looked joyfully at Nekhludoff.
“I am going by the next train.”
Maslova said nothing, but only sighed deeply.
“Is it true, sir, that 12 convicts have been done to death?” said a
severe-looking old prisoner with a deep voice like a man’s.
It was Korableva.
“I did not hear of 12; I have seen two,” said Nekhludoff.
“They say there were 12 they killed. And will nothing be done to them?
Only think! The fiends!”
“And have none of the women fallen ill?” Nekhludoff asked.
“Women are stronger,” said another of the prisoners--a short little
woman, and laughed; “only there’s one that has taken it into her head to
be delivered. There she goes,” she said, pointing to the next carriage,
whence proceeded the groans.
“You ask if we want anything,” said Maslova, trying to keep the smile
of joy from her lips; “could not this woman be left behind, suffering as
she is? There, now, if you would tell the authorities.”
“Yes, I will.”
“And one thing more; could she not see her husband, Taras?” she added,
pointing with her eyes to the smiling Theodosia.
“He is going with you, is he not?”
“Sir, you must not talk,” said a convoy sergeant, not the one who had
let Nekhludoff come up. Nekhludoff left the carriage and went in search
of an official to whom he might speak for the woman in travail and about
Taras, but could not find him, nor get an answer from any of the convoy
for a long time. They were all in a bustle; some were leading a prisoner
somewhere or other, others running to get themselves provisions, some
were placing their things in the carriages or attending on a lady
who was going to accompany the convoy officer, and they answered
Nekhludoff’s questions unwillingly. Nekhludoff found the convoy officer
only after the second bell had been rung. The officer with his short
arm was wiping the moustaches that covered his mouth and shrugging his
shoulders, reproving the corporal for something or other.
“What is it you want?” he asked Nekhludoff.
“You’ve got a woman there who is being confined, so I thought best--”
“Well, let her be confined; we shall see later on,” and briskly swinging
his short arms, he ran up to his carriage. At the moment the guard
passed with a whistle in his hand, and from the people on the platform
and from the women’s carriages there arose a sound of weeping and words
of prayer.
Nekhludoff stood on the platform by the side of Taras, and looked how,
one after the other, the carriages glided past him, with the shaved
heads of the men at the grated windows. Then the first of the women’s
carriages came up, with women’s heads at the windows, some covered with
kerchiefs and some uncovered, then the second, whence proceeded the same
groans, then the carriage where Maslova was. She stood with the others
at the window, and looked at Nekhludoff with a pathetic smile.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
BROTHER AND SISTER.
There were still two hours before the passenger train by which
Nekhludoff was going would start. He had thought of using this interval
to see his sister again; but after the impressions of the morning he
felt much excited and so done up that, sitting down on a sofa in the
first-class refreshment-room, he suddenly grew so drowsy that he turned
over on to his side, and, laying his face on his hand, fell asleep at
once. A waiter in a dress coat with a napkin in his hand woke him.
“Sir, sir, are you not Prince Nekhludoff? There’s a lady looking for
you.”
Nekhludoff started up and recollected where he was and all that had
happened in the morning.
He saw in his imagination the procession of prisoners, the dead bodies,
the railway carriages with barred windows, and the women locked up in
them, one of whom was groaning in travail with no one to help her, and
another who was pathetically smiling at him through the bars.
The reality before his eyes was very different, i.e., a table with
vases, candlesticks and crockery, and agile waiters moving round the
table, and in the background a cupboard and a counter laden with fruit
and bottles, behind it a barman, and in front the backs of passengers
who had come up for refreshments. When Nekhludoff had risen and sat
gradually collecting his thoughts, he noticed that everybody in the
room was inquisitively looking at something that was passing by the open
doors.
He also looked, and saw a group of people carrying a chair on which sat
a lady whose head was wrapped in a kind of airy fabric.
Nekhludoff thought he knew the footman who was supporting the chair in
front. And also the man behind, and a doorkeeper with gold cord on his
cap, seemed familiar. A lady’s maid with a fringe and an apron, who was
carrying a parcel, a parasol, and something round in a leather case,
was walking behind the chair. Then came Prince Korchagin, with his thick
lips, apoplectic neck, and a travelling cap on his head; behind him
Missy, her cousin Misha, and an acquaintance of Nekhludoff’s--the
long-necked diplomat Osten, with his protruding Adam’s apple and his
unvarying merry mood and expression. He was saying something very
emphatically, though jokingly, to the smiling Missy. The Korchagins were
moving from their estate near the city to the estate of the Princess’s
sister on the Nijni railway. The procession--the men carrying the
chair, the maid, and the doctor--vanished into the ladies’ waiting-room,
evoking a feeling of curiosity and respect in the onlookers. But the old
Prince remained and sat down at the table, called a waiter, and ordered
food and drink. Missy and Osten also remained in the refreshment-room
and were about to sit down, when they saw an acquaintance in the
doorway, and went up to her. It was Nathalie Rogozhinsky. Nathalie came
into the refreshment-room accompanied by Agraphena Petrovna, and both
looked round the room. Nathalie noticed at one and the same moment both
her brother and Missy. She first went up to Missy, only nodding to her
brother; but, having kissed her, at once turned to him.
“At last I have found you,” she said. Nekhludoff rose to greet Missy,
Misha, and Osten, and to say a few words to them. Missy told him about
their house in the country having been burnt down, which necessitated
their moving to her aunt’s. Osten began relating a funny story about a
fire. Nekhludoff paid no attention, and turned to his sister.
“How glad I am that you have come.”
“I have been here a long time,” she said. “Agraphena Petrovna is with
me.” And she pointed to Agraphena Petrovna, who, in a waterproof and
with a bonnet on her head, stood some way off, and bowed to him with
kindly dignity and some confusion, not wishing to intrude.
“We looked for you everywhere.”
“And I had fallen asleep here. How glad I am that you have come,”
repeated Nekhludoff. “I had begun to write to you.”
“Really?” she said, looking frightened. “What about?”
Missy and the gentleman, noticing that an intimate conversation was
about to commence between the brother and sister, went away. Nekhludoff
and his sister sat down by the window on a velvet-covered sofa, on which
lay a plaid, a box, and a few other things.
“Yesterday, after I left you, I felt inclined to return and express my
regret, but I did not know how he would take it,” said Nekhludoff. “I
spoke hastily to your husband, and this tormented me.”
“I knew,” said his sister, “that you did not mean to. Oh, you know!” and
the tears came to her eyes, and she touched his hand. The sentence was
not clear, but he understood it perfectly, and was touched by what it
expressed. Her words meant that, besides the love for her husband which
held her in its sway, she prized and considered important the love she
had for him, her brother, and that every misunderstanding between them
caused her deep suffering.
