisoners.

The men took their places silently, only coughing now and then, or

making short remarks.

The women talked without intermission. Nekhludoff thought he saw Maslova

as they were coming out, but she was at once lost in the large crowd,

and he could only see grey creatures, seemingly devoid of all that was

human, or at any rate of all that was womanly, with sacks on their backs

and children round them, taking their places behind the men.

Though all the prisoners had been counted inside the prison walls, the

convoy counted them again, comparing the numbers with the list. This

took very long, especially as some of the prisoners moved and changed

places, which confused the convoy.

The convoy soldiers shouted and pushed the prisoners (who complied

obediently, but angrily) and counted them over again. When all had

been counted, the convoy officer gave a command, and the crowd became

agitated. The weak men and women and children rushed, racing each

other, towards the carts, and began placing their bags on the carts

and climbing up themselves. Women with crying babies, merry children

quarrelling for places, and dull, careworn prisoners got into the carts.

Several of the prisoners took off their caps and came up to the convoy

officer with some request. Nekhludoff found out later that they were

asking for places on the carts. Nekhludoff saw how the officer, without

looking at the prisoners, drew in a whiff from his cigarette, and then

suddenly waved his short arm in front of one of the prisoners, who

quickly drew his shaved head back between his shoulders as if afraid of

a blow, and sprang back.

“I will give you a lift such that you’ll remember. You’ll get there on

foot right enough,” shouted the officer. Only one of the men was granted

his request--an old man with chains on his legs; and Nekhludoff saw the

old man take off his pancake-shaped cap, and go up to the cart crossing

himself. He could not manage to get up on the cart because of the chains

that prevented his lifting his old legs, and a woman who was sitting in

the cart at last pulled him in by the arm.

When all the sacks were in the carts, and those who were allowed to get

in were seated, the officer took off his cap, wiped his forehead, his

bald head and fat, red neck, and crossed himself.

“March,” commanded the officer. The soldiers’ guns gave a click; the

prisoners took off their caps and crossed themselves, those who were

seeing them off shouted something, the prisoners shouted in answer, a

row arose among the women, and the gang, surrounded by the soldiers in

their white blouses, moved forward, raising the dust with their chained

feet. The soldiers went in front; then came the convicts condemned to

hard labour, clattering with their chains; then the exiled and those

exiled by the Communes, chained in couples by their wrists; then the

women. After them, on the carts loaded with sacks, came the weak. High

up on one of the carts sat a woman closely wrapped up, and she kept

shrieking and sobbing.

CHAPTER XXXV.

NOT MEN BUT STRANGE AND TERRIBLE CREATURES?

The procession was such a long one that the carts with the luggage and

the weak started only when those in front were already out of sight.

When the last of the carts moved, Nekhludoff got into the trap that

stood waiting for him and told the isvostchik to catch up the prisoners

in front, so that he could see if he knew any of the men in the gang,

and then try and find out Maslova among the women and ask her if she had

received the things he sent.

It was very hot, and a cloud of dust that was raised by a thousand

tramping feet stood all the time over the gang that was moving down

the middle of the street. The prisoners were walking quickly, and the

slow-going isvostchik’s horse was some time in catching them up. Row

upon row they passed, those strange and terrible-looking creatures, none

of whom Nekhludoff knew.

On they went, all dressed alike, moving a thousand feet all shod alike,

swinging their free arms as if to keep up their spirits. There were so

many of them, they all looked so much alike, and they were all placed in

such unusual, peculiar circumstances, that they seemed to Nekhludoff

to be not men but some sort of strange and terrible creatures. This

impression passed when he recognised in the crowd of convicts the

murderer Federoff, and among the exiles Okhotin the wit, and another

tramp who had appealed to him for assistance. Almost all the prisoners

turned and looked at the trap that was passing them and at the gentleman

inside. Federoff tossed his head backwards as a sign that he had

recognised Nekhludoff, Okhotin winked, but neither of them bowed,

considering it not the thing.

As soon as Nekhludoff came up to the women he saw Maslova; she was in

the second row. The first in the row was a short-legged, black-eyed,

hideous woman, who had her cloak tucked up in her girdle. This was

Koroshavka. The next was a pregnant woman, who dragged herself along

with difficulty. The third was Maslova; she was carrying her sack on

her shoulder, and looking straight before her. Her face looked calm

and determined. The fourth in the row was a young, lovely woman who was

walking along briskly, dressed in a short cloak, her kerchief tied in

peasant fashion. This was Theodosia.

Nekhludoff got down and approached the women, meaning to ask Maslova if

she had got the things he had sent her, and how she was feeling, but the

convoy sergeant, who was walking on that side, noticed him at once, and

ran towards him.

“You must not do that, sir. It is against the regulations to approach

the gang,” shouted the sergeant as he came up.

But when he recognised Nekhludoff (every one in the prison knew

Nekhludoff) the sergeant raised his fingers to his cap, and, stopping

in front of Nekhludoff, said: “Not now; wait till we get to the railway

station; here it is not allowed. Don’t lag behind; march!” he shouted to

the convicts, and putting on a brisk air, he ran back to his place at a

trot, in spite of the heat and the elegant new boots on his feet.

Nekhludoff went on to the pavement and told the isvostchik to follow

him; himself walking, so as to keep the convicts in sight. Wherever the

gang passed it attracted attention mixed with horror and compassion.

Those who drove past leaned out of the vehicles and followed the

prisoners with their eyes. Those on foot stopped and looked with fear

and surprise at the terrible sight. Some came up and gave alms to the

prisoners. The alms were received by the convoy. Some, as if they were

hypnotised, followed the gang, but then stopped, shook their heads, and

followed the prisoners only with their eyes. Everywhere the people

came out of the gates and doors, and called others to come out, too,

or leaned out of the windows looking, silent and immovable, at the

frightful procession. At a cross-road a fine carriage was stopped by the

gang. A fat coachman, with a shiny face and two rows of buttons on his

back, sat on the box; a married couple sat facing the horses, the wife,

a pale, thin woman, with a light-coloured bonnet on her head and a

bright sunshade in her hand, the husband with a top-hat and a well-cut

light-coloured overcoat. On the seat in front sat their children--a

well-dressed little girl, with loose, fair hair, and as fresh as a

flower, who also held a bright parasol, and an eight-year-old boy, with

a long, thin neck and sharp collarbones, a sailor hat with long ribbons

on his head.

The father was angrily scolding the coachman because he had not passed

in front of the gang when he had a chance, and the mother frowned and

half closed her eyes with a look of disgust, shielding herself from the

dust and the sun with her silk sunshade, which she held close to her

face.

The fat coachman frowned angrily at the unjust rebukes of his

master--who had himself given the order to drive along that street--and

with difficulty held in the glossy, black horses, foaming under their

harness and impatient to go on.

The policeman wished with all his soul to please the owner of the fine

equipage by stopping the gang, yet felt that the dismal solemnity of

the procession could not be broken even for so rich a gentleman. He only

raised his fingers to his cap to show his respect for riches, and looked

severely at the prisoners as if promising in any case to protect the

owners of the carriage from them. So the carriage had to wait till the

whole of the procession had passed, and could only move on when the last

of the carts, laden with sacks and prisoners, rattled by. The hysterical

woman who sat on one of the carts, and had grown calm, again began

shrieking and sobbing when she saw the elegant carriage. Then the

coachman tightened the reins with a slight touch, and the black

trotters, their shoes ringing against the paving stones, drew the

carriage, softly swaying on its rubber tires, towards the country

house where the husband, the wife, the girl, and the boy with the sharp

collar-bones were going to amuse themselves. Neither the father nor the

mother gave the girl and boy any explanation of what they had seen, so

that the children had themselves to find out the meaning of this curious

sight. The girl, taking the expression of her father’s and mother’s

faces into consideration, solved the problem by assuming that these

people were quite another kind of men and women than her father and

mother and their acquaintances, that they were bad people, and that they

had therefore to be treated in the manner they were being treated.