“Thank you, thank you. Oh! what I have seen to-day!” he said, suddenly
recalling the second of the dead convicts. “Two prisoners have been done
to death.”
“Done to death? How?”
“Yes, done to death. They led them in this heat, and two died of
sunstroke.”
“Impossible! What, to-day? just now?”
“Yes, just now. I have seen their bodies.”
“But why done to death? Who killed them?” asked Nathalie.
“They who forced them to go killed them,” said Nekhludoff, with
irritation, feeling that she looked at this, too, with her husband’s
eyes.
“Oh, Lord!” said Agraphena Petrovna, who had come up to them.
“Yes, we have not the slightest idea of what is being done to these
unfortunate beings. But it ought to be known,” added Nekhludoff, and
looked at old Korchagin, who sat with a napkin tied round him and a
bottle before him, and who looked round at Nekhludoff.
“Nekhludoff,” he called out, “won’t you join me and take some
refreshment? It is excellent before a journey.”
Nekhludoff refused, and turned away.
“But what are you going to do?” Nathalie continued.
“What I can. I don’t know, but I feel I must do something. And I shall
do what I am able to.”
“Yes, I understand. And how about them?” she continued, with a smile and
a look towards Korchagin. “Is it possible that it is all over?”
“Completely, and I think without any regret on either side.”
“It is a pity. I am sorry. I am fond of her. However, it’s all right.
But why do you wish to bind yourself?” she added shyly. “Why are you
going?”
“I go because I must,” answered Nekhludoff, seriously and dryly, as if
wishing to stop this conversation. But he felt ashamed of his coldness
towards his sister at once. “Why not tell her all I am thinking?” he
thought, “and let Agraphena Petrovna also hear it,” he thought, with
a look at the old servant, whose presence made the wish to repeat his
decision to his sister even stronger.
“You mean my intention to marry Katusha? Well, you see, I made up my
mind to do it, but she refuses definitely and firmly,” he said, and his
voice shook, as it always did when he spoke of it. “She does not wish
to accept my sacrifice, but is herself sacrificing what in her position
means much, and I cannot accept this sacrifice, if it is only a
momentary impulse. And so I am going with her, and shall be where she
is, and shall try to lighten her fate as much as I can.”
Nathalie said nothing. Agraphena Petrovna looked at her with a
questioning look, and shook her head. At this moment the former
procession issued from the ladies’ room. The same handsome footman
(Philip). and the doorkeeper were carrying the Princess Korchagin. She
stopped the men who were carrying her, and motioned to Nekhludoff to
approach, and, with a pitiful, languishing air, she extended her white,
ringed hand, expecting the firm pressure of his hand with a sense of
horror.
“Epouvantable!” she said, meaning the heat. “I cannot stand it! Ce
climat me tue!” And, after a short talk about the horrors of the Russian
climate, she gave the men a sign to go on.
“Be sure and come,” she added, turning her long face towards Nekhludoff
as she was borne away.
The procession with the Princess turned to the right towards the
first-class carriages. Nekhludoff, with the porter who was carrying his
things, and Taras with his bag, turned to the left.
“This is my companion,” said Nekhludoff to his sister, pointing to
Taras, whose story he had told her before.
“Surely not third class?” said Nathalie, when Nekhludoff stopped in
front of a third-class carriage, and Taras and the porter with the
things went in.
“Yes; it is more convenient for me to be with Taras,” he said. “One
thing more,” he added; “up to now I have not given the Kousminski
land to the peasants; so that, in case of my death, your children will
inherit it.”
“Dmitri, don’t!” said Nathalie.
“If I do give it away, all I can say is that the rest will be theirs,
as it is not likely I shall marry; and if I do marry I shall have no
children, so that--”
“Dmitri, don’t talk like that!” said Nathalie. And yet Nekhludoff
noticed that she was glad to hear him say it.
Higher up, by the side of a first-class carriage, there stood a group of
people still looking at the carriage into which the Princess Korchagin
had been carried. Most of the passengers were already seated. Some of
the late comers hurriedly clattered along the boards of the platform,
the guard was closing the doors and asking the passengers to get in and
those who were seeing them off to come out.
Nekhludoff entered the hot, smelling carriage, but at once stepped out
again on to the small platform at the back of the carriage. Nathalie
stood opposite the carriage, with her fashionable bonnet and cape,
by the side of Agraphena Petrovna, and was evidently trying to find
something to say.
She could not even say ecrivez, because they had long ago laughed
at this word, habitually spoken by those about to part. The short
conversation about money matters had in a moment destroyed the tender
brotherly and sisterly feelings that had taken hold of them. They felt
estranged, so that Nathalie was glad when the train moved; and she
could only say, nodding her head with a sad and tender look, “Goodbye,
good-bye, Dmitri.” But as soon as the carriage had passed her she
thought of how she should repeat her conversation with her brother to
her husband, and her face became serious and troubled.
Nekhludoff, too, though he had nothing but the kindest feelings for
his sister, and had hidden nothing from her, now felt depressed and
uncomfortable with her, and was glad to part. He felt that the Nathalie
who was once so near to him no longer existed, and in her place was only
a slave of that hairy, unpleasant husband, who was so foreign to him. He
saw it clearly when her face lit up with peculiar animation as he spoke
of what would peculiarly interest her husband, i.e., the giving up of
the land to the peasants and the inheritance.
And this made him sad.
CHAPTER XL.
THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF HUMAN LIFE.
The heat in the large third-class carriage, which had been standing in
the burning sun all day, was so great that Nekhludoff did not go in,
but stopped on the little platform behind the carriage which formed a
passage to the next one. But there was not a breath of fresh air here
either, and Nekhludoff breathed freely only when the train had passed
the buildings and the draught blew across the platform.
“Yes, killed,” he repeated to himself, the words he had used to his
sister. And in his imagination in the midst of all other impressions
there arose with wonderful clearness the beautiful face of the second
dead convict, with the smile of the lips, the severe expression of the
brows, and the small, firm ear below the shaved bluish skull.
And what seemed terrible was that he had been murdered, and no one knew
who had murdered him. Yet he had been murdered. He was led out like all
the rest of the prisoners by Maslennikoff’s orders. Maslennikoff had
probably given the order in the usual manner, had signed with his stupid
flourish the paper with the printed heading, and most certainly would
not consider himself guilty. Still less would the careful doctor who
examined the convicts consider himself guilty. He had performed his duty
accurately, and had separated the weak. How could he have foreseen this
terrible heat, or the fact that they would start so late in the day and
in such crowds? The prison inspector? But the inspector had only carried
into execution the order that on a given day a certain number of exiles
and convicts--men and women--had to be sent off. The convoy officer
could not be guilty either, for his business was to receive a certain
number of persons in a certain place, and to deliver up the same number.
He conducted them in the usual manner, and could not foresee that two
such strong men as those Nekhludoff saw would not be able to stand it
and would die. No one is guilty, and yet the men have been murdered by
these people who are not guilty of their murder.
“All this comes,” Nekhludoff thought, “from the fact that all these
people, governors, inspectors, police officers, and men, consider that
there are circumstances in which human relations are not necessary
between human beings. All these men, Maslennikoff, and the inspector,
and the convoy officer, if they were not _governor, inspector, officer,_
would have considered twenty times before sending people in such heat
in such a mass--would have stopped twenty times on the way, and, seeing
that a man was growing weak, gasping for breath, would have led him
into the shade, would have given him water and let him rest, and if an
accident had still occurred they would have expressed pity. But they
not only did not do it, but hindered others from doing it, because they
considered not men and their duty towards them but only the office they
themselves filled, and held what that office demanded of them to be
above human relations. That’s what it is,” Nekhludoff went on in his
thoughts. “If one acknowledges but for a single hour that anything
can be more important than love for one’s fellowmen, even in some
one exceptional case, any crime can be committed without a feeling of
guilt.”
Nekhludoff was so engrossed by his thoughts that he did not notice how
the weather changed. The sun was covered over by a low-hanging, ragged
cloud. A compact, light grey cloud was rapidly coming from the west, and
was already falling in heavy, driving rain on the fields and woods far
in the distance. Moisture, coming from the cloud, mixed with the air.
Now and then the cloud was rent by flashes of lightning, and peals of
thunder mingled more and more often with the rattling of the train. The
cloud came nearer and nearer, the rain-drops driven by the wind began
to spot the platform and Nekhludoff’s coat; and he stepped to the other
side of the little platform, and, inhaling the fresh, moist air--filled
with the smell of corn and wet earth that had long been waiting for
rain--he stood looking at the gardens, the woods, the yellow rye fields,
the green oatfields, the dark-green strips of potatoes in bloom, that
glided past. Everything looked as if covered over with varnish--the
green turned greener, the yellow yellower, the black blacker.
“More! more!” said Nekhludoff, gladdened by the sight of gardens and
fields revived by the beneficent shower. The shower did not last long.
Part of the cloud had come down in rain, part passed over, and the last
fine drops fell straight on to the earth. The sun reappeared,
everything began to glisten, and in the east--not very high above the
horizon--appeared a bright rainbow, with the violet tint very distinct
and broken only at one end.
“Why, what was I thinking about?” Nekhludoff asked himself when all
these changes in nature were over, and the train ran into a cutting
between two high banks.
“Oh! I was thinking that all those people (inspector, convoy men--all
those in the service) are for the greater part kind people--cruel only
because they are serving.” He recalled Maslennikoff’s indifference when
he told him about what was being done in the prison, the inspector’s
severity, the cruelty of the convoy officer when he refused places on
the carts to those who asked for them, and paid no attention to the fact
that there was a woman in travail in the train. All these people were
evidently invulnerable and impregnable to the simplest feelings of
compassion only because they held offices. “As officials they were
impermeable to the feelings of humanity, as this paved ground is
impermeable to the rain.” Thus thought Nekhludoff as he looked at the
railway embankment paved with stones of different colours, down which
the water was running in streams instead of soaking into the earth.
“Perhaps it is necessary to pave the banks with stones, but it is sad
to look at the ground, which might be yielding corn, grass, bushes, or
trees in the same way as the ground visible up there is doing--deprived
of vegetation, and so it is with men,” thought Nekhludoff. “Perhaps
these governors, inspectors, policemen, are needed, but it is terrible
to see men deprived of the chief human attribute, that of love and
sympathy for one another. The thing is,” he continued, “that these
people consider lawful what is not lawful, and do not consider the
eternal, immutable law, written in the hearts of men by God, as law.
That is why I feel so depressed when I am with these people. I am
simply afraid of them, and really they are terrible, more terrible than
robbers. A robber might, after all, feel pity, but they can feel
no pity, they are inured against pity as these stones are against
vegetation. That is what makes them terrible. It is said that the
Pougatcheffs, the Razins [leaders of rebellions in Russia: Stonka Razin
in the 17th and Pougatcheff in the 18th century] are terrible. These are
a thousand times more terrible,” he continued, in his thoughts. “If
a psychological problem were set to find means of making men of our
time--Christian, humane, simple, kind people--perform the most horrible
crimes without feeling guilty, only one solution could be devised: to
go on doing what is being done. It is only necessary that these people
should he governors, inspectors, policemen; that they should be fully
convinced that there is a kind of business, called government service,
which allows men to treat other men as things, without human brotherly
relations with them, and also that these people should be so linked
together by this government service that the responsibility for the
results of their actions should not fall on any one of them separately.
Without these conditions, the terrible acts I witnessed to-day would be
impossible in our times. It all lies in the fact that men think there
are circumstances in which one may deal with human beings without love;
and there are no such circumstances. One may deal with things without
love. One may cut down trees, make bricks, hammer iron without love; but
you cannot deal with men without it, just as one cannot deal with bees
without being careful. If you deal carelessly with bees you will injure
them, and will yourself be injured. And so with men. It cannot be
otherwise, because natural love is the fundamental law of human life. It
is true that a man cannot force another to love him, as he can force
him to work for him; but it does not follow that a man may deal with men
without love, especially to demand anything from them. If you feel no
love, sit still,” Nekhludoff thought; “occupy yourself with things, with
yourself, with anything you like, only not with men. You can only eat
without injuring yourself when you feel inclined to eat, so you can only
deal with men usefully when you love. Only let yourself deal with a man
without love, as I did yesterday with my brother-in-law, and there are
no limits to the suffering you will bring on yourself, as all my life
proves. Yes, yes, it is so,” thought Nekhludoff; “it is good; yes, it is
good,” he repeated, enjoying the freshness after the torturing heat, and
conscious of having attained to the fullest clearness on a question that
had long occupied him.
CHAPTER XLI.
TARAS’S STORY.
The carriage in which Nekhludoff had taken his place was half filled
with people. There were in it servants, working men, factory hands,
butchers, Jews, shopmen, workmen’s wives, a soldier, two ladies, a
young one and an old one with bracelets on her arm, and a severe-looking
gentleman with a cockade on his black cap. All these people were sitting
quietly; the bustle of taking their places was long over; some sat
cracking and eating sunflower seeds, some smoking, some talking.
Taras sat, looking very happy, opposite the door, keeping a place for
Nekhludoff, and carrying on an animated conversation with a man in
a cloth coat who sat opposite to him, and who was, as Nekhludoff
afterwards found out, a gardener going to a new situation. Before
reaching the place where Taras sat Nekhludoff stopped between the seats
near a reverend-looking old man with a white beard and nankeen coat, who
was talking with a young woman in peasant dress. A little girl of about
seven, dressed in a new peasant costume, sat, her little legs dangling
above the floor, by the side of the woman, and kept cracking seeds.