Therefore the girl felt nothing but fear, and was glad when she could no

longer see those people.

But the boy with the long, thin neck, who looked at the procession

of prisoners without taking his eyes off them, solved the question

differently.

He still knew, firmly and without any doubt, for he had it from God,

that these people were just the same kind of people as he was, and like

all other people, and therefore some one had done these people some

wrong, something that ought not to have been done, and he was sorry for

them, and felt no horror either of those who were shaved and chained or

of those who had shaved and chained them. And so the boy’s lips pouted

more and more, and he made greater and greater efforts not to cry,

thinking it a shame to cry in such a case.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE TENDER MERCIES OF THE LORD.

Nekhludoff kept up with the quick pace of the convicts. Though lightly

clothed he felt dreadfully hot, and it was hard to breathe in the

stifling, motionless, burning air filled with dust.

When he had walked about a quarter of a mile he again got into the trap,

but it felt still hotter in the middle of the street. He tried to recall

last night’s conversation with his brother-in-law, but the recollections

no longer excited him as they had done in the morning. They were dulled

by the impressions made by the starting and procession of the gang, and

chiefly by the intolerable heat.

On the pavement, in the shade of some trees overhanging a fence, he saw

two schoolboys standing over a kneeling man who sold ices. One of the

boys was already sucking a pink spoon and enjoying his ices, the other

was waiting for a glass that was being filled with something yellowish.

“Where could I get a drink?” Nekhludoff asked his isvostchik, feeling an

insurmountable desire for some refreshment.

“There is a good eating-house close by,” the isvostchik answered, and

turning a corner, drove up to a door with a large signboard. The plump

clerk in a Russian shirt, who stood behind the counter, and the waiters

in their once white clothing who sat at the tables (there being hardly

any customers) looked with curiosity at the unusual visitor and offered

him their services. Nekhludoff asked for a bottle of seltzer water and

sat down some way from the window at a small table covered with a dirty

cloth. Two men sat at another table with tea-things and a white bottle

in front of them, mopping their foreheads, and calculating something in

a friendly manner. One of them was dark and bald, and had just such a

border of hair at the back as Rogozhinsky. This sight again reminded

Nekhludoff of yesterday’s talk with his brother-in-law and his wish to

see him and Nathalie.

“I shall hardly be able to do it before the train starts,” he thought;

“I’d better write.” He asked for paper, an envelope, and a stamp, and as

he was sipping the cool, effervescent water he considered what he should

say. But his thoughts wandered, and he could not manage to compose a

letter.

“My dear Nathalie,--I cannot go away with the heavy impression that

yesterday’s talk with your husband has left,” he began. “What next?

Shall I ask him to forgive me what I said yesterday? But I only said

what I felt, and he will think that I am taking it back. Besides, this

interference of his in my private matters. . . . No, I cannot,” and

again he felt hatred rising in his heart towards that man so foreign

to him. He folded the unfinished letter and put it in his pocket, paid,

went out, and again got into the trap to catch up the gang. It had grown

still hotter. The stones and the walls seemed to be breathing out hot

air. The pavement seemed to scorch the feet, and Nekhludoff felt a

burning sensation in his hand when he touched the lacquered splashguard

of his trap.

The horse was jogging along at a weary trot, beating the uneven, dusty

road monotonously with its hoofs, the isvostchik kept falling into a

doze, Nekhludoff sat without thinking of anything.

At the bottom of a street, in front of a large house, a group of people

had collected, and a convoy soldier stood by.

“What has happened?” Nekhludoff asked of a porter.

“Something the matter with a convict.”

Nekhludoff got down and came up to the group. On the rough stones,

where the pavement slanted down to the gutter, lay a broadly-built,

red-bearded, elderly convict, with his head lower than his feet, and

very red in the face. He had a grey cloak and grey trousers on, and lay

on his back with the palms of his freckled hands downwards, and at

long intervals his broad, high chest heaved, and he groaned, while

his bloodshot eyes were fixed on the sky. By him stood a cross-looking

policeman, a pedlar, a postman, a clerk, an old woman with a parasol,

and a short-haired boy with an empty basket.

“They are weak. Having been locked up in prison they’ve got weak, and

then they lead them through the most broiling heat,” said the clerk,

addressing Nekhludoff, who had just come up.

“He’ll die, most likely,” said the woman with the parasol, in a doleful

tone.

“His shirt should be untied,” said the postman.

The policeman began, with his thick, trembling fingers, clumsily to

untie the tapes that fastened the shirt round the red, sinewy neck. He

was evidently excited and confused, but still thought it necessary to

address the crowd.

“What have you collected here for? It is hot enough without your keeping

the wind off.”

“They should have been examined by a doctor, and the weak ones left

behind,” said the clerk, showing off his knowledge of the law.

The policeman, having undone the tapes of the shirt, rose and looked

round.

“Move on, I tell you. It is not your business, is it? What’s there

to stare at?” he said, and turned to Nekhludoff for sympathy, but not

finding any in his face he turned to the convoy soldier.

But the soldier stood aside, examining the trodden-down heel of his

boot, and was quite indifferent to the policeman’s perplexity.

“Those whose business it is don’t care. Is it right to do men to death

like this? A convict is a convict, but still he is a man,” different

voices were heard saying in the crowd.

“Put his head up higher, and give him some water,” said Nekhludoff.

“Water has been sent for,” said the policeman, and taking the prisoner

under the arms he with difficulty pulled his body a little higher up.

“What’s this gathering here?” said a decided, authoritative voice, and

a police officer, with a wonderfully clean, shiny blouse, and still more

shiny top-boots, came up to the assembled crowd.

“Move on. No standing about here,” he shouted to the crowd, before he

knew what had attracted it.

When he came near and saw the dying convict, he made a sign of approval

with his head, just as if he had quite expected it, and, turning to the

policeman, said, “How is this?”

The policeman said that, as a gang of prisoners was passing, one of the

convicts had fallen down, and the convoy officer had ordered him to be

left behind.

“Well, that’s all right. He must be taken to the police station. Call an

isvostchik.”

“A porter has gone for one,” said the policeman, with his fingers raised

to his cap.

The shopman began something about the heat.

“Is it your business, eh? Move on,” said the police officer, and looked

so severely at him that the clerk was silenced.

“He ought to have a little water,” said Nekhludoff. The police officer

looked severely at Nekhludoff also, but said nothing. When the porter

brought a mug full of water, he told the policeman to offer some to the

convict. The policeman raised the drooping head, and tried to pour a

little water down the mouth; but the prisoner could not swallow it, and

it ran down his beard, wetting his jacket and his coarse, dirty linen

shirt.

“Pour it on his head,” ordered the officer; and the policeman took off

the pancake-shaped cap and poured the water over the red curls and bald

part of the prisoner’s head. His eyes opened wide as if in fear, but his

position remained unchanged.

Streams of dirt trickled down his dusty face, but the mouth continued to

gasp in the same regular way, and his whole body shook.

“And what’s this? Take this one,” said the police officer, pointing to

Nekhludoff’s isvostchik. “You, there, drive up.”

“I am engaged,” said the isvostchik, dismally, and without looking up.

“It is my isvostchik; but take him. I will pay you,” said Nekhludoff,

turning to the isvostchik.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” shouted the officer. “Catch hold.”

The policeman, the porter, and the convoy soldier lifted the dying man

and carried him to the trap, and put him on the seat. But he could not

sit up; his head fell back, and the whole of his body glided off the

seat.

“Make him lie down,” ordered the officer.

“It’s all right, your honour; I’ll manage him like this,” said the

policeman, sitting down by the dying man, and clasping his strong,

right arm round the body under the arms. The convoy soldier lifted the

stockingless feet, in prison shoes, and put them into the trap.

The police officer looked around, and noticing the pancake-shaped hat of

the convict lifted it up and put it on the wet, drooping head.