The old man turned round, and, seeing Nekhludoff, he moved the lappets
of his coat off the varnished seat next to him, and said, in a friendly
manner:
“Please, here’s a seat.”
Nekhludoff thanked him, and took the seat. As soon as he was seated the
woman continued the interrupted conversation.
She was returning to her village, and related how her husband, whom she
had been visiting, had received her in town.
“I was there during the carnival, and now, by the Lord’s help, I’ve been
again,” she said. “Then, God willing, at Christmas I’ll go again.”
“That’s right,” said the old man, with a look at Nekhludoff, “it’s the
best way to go and see him, else a young man can easily go to the bad,
living in a town.”
“Oh, no, sir, mine is not such a man. No nonsense of any kind about him;
his life is as good as a young maiden’s. The money he earns he sends
home all to a copeck. And, as to our girl here, he was so glad to see
her, there are no words for it,” said the woman, and smiled.
The little girl, who sat cracking her seeds and spitting out the shells,
listened to her mother’s words, and, as if to confirm them, looked up
with calm, intelligent eyes into Nekhludoff’s and the old man’s faces.
“Well, if he’s good, that’s better still,” said the old man. “And none
of that sort of thing?” he added, with a look at a couple, evidently
factory hands, who sat at the other side of the carriage. The husband,
with his head thrown back, was pouring vodka down his throat out of a
bottle, and the wife sat holding a bag, out of which they had taken the
bottle, and watched him intently.
“No, mine neither drinks nor smokes,” said the woman who was conversing
with the old man, glad of the opportunity of praising her husband once
more. “No, sir, the earth does not hold many such.” And, turning to
Nekhludoff, she added, “That’s the sort of man he is.”
“What could be better,” said the old man, looking at the factory worker,
who had had his drink and had passed the bottle to his wife. The wife
laughed, shook her head, and also raised the bottle to her lips.
Noticing Nekhludoff’s and the old man’s look directed towards them, the
factory worker addressed the former.
“What is it, sir? That we are drinking? Ah, no one sees how we work,
but every one sees how we drink. I have earned it, and I am drinking and
treating my wife, and no one else.”
“Yes, yes,” said Nekhludoff, not knowing what to say.
“True, sir. My wife is a steady woman. I am satisfied with my wife,
because she can feel for me. Is it right what I’m saying, Mavra?”
“There you are, take it, I don’t want any more,” said the wife,
returning the bottle to him. “And what are you jawing for like that?”
she added.
“There now! She’s good--that good; and suddenly she’ll begin squeaking
like a wheel that’s not greased. Mavra, is it right what I’m saying?”
Mavra laughed and moved her hand with a tipsy gesture.
“Oh, my, he’s at it again.”
“There now, she’s that good--that good; but let her get her tail over
the reins, and you can’t think what she’ll be up to. . . . Is it right
what I’m saying? You must excuse me, sir, I’ve had a drop! What’s to be
done?” said the factory worker, and, preparing to go to sleep, put his
head in his wife’s lap.
Nekhludoff sat a while with the old man, who told him all about himself.
The old man was a stove builder, who had been working for 53 years, and
had built so many stoves that he had lost count, and now he wanted to
rest, but had no time. He had been to town and found employment for the
young ones, and was now going to the country to see the people at home.
After hearing the old man’s story, Nekhludoff went to the place that
Taras was keeping for him.
“It’s all right, sir; sit down; we’ll put the bag here,” said the
gardener, who sat opposite Taras, in a friendly tone, looking up into
Nekhludoff’s face.
“Rather a tight fit, but no matter since we are friends,” said Taras,
smiling, and lifting the bag, which weighed more than five stone, as if
it were a feather, he carried it across to the window.
“Plenty of room; besides, we might stand up a bit; and even under
the seat it’s as comfortable as you could wish. What’s the good of
humbugging?” he said, beaming with friendliness and kindness.
Taras spoke of himself as being unable to utter a word when quite sober;
but drink, he said, helped him to find the right words, and then he
could express everything. And in reality, when he was sober Taras kept
silent; but when he had been drinking, which happened rarely and only on
special occasions, he became very pleasantly talkative. Then he spoke
a great deal, spoke well and very simply and truthfully, and especially
with great kindliness, which shone in his gentle, blue eyes and in the
friendly smile that never left his lips. He was in such a state to-day.
Nekhludoff’s approach interrupted the conversation; but when he had put
the bag in its place, Taras sat down again, and with his strong hands
folded in his lap, and looking straight into the gardener’s face,
continued his story. He was telling his new acquaintance about his wife
and giving every detail: what she was being sent to Siberia for, and why
he was now following her. Nekhludoff had never heard a detailed account
of this affair, and so he listened with interest. When he came up, the
story had reached the point when the attempt to poison was already an
accomplished fact, and the family had discovered that it was Theodosia’s
doing.
“It’s about my troubles that I’m talking,” said Taras, addressing
Nekhludoff with cordial friendliness. “I have chanced to come across
such a hearty man, and we’ve got into conversation, and I’m telling him
all.”
“I see,” said Nekhludoff.
“Well, then in this way, my friend, the business became known. Mother,
she takes that cake. ‘I’m going,’ says she, ‘to the police officer.’ My
father is a just old man. ‘Wait, wife,’ says he, ‘the little woman is
a mere child, and did not herself know what she was doing. We must have
pity. She may come to her senses.’ But, dear me, mother would not hear
of it. ‘While we keep her here,’ she says, ‘she may destroy us all like
cockroaches.’ Well, friend, so she goes off for the police officer. He
bounces in upon us at once. Calls for witnesses.”
“Well, and you?” asked the gardener.
“Well, I, you see, friend, roll about with the pain in my stomach, and
vomit. All my inside is turned inside out; I can’t even speak. Well, so
father he goes and harnesses the mare, and puts Theodosia into the cart,
and is off to the police-station, and then to the magistrate’s. And she,
you know, just as she had done from the first, so also there, confesses
all to the magistrate--where she got the arsenic, and how she kneaded
the cake. ‘Why did you do it?’ says he. ‘Why,’ says she, ‘because he’s
hateful to me. I prefer Siberia to a life with him.’ That’s me,” and
Taras smiled.
“Well, so she confessed all. Then, naturally--the prison, and father
returns alone. And harvest time just coming, and mother the only woman
at home, and she no longer strong. So we think what we are to do. Could
we not bail her out? So father went to see an official. No go. Then
another. I think he went to five of them, and we thought of giving it
up. Then we happened to come across a clerk--such an artful one as you
don’t often find. ‘You give me five roubles, and I’ll get her out,’ says
he. He agreed to do it for three. Well, and what do you think, friend? I
went and pawned the linen she herself had woven, and gave him the money.
As soon as he had written that paper,” drawled out Taras, just as if he
were speaking of a shot being fired, “we succeeded at once. I went to
fetch her myself. Well, friend, so I got to town, put up the mare, took
the paper, and went to the prison. ‘What do you want?’ ‘This is what I
want,’ say I, ‘you’ve got my wife here in prison.’ ‘And have you got a
paper?’ I gave him the paper. He gave it a look. ‘Wait,’ says he. So I
sat down on a bench. It was already past noon by the sun. An official
comes out. ‘You are Vargoushoff?’ ‘I am.’ ‘Well, you may take her.’ The
gates opened, and they led her out in her own clothes quite all right.
‘Well, come along. Have you come on foot?’ ‘No, I have the horse here.’
So I went and paid the ostler, and harnessed, put in all the hay that
was left, and covered it with sacking for her to sit on. She got in and
wrapped her shawl round her, and off we drove. She says nothing and I
say nothing. Just as we were coming up to the house she says, ‘And how’s
mother; is she alive?’ ‘Yes, she’s alive.’ ‘And father; is he alive?
‘Yes, he is.’ ‘Forgive me, Taras,’ she says, ‘for my folly. I did not
myself know what I was doing.’ So I say, ‘Words won’t mend matters. I
have forgiven you long ago,’ and I said no more. We got home, and she
just fell at mother’s feet. Mother says, ‘The Lord will forgive you.’
And father said, ‘How d’you do?’ and ‘What’s past is past. Live as
best you can. Now,’ says he, ‘is not the time for all that; there’s
the harvest to be gathered in down at Skorodino,’ he says. ‘Down on the
manured acre, by the Lord’s help, the ground has borne such rye that
the sickle can’t tackle it. It’s all interwoven and heavy, and has sunk
beneath its weight; that must be reaped. You and Taras had better go
and see to it to-morrow.’ Well, friend, from that moment she took to the
work and worked so that every one wondered. At that time we rented three
desiatins, and by God’s help we had a wonderful crop both of oats and
rye. I mow and she binds the sheaves, and sometimes we both of us
reap. I am good at work and not afraid of it, but she’s better still at
whatever she takes up. She’s a smart woman, young, and full of life; and
as to work, friend, she’d grown that eager that I had to stop her. We
get home, our fingers swollen, our arms aching, and she, instead of
resting, rushes off to the barn to make binders for the sheaves for next
day. Such a change!”
“Well, and to you? Was she kinder, now?” asked the gardener.
“That’s beyond question. She clings to me as if we were one soul.
Whatever I think she understands. Even mother, angry as she was, could
not help saying: ‘It’s as if our Theodosia had been transformed; she’s
quite a different woman now!’ We were once going to cart the sheaves
with two carts. She and I were in the first, and I say, ‘How could you
think of doing that, Theodosia?’ and she says, ‘How could I think of it?
just so, I did not wish to live with you. I thought I’d rather die
than live with you!’ I say, ‘And now?’ and she says, ‘Now you’re in
my heart!’” Taras stopped, and smiled joyfully, shook his head as if
surprised. “Hardly had we got the harvest home when I went to soak the
hemp, and when I got home there was a summons, she must go to be tried,
and we had forgotten all about the matter that she was to be tried for.”
“It can only be the evil one,” said the gardener. “Could any man of
himself think of destroying a living soul? We had a fellow once--” and
the gardener was about to commence his tale when the train began to
stop.
“It seems we are coming to a station,” he said. “I’ll go and have a
drink.”
The conversation stopped, and Nekhludoff followed the gardener out of
the carriage onto the wet platform of the station.
CHAPTER XLII.
LE VRAI GRAND MONDE.
Before Nekhludoff got out he had noticed in the station yard several
elegant equipages, some with three, some with four, well-fed horses,
with tinkling bells on their harness. When he stepped out on the wet,
dark-coloured boards of the platform, he saw a group of people in front
of the first-class carriage, among whom were conspicuous a stout
lady with costly feathers on her hat, and a waterproof, and a tall,
thin-legged young man in a cycling suit. The young man had by his side
an enormous, well-fed dog, with a valuable collar. Behind them stood
footmen, holding wraps and umbrellas, and a coachman, who had also come
to meet the train.
On the whole of the group, from the fat lady down to the coachman who
stood holding up his long coat, there lay the stamp of wealth and quiet
self-assurance. A curious and servile crowd rapidly gathered round this
group--the station-master, in his red cap, a gendarme, a thin young lady
in a Russian costume, with beads round her neck, who made a point of
seeing the trains come in all through the summer, a telegraph clerk, and
passengers, men and women.
In the young man with the dog Nekhludoff recognised young Korchagin,
a gymnasium student. The fat lady was the Princess’s sister, to whose
estate the Korchagins were now moving. The guard, with his gold cord and
shiny top-boots, opened the carriage door and stood holding it as a sign
of deference, while Philip and a porter with a white apron carefully
carried out the long-faced Princess in her folding chair. The sisters
greeted each other, and French sentences began flying about. Would the
Princess go in a closed or an open carriage? At last the procession
started towards the exit, the lady’s maid, with her curly fringe,
parasol and leather case in the rear.
Nekhludoff not wishing to meet them and to have to take leave over
again, stopped before he got to the door, waiting for the procession to
pass.
The Princess, her son, Missy, the doctor, and the maid went out first,
the old Prince and his sister-in-law remained behind. Nekhludoff was too
far to catch anything but a few disconnected French sentences of their
conversation One of the sentences uttered by the Prince, as it often
happens, for some unaccountable reason remained in his memory with all
its intonations and the sound of the voice.
“_Oh, il est du vrai grand monde, du vrai grand monde_,” said the Prince
in his loud, self-assured tone as he went out of the station with his
sister-in-law, accompanied by the respectful guards and porters.
At this moment from behind the corner of the station suddenly appeared
a crowd of workmen in bark shoes, wearing sheepskin coats and carrying
bags on their backs. The workmen went up to the nearest carriage with
soft yet determined steps, and were about to get in, but were at
once driven away by a guard. Without stopping, the workmen passed
on, hurrying and jostling one another, to the next carriage and began
getting in, catching their bags against the corners and door of the
carriage, but another guard caught sight of them from the door of the
station, and shouted at them severely. The workmen, who had already got
in, hurried out again and went on, with the same soft and firm steps,
still further towards Nekhludoff’s carriage. A guard was again going to
stop them, but Nekhludoff said there was plenty of room inside, and that
they had better get in. They obeyed and got in, followed by Nekhludoff.