“Go on,” he ordered.

The isvostchik looked angrily round, shook his head, and, accompanied

by the convoy soldier, drove back to the police station. The policeman,

sitting beside the convict, kept dragging up the body that was

continually sliding down from the seat, while the head swung from side

to side.

The convoy soldier, who was walking by the side of the trap, kept

putting the legs in their place. Nekhludoff followed the trap.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

SPILLED LIKE WATER ON THE GROUND.

The trap passed the fireman who stood sentinel at the entrance, [the

headquarters of the fire brigade and the police stations are generally

together in Moscow] drove into the yard of the police station, and

stopped at one of the doors. In the yard several firemen with their

sleeves tucked up were washing some kind of cart and talking loudly.

When the trap stopped, several policemen surrounded it, and taking the

lifeless body of the convict under the arms, took him out of the trap,

which creaked under him. The policeman who had brought the body got

down, shook his numbed arm, took off his cap, and crossed himself.

The body was carried through the door and up the stairs. Nekhludoff

followed. In the small, dirty room where the body was taken there stood

four beds. On two of them sat a couple of sick men in dressing-gowns,

one with a crooked mouth, whose neck was bandaged, the other one in

consumption. Two of the beds were empty; the convict was laid on one of

them. A little man, with glistening eyes and continually moving brows,

with only his underclothes and stockings on, came up with quick, soft

steps, looked at the convict and then at Nekhludoff, and burst into loud

laughter. This was a madman who was being kept in the police hospital.

“They wish to frighten me, but no, they won’t succeed,” he said.

The policemen who carried the corpse were followed by a police officer

and a medical assistant. The medical assistant came up to the body and

touched the freckled hand, already growing cold, which, though still

soft, was deadly pale. He held it for a moment, and then let it go. It

fell lifelessly on the stomach of the dead man.

“He’s ready,” said the medical assistant, but, evidently to be quite in

order, he undid the wet, brown shirt, and tossing back the curls from

his ear, put it to the yellowish, broad, immovable chest of the convict.

All were silent. The medical assistant raised himself again, shook his

head, and touched with his fingers first one and then the other lid over

the open, fixed blue eyes.

“I’m not frightened, I’m not frightened.” The madman kept repeating

these words, and spitting in the direction of the medical assistant.

“Well?” asked the police officer.

“Well! He must be put into the mortuary.”

“Are you sure? Mind,” said the police officer.

“It’s time I should know,” said the medical assistant, drawing the shirt

over the body’s chest. “However, I will send for Mathew Ivanovitch. Let

him have a look. Petrov, call him,” and the medical assistant stepped

away from the body.

“Take him to the mortuary,” said the police officer. “And then you must

come into the office and sign,” he added to the convoy soldier, who had

not left the convict for a moment.

“Yes, sir,” said the soldier.

The policemen lifted the body and carried it down again. Nekhludoff

wished to follow, but the madman kept him back.

“You are not in the plot! Well, then, give me a cigarette,” he said.

Nekhludoff got out his cigarette case and gave him one.

The madman, quickly moving his brows all the time, began relating how

they tormented him by thought suggestion.

“Why, they are all against me, and torment and torture me through their

mediums.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Nekhludoff, and without listening any further

he left the room and went out into the yard, wishing to know where the

body would be put.

The policemen with their burden had already crossed the yard, and were

coming to the door of a cellar. Nekhludoff wished to go up to them, but

the police officer stopped him.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Then go away.”

Nekhludoff obeyed, and went back to his isvostchik, who was dozing. He

awoke him, and they drove back towards the railway station.

They had not made a hundred steps when they met a cart accompanied by

a convoy soldier with a gun. On the cart lay another convict, who was

already dead. The convict lay on his back in the cart, his shaved head,

from which the pancake-shaped cap had slid over the black-bearded face

down to the nose, shaking and thumping at every jolt. The driver, in

his heavy boots, walked by the side of the cart, holding the reins;

a policeman followed on foot. Nekhludoff touched his isvostchik’s

shoulder.