The workmen were about to take their seats, when the gentleman with the
cockade and the two ladies, looking at this attempt to settle in their
carriage as a personal insult to themselves, indignantly protested and
wanted to turn them out. The workmen--there were 20 of them, old men
and quite young ones, all of them wearied, sunburnt, with haggard
faces--began at once to move on through the carriage, catching the
seats, the walls, and the doors with their bags. They evidently felt
they had offended in some way, and seemed ready to go on indefinitely
wherever they were ordered to go.
“Where are you pushing to, you fiends? Sit down here,” shouted another
guard they met.
“Voila encore des nouvelles,” exclaimed the younger of the two ladies,
quite convinced that she would attract Nekhludoff’s notice by her good
French.
The other lady with the bracelets kept sniffing and making faces,
and remarked something about how pleasant it was to sit with smelly
peasants.
The workmen, who felt the joy and calm experienced by people who have
escaped some kind of danger, threw off their heavy bags with a movement
of their shoulders and stowed them away under the seats.
The gardener had left his own seat to talk with Taras, and now went
back, so that there were two unoccupied seats opposite and one next to
Taras. Three of the workmen took these seats, but when Nekhludoff came
up to them, in his gentleman’s clothing, they got so confused that they
rose to go away, but Nekhludoff asked them to stay, and himself sat down
on the arm of the seat, by the passage down the middle of the carriage.
One of the workmen, a man of about 50, exchanged a surprised and even
frightened look with a young man. That Nekhludoff, instead of scolding
and driving them away, as was natural to a gentleman, should give up his
seat to them, astonished and perplexed them. They even feared that this
might have some evil result for them.
However, they soon noticed that there was no underlying plot when they
heard Nekhludoff talking quite simply with Taras, and they grew quiet
and told one of the lads to sit down on his bag and give his seat to
Nekhludoff. At first the elderly workman who sat opposite Nekhludoff
shrank and drew back his legs for fear of touching the gentleman, but
after a while he grew quite friendly, and in talking to him and Taras
even slapped Nekhludoff on the knee when he wanted to draw special
attention to what he was saying.
He told them all about his position and his work in the peat bogs,
whence he was now returning home. He had been working there for two and
a half months, and was bringing home his wages, which only came to 10
roubles, since part had been paid beforehand when he was hired. They
worked, as he explained, up to their knees in water from sunrise to
sunset, with two hours’ interval for dinner.
“Those who are not used to it find it hard, of course,” he said; “but
when one’s hardened it doesn’t matter, if only the food is right. At
first the food was bad. Later the people complained, and they got good
food, and it was easy to work.”
Then he told them how, during 28 years he went out to work, and sent all
his earnings home. First to his father, then to his eldest brother, and
now to his nephew, who was at the head of the household. On himself he
spent only two or three roubles of the 50 or 60 he earned a year, just
for luxuries--tobacco and matches.
“I’m a sinner, when tired I even drink a little vodka sometimes,” he
added, with a guilty smile.
Then he told them how the women did the work at home, and how the
contractor had treated them to half a pail of vodka before they started
to-day, how one of them had died, and another was returning home ill.
The sick workman he was talking about was in a corner of the same
carriage. He was a young lad, with a pale, sallow face and bluish lips.
He was evidently tormented by intermittent fever. Nekhludoff went up to
him, but the lad looked up with such a severe and suffering expression
that Nekhludoff did not care to bother him with questions, but advised
the elder man to give him quinine, and wrote down the name of the
medicine. He wished to give him some money, but the old workman said he
would pay for it himself.
“Well, much as I have travelled, I have never met such a gentleman
before. Instead of punching your head, he actually gives up his place
to you,” said the old man to Taras. “It seems there are all sorts of
gentlefolk, too.”
“Yes, this is quite a new and different world,” thought Nekhludoff,
looking at these spare, sinewy, limbs, coarse, home-made garments,
and sunburnt, kindly, though weary-looking faces, and feeling himself
surrounded on all sides with new people and the serious interests, joys,
and sufferings of a life of labour.
“Here is_ le vrai grand monde_,” thought Nekhludoff, remembering the
words of Prince Korchagin and all that idle, luxurious world to which
the Korchagins belonged, with their petty, mean interests. And he felt
the joy of a traveller on discovering a new, unknown, and beautiful
world.
END OF BOOK II.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
MASLOVA MAKES NEW FRIENDS.
The gang of prisoners to which Maslova belonged had walked about three
thousand three hundred miles. She and the other prisoners condemned for
criminal offences had travelled by rail and by steamboats as far as the
town of Perm. It was only here that Nekhludoff succeeded in obtaining a
permission for her to continue the journey with the political prisoners,
as Vera Doukhova, who was among the latter, advised him to do. The
journey up to Perm had been very trying to Maslova both morally and
physically. Physically, because of the overcrowding, the dirt, and the
disgusting vermin, which gave her no peace; morally, because of the
equally disgusting men. The men, like the vermin, though they changed
at each halting-place, were everywhere alike importunate; they swarmed
round her, giving her no rest. Among the women prisoners and the men
prisoners, the jailers and the convoy soldiers, the habit of a kind of
cynical debauch was so firmly established that unless a female prisoner
was willing to utilise her position as a woman she had to be constantly
on the watch. To be continually in a state of fear and strife was very
trying. And Maslova was specially exposed to attacks, her appearance
being attractive and her past known to every one. The decided resistance
with which she now met the importunity of all the men seemed offensive
to them, and awakened another feeling, that of ill-will towards her. But
her position was made a little easier by her intimacy with Theodosia,
and Theodosia’s husband, who, having heard of the molestations his wife
was subject to, had in Nijni been arrested at his own desire in order
to be able to protect her, and was now travelling with the gang as a
prisoner. Maslova’s position became much more bearable when she was
allowed to join the political prisoners, who were provided with better
accomodations, better food, and were treated less rudely, but besides
all this Maslova’s condition was much improved because among the
political prisoners she was no longer molested by the men, and could
live without being reminded of that past which she was so anxious to
forget. But the chief advantage of the change lay in the fact that she
made the acquaintance of several persons who exercised a decided and
most beneficial influence on her character. Maslova was allowed to stop
with the political prisoners at all the halting-places, but being a
strong and healthy woman she was obliged to march with the criminal
convicts. In this way she walked all the way from Tomsk. Two political
prisoners also marched with the gang, Mary Pavlovna Schetinina, the girl
with the hazel eyes who had attracted Nekhludoff’s attention when he had
been to visit Doukhova in prison, and one Simonson, who was on his
way to the Takoutsk district, the dishevelled dark young fellow with
deep-lying eyes, whom Nekhludoff had also noticed during that visit.
Mary Pavlovna was walking because she had given her place on the cart
to one of the criminals, a woman expecting to be confined, and Simonson
because he did not dare to avail himself of a class privilege.