“Just look what they are doing,” said the isvostchik, stopping his

horse.

Nekhludoff got down and, following the cart, again passed the sentinel

and entered the gate of the police station. By this time the firemen had

finished washing the cart, and a tall, bony man, the chief of the fire

brigade, with a coloured band round his cap, stood in their place, and,

with his hands in his pockets, was severely looking at a fat-necked,

well-fed, bay stallion that was being led up and down before him by a

fireman. The stallion was lame on one of his fore feet, and the chief of

the firemen was angrily saying something to a veterinary who stood by.

The police officer was also present. When he saw the cart he went up to

the convoy soldier.

“Where did you bring him from?” he asked, shaking his head

disapprovingly.

“From the Gorbatovskaya,” answered the policeman.

“A prisoner?” asked the chief of the fire brigade.

“Yes. It’s the second to-day.”

“Well, I must say they’ve got some queer arrangements. Though of course

it’s a broiling day,” said the chief of the fire brigade; then, turning

to the fireman who was leading the lame stallion, he shouted: “Put him

into the corner stall. And as to you, you hound, I’ll teach you how to

cripple horses which are worth more than you are, you scoundrel.”

The dead man was taken from the cart by the policemen just in the same

way as the first had been, and carried upstairs into the hospital.

Nekhludoff followed them as if he were hypnotised.

“What do you want?” asked one of the policemen. But Nekhludoff did

not answer, and followed where the body was being carried. The madman,

sitting on a bed, was smoking greedily the cigarette Nekhludoff had

given him.

“Ah, you’ve come back,” he said, and laughed. When he saw the body he

made a face, and said, “Again! I am sick of it. I am not a boy, am I,

eh?” and he turned to Nekhludoff with a questioning smile.

Nekhludoff was looking at the dead man, whose face, which had been

hidden by his cap, was now visible. This convict was as handsome in face

and body as the other was hideous. He was a man in the full bloom of

life. Notwithstanding that he was disfigured by the half of his head

being shaved, the straight, rather low forehead, raised a bit over the

black, lifeless eyes, was very fine, and so was the nose above the

thin, black moustaches. There was a smile on the lips that were already

growing blue, a small beard outlined the lower part of the face, and on

the shaved side of the head a firm, well-shaped ear was visible.

One could see what possibilities of a higher life had been destroyed

in this man. The fine bones of his hands and shackled feet, the strong

muscles of all his well-proportioned limbs, showed what a beautiful,

strong, agile human animal this had been. As an animal merely he had

been a far more perfect one of his kind than the bay stallion, about the

laming of which the fireman was so angry.

Yet he had been done to death, and no one was sorry for him as a man,

nor was any one sorry that so fine a working animal had perished. The

only feeling evinced was that of annoyance because of the bother caused

by the necessity of getting this body, threatening putrefaction, out of

the way. The doctor and his assistant entered the hospital, accompanied

by the inspector of the police station. The doctor was a thick-set man,

dressed in pongee silk coat and trousers of the same material, closely

fitting his muscular thighs. The inspector was a little fat fellow, with

a red face, round as a ball, which he made still broader by a habit he

had of filling his cheeks with air, and slowly letting it out again. The

doctor sat down on the bed by the side of the dead man, and touched

the hands in the same way as his assistant had done, put his ear to the

heart, rose, and pulled his trousers straight. “Could not be more dead,”

he said.

The inspector filled his mouth with air and slowly blew it out again.

“Which prison is he from?” he asked the convoy soldier.

The soldier told him, and reminded him of the chains on the dead man’s

feet.

“I’ll have them taken off; we have got a smith about, the Lord be

thanked,” said the inspector, and blew up his cheeks again; he went

towards the door, slowly letting out the air.

“Why has this happened?” Nekhludoff asked the doctor.

The doctor looked at him through his spectacles.

“Why has what happened? Why they die of sunstroke, you mean? This is

why: They sit all through the winter without exercise and without light,

and suddenly they are taken out into the sunshine, and on a day like

this, and they march in a crowd so that they get no air, and sunstroke

is the result.”

“Then why are they sent out?”

“Oh, as to that, go and ask those who send them. But may I ask who are

you?”

“I am a stranger.”

“Ah, well, good-afternoon; I have no time.” The doctor was vexed; he

gave his trousers a downward pull, and went towards the beds of the

sick.

“Well, how are you getting on?” he asked the pale man with the crooked

mouth and bandaged neck.

Meanwhile the madman sat on a bed, and having finished his cigarette,

kept spitting in the direction of the doctor.

Nekhludoff went down into the yard and out of the gate past the

firemen’s horses and the hens and the sentinel in his brass helmet, and

got into the trap, the driver of which had again fallen asleep.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE CONVICT TRAIN.

When Nekhludoff came to the station, the prisoners were all seated in

railway carriages with grated windows. Several persons, come to see

them off, stood on the platform, but were not allowed to come up to the

carriages.

The convoy was much troubled that day. On the way from the prison to the

station, besides the two Nekhludoff had seen, three other prisoners

had fallen and died of sunstroke. One was taken to the nearest police

station like the first two, and the other two died at the railway

station. [In Moscow, in the beginning of the eighth decade of this

century, five convicts died of sunstroke in one day on their way from

the Boutyrki prison to the Nijni railway station.] The convoy men were

not troubled because five men who might have been alive died while in

their charge. This did not trouble them, but they were concerned lest

anything that the law required in such cases should be omitted. To

convey the bodies to the places appointed, to deliver up their papers,

to take them off the lists of those to be conveyed to Nijni--all this

was very troublesome, especially on so hot a day.

It was this that occupied the convoy men, and before it could all be

accomplished Nekhludoff and the others who asked for leave to go up to

the carriages were not allowed to do so. Nekhludoff, however, was soon

allowed to go up, because he tipped the convoy sergeant. The sergeant

let Nekhludoff pass, but asked him to be quick and get his talk over

before any of the authorities noticed. There were 15 carriages in all,

and except one carriage for the officials, they were full of prisoners.

As Nekhludoff passed the carriages he listened to what was going on in

them. In all the carriages was heard the clanging of chains, the sound

of bustle, mixed with loud and senseless language, but not a word was

being said about their dead fellow-prisoners. The talk was all about

sacks, drinking water, and the choice of seats.

Looking into one of the carriages, Nekhludoff saw convoy soldiers taking

the manacles off the hands of the prisoners. The prisoners held out

their arms, and one of the soldiers unlocked the manacles with a key and

took them off; the other collected them.

After he had passed all the other carriages, Nekhludoff came up to the

women’s carriages. From the second of these he heard a woman’s groans:

“Oh, oh, oh! O God! Oh, oh! O God!”

Nekhludoff passed this carriage and went up to a window of the third

carriage, which a soldier pointed out to him. When he approached his

face to the window, he felt the hot air, filled with the smell of

perspiration, coming out of it, and heard distinctly the shrill sound

of women’s voices. All the seats were filled with red, perspiring,

loudly-talking women, dressed in prison cloaks and white jackets.

Nekhludoff’s face at the window attracted their attention. Those nearest

ceased talking and drew closer. Maslova, in her white jacket and her

head uncovered, sat by the opposite window. The white-skinned, smiling

Theodosia sat a little nearer. When she recognised Nekhludoff, she

nudged Maslova and pointed to the window. Maslova rose hurriedly, threw

her kerchief over her black hair, and with a smile on her hot, red face

came up to the window and took hold of one of the bars.

“Well, it is hot,” she said, with a glad smile.

“Did you get the things?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Is there anything more you want?” asked Nekhludoff, while the air came

out of the hot carriage as out of an oven.

“I want nothing, thank you.”

“If we could get a drink?” said Theodosia.

“Yes, if we could get a drink,” repeated Maslova.

“Why, have you not got any water?”

“They put some in, but it is all gone.”

“Directly, I will ask one of the convoy men. Now we shall not see each

other till we get to Nijni.”