These three always started early in the morning before the rest of the
political prisoners, who followed later on in the carts.
They were ready to start in this way just outside a large town, where a
new convoy officer had taken charge of the gang.
It was early on a dull September morning. It kept raining and snowing
alternately, and the cold wind blew in sudden gusts. The whole gang of
prisoners, consisting of four hundred men and fifty women, was already
assembled in the court of the halting station. Some of them were
crowding round the chief of the convoy, who was giving to specially
appointed prisoners money for two days’ keep to distribute among the
rest, while others were purchasing food from women who had been let into
the courtyard. One could hear the voices of the prisoners counting their
money and making their purchases, and the shrill voices of the women
with the food.
Simonson, in his rubber jacket and rubber overshoes fastened with a
string over his worsted stockings (he was a vegetarian and would not
wear the skin of slaughtered animals), was also in the courtyard waiting
for the gang to start. He stood by the porch and jotted down in his
notebook a thought that had occurred to him. This was what he wrote:
“If a bacteria watched and examined a human nail it would pronounce
it inorganic matter, and thus we, examining our globe and watching its
crust, pronounce it to be inorganic. This is incorrect.”
Katusha and Mary Pavlovna, both wearing top-boots and with shawls tied
round their heads, came out of the building into the courtyard where the
women sat sheltered from the wind by the northern wall of the court,
and vied with one another, offering their goods, hot meat pie, fish,
vermicelli, buckwheat porridge, liver, beef, eggs, milk. One had even a
roast pig to offer.
Having bought some eggs, bread, fish, and some rusks, Maslova was
putting them into her bag, while Mary Pavlovna was paying the women,
when a movement arose among the convicts. All were silent and took their
places. The officer came out and began giving the last orders before
starting. Everything was done in the usual manner. The prisoners were
counted, the chains on their legs examined, and those who were to
march in couples linked together with manacles. But suddenly the angry,
authoritative voice of the officer shouting something was heard, also
the sound of a blow and the crying of a child. All was silent for a
moment and then came a hollow murmur from the crowd. Maslova and Mary
Pavlovna advanced towards the spot whence the noise proceeded.
CHAPTER II.
AN INCIDENT OF THE MARCH.
This is what Mary Pavlovna and Katusha saw when they came up to the
scene whence the noise proceeded. The officer, a sturdy fellow, with
fair moustaches, stood uttering words of foul and coarse abuse, and
rubbing with his left the palm of his right hand, which he had hurt in
hitting a prisoner on the face. In front of him a thin, tall convict,
with half his head shaved and dressed in a cloak too short for him and
trousers much too short, stood wiping his bleeding face with one hand,
and holding a little shrieking girl wrapped in a shawl with the other.
“I’ll give it you” (foul abuse); “I’ll teach you to reason” (more
abuse); “you’re to give her to the women!” shouted the officer. “Now,
then, on with them.”
The convict, who was exiled by the Commune, had been carrying his little
daughter all the way from Tomsk, where his wife had died of typhus, and
now the officer ordered him to be manacled. The exile’s explanation that
he could not carry the child if he was manacled irritated the officer,
who happened to be in a bad temper, and he gave the troublesome prisoner
a beating. [A fact described by Lineff in his “Transportation”.] Before
the injured convict stood a convoy soldier, and a black-bearded prisoner
with manacles on one hand and a look of gloom on his face, which he
turned now to the officer, now to the prisoner with the little girl.
The officer repeated his orders for the soldiers to take away the girl.
The murmur among the prisoners grew louder.
“All the way from Tomsk they were not put on,” came a hoarse voice from
some one in the rear. “It’s a child, and not a puppy.”
“What’s he to do with the lassie? That’s not the law,” said some one
else.
“Who’s that?” shouted the officer as if he had been stung, and rushed
into the crowd.
“I’ll teach you the law. Who spoke. You? You?”
“Everybody says so, because-” said a short, broad-faced prisoner.
Before he had finished speaking the officer hit him in the face.
“Mutiny, is it? I’ll show you what mutiny means. I’ll have you all
shot like dogs, and the authorities will be only too thankful. Take the
girl.”
The crowd was silent. One convoy soldier pulled away the girl, who was
screaming desperately, while another manacled the prisoner, who now
submissively held out his hand.
“Take her to the women,” shouted the officer, arranging his sword belt.
The little girl, whose face had grown quite red, was trying to disengage
her arms from under the shawl, and screamed unceasingly. Mary Pavlovna
stepped out from among the crowd and came up to the officer.
“Will you allow me to carry the little girl?” she said.
“Who are you?” asked the officer.
“A political prisoner.”
Mary Pavlovna’s handsome face, with the beautiful prominent eyes (he
had noticed her before when the prisoners were given into his charge),
evidently produced an effect on the officer. He looked at her in silence
as if considering, then said: “I don’t care; carry her if you like. It
is easy for you to show pity; if he ran away who would have to answer?”
“How could he run away with the child in his arms?” said Mary Pavlovna.
“I have no time to talk with you. Take her if you like.”
“Shall I give her?” asked the soldier.
“Yes, give her.”
“Come to me,” said Mary Pavlovna, trying to coax the child to come to
her.
But the child in the soldier’s arms stretched herself towards her father
and continued to scream, and would not go to Mary Pavlovna.
“Wait a bit, Mary Pavlovna,” said Maslova, getting a rusk out of her
bag; “she will come to me.”
The little girl knew Maslova, and when she saw her face and the rusk
she let her take her. All was quiet. The gates were opened, and the gang
stepped out, the convoy counted the prisoners over again, the bags were
packed and tied on to the carts, the weak seated on the top. Maslova
with the child in her arms took her place among the women next to
Theodosia. Simonson, who had all the time been watching what was going
on, stepped with large, determined strides up to the officer, who,
having given his orders, was just getting into a trap, and said, “You
have behaved badly.”
“Get to your place; it is no business of yours.”
“It is my business to tell you that you have behaved badly and I have
said it,” said Simonson, looking intently into the officer’s face from
under his bushy eyebrows.
“Ready? March!” the officer called out, paying no heed to Simonson, and,
taking hold of the driver’s shoulder, he got into the trap. The gang
started and spread out as it stepped on to the muddy high road with
ditches on each side, which passed through a dense forest.
CHAPTER III.
MARY PAVLOVNA.
In spite of the hard conditions in which they were placed, life among
the political prisoners seemed very good to Katusha after the depraved,
luxurious and effeminate life she had led in town for the last six
years, and after two months’ imprisonment with criminal prisoners. The
fifteen to twenty miles they did per day, with one day’s rest after two
days’ marching, strengthened her physically, and the fellowship with her
new companions opened out to her a life full of interests such as she
had never dreamed of. People so wonderful (as she expressed it) as those
whom she was now going with she had not only never met but could not
even have imagined.
“There now, and I cried when I was sentenced,” she said. “Why, I must
thank God for it all the days of my life. I have learned to know what I
never should have found out else.”
The motives she understood easily and without effort that guided these
people, and, being of the people, fully sympathised with them. She
understood that these persons were for the people and against the
upper classes, and though themselves belonging to the upper classes
had sacrificed their privileges, their liberty and their lives for the
people. This especially made her value and admire them. She was charmed
with all the new companions, but particularly with Mary Pavlovna,
and she was not only charmed with her, but loved her with a peculiar,
respectful and rapturous love. She was struck by the fact that this
beautiful girl, the daughter of a rich general, who could speak three
languages, gave away all that her rich brother sent her, and lived like
the simplest working girl, and dressed not only simply, but poorly,
paying no heed to her appearance. This trait and a complete absence
of coquetry was particularly surprising and therefore attractive to
Maslova. Maslova could see that Mary Pavlovna knew, and was even pleased
to know, that she was handsome, and yet the effect her appearance had on
men was not at all pleasing to her; she was even afraid of it, and felt
an absolute disgust to all love affairs. Her men companions knew it, and
if they felt attracted by her never permitted themselves to show it to
her, but treated her as they would a man; but with strangers, who often
molested her, the great physical strength on which she prided herself
stood her in good stead.
“It happened once,” she said to Katusha, “that a man followed me in the
street and would not leave me on any account. At last I gave him such a
shaking that he was frightened and ran away.”
She became a revolutionary, as she said, because she felt a dislike to
the life of the well-to-do from childhood up, and loved the life of the
common people, and she was always being scolded for spending her time
in the servants’ hall, in the kitchen or the stables instead of the
drawing-room.
“And I found it amusing to be with cooks and the coachmen, and dull with
our gentlemen and ladies,” she said. “Then when I came to understand
things I saw that our life was altogether wrong; I had no mother and I
did not care for my father, and so when I was nineteen I left home, and
went with a girl friend to work as a factory hand.”
After she left the factory she lived in the country, then returned to
town and lived in a lodging, where they had a secret printing press.
There she was arrested and sentenced to hard labour. Mary Pavlovna
said nothing about it herself, but Katusha heard from others that Mary
Pavlovna was sentenced because, when the lodging was searched by the
police and one of the revolutionists fired a shot in the dark, she
pleaded guilty.
As soon as she had learned to know Mary Pavlovna, Katusha noticed
that, whatever the conditions she found herself in, Mary Pavlovna never
thought of herself, but was always anxious to serve, to help some one,
in matters small or great. One of her present companions, Novodvoroff,
said of her that she devoted herself to philanthropic amusements. And
this was true. The interest of her whole life lay in the search for
opportunities of serving others. This kind of amusement had become the
habit, the business of her life. And she did it all so naturally that
those who knew her no longer valued but simply expected it of her.
When Maslova first came among them, Mary Pavlovna felt repulsed and
disgusted. Katusha noticed this, but she also noticed that, having made
an effort to overcome these feelings, Mary Pavlovna became particularly
tender and kind to her. The tenderness and kindness of so uncommon
a being touched Maslova so much that she gave her whole heart, and
unconsciously accepting her views, could not help imitating her in
everything.
This devoted love of Katusha touched Mary Pavlovna in her turn, and she
learned to love Katusha.
These women were also united by the repulsion they both felt to sexual
love. The one loathed that kind of love, having experienced all its
horrors, the other, never having experienced it, looked on it as
something incomprehensible and at the same time as something repugnant
and offensive to human dignity.
CHAPTER IV.
SIMONSON.
Mary Pavlovna’s influence was one that Maslova submitted to because she
loved Mary Pavlovna. Simonson influenced her because he loved her.
Everybody lives and acts partly according to his own, partly according
to other people’s, ideas. This is what constitutes one of the great
differences among men. To some, thinking is a kind of mental game; they
treat their reason as if it were a fly-wheel without a connecting strap,
and are guided in their actions by other people’s ideas, by custom or
laws; while others look upon their own ideas as the chief motive power
of all their actions, and always listen to the dictates of their own
reason and submit to it, accepting other people’s opinions only on rare
occasions and after weighing them critically. Simonson was a man of the
latter sort; he settled and verified everything according to his own
reason and acted on the decisions he arrived at. When a schoolboy
he made up his mind that his father’s income, made as a paymaster in
government office was dishonestly gained, and he told his father that it
ought to be given to the people. When his father, instead of listening
to him, gave him a scolding, he left his father’s house and would not
make use of his father’s means. Having come to the conclusion that all
the existing misery was a result of the people’s ignorance, he joined
the socialists, who carried on propaganda among the people, as soon as
he left the university and got a place as a village schoolmaster.
He taught and explained to his pupils and to the peasants what he
considered to be just, and openly blamed what he thought unjust. He was
arrested and tried. During his trial he determined to tell his judges
that his was a just cause, for which he ought not to be tried or
punished. When the judges paid no heed to his words, but went on with
the trial, he decided not to answer them and kept resolutely silent when
they questioned him. He was exiled to the Government of Archangel. There
he formulated a religious teaching which was founded on the theory that
everything in the world was alive, that nothing is lifeless, and that
all the objects we consider to be without life or inorganic are only
parts of an enormous organic body which we cannot compass. A man’s task
is to sustain the life of that huge organism and all its animate parts.
Therefore he was against war, capital punishment and every kind of
killing, not only of human beings, but also of animals. Concerning
marriage, too, he had a peculiar idea of his own; he thought that
increase was a lower function of man, the highest function being to
serve the already existing lives. He found a confirmation of his
theory in the fact that there were phacocytes in the blood. Celibates,
according to his opinion, were the same as phacocytes, their function
being to help the weak and the sickly particles of the organism. From
the moment he came to this conclusion he began to consider himself as
well as Mary Pavlovna as phacocytes, and to live accordingly, though
as a youth he had been addicted to vice. His love for Katusha did not
infringe this conception, because he loved her platonically, and such
love he considered could not hinder his activity as a phacocytes, but
acted, on the contrary, as an inspiration.
Not only moral, but also most practical questions he decided in his own
way. He applied a theory of his own to all practical business, had rules
relating to the number of hours for rest and for work, to the kind of
food to eat, the way to dress, to heat and light up the rooms. With all
this Simonson was very shy and modest; and yet when he had once made
up his mind nothing could make him waver. And this man had a decided
influence on Maslova through his love for her. With a woman’s instinct
Maslova very soon found out that he loved her. And the fact that
she could awaken love in a man of that kind raised her in her own
estimation. It was Nekhludoff’s magnanimity and what had been in the
past that made him offer to marry her, but Simonson loved her such as
she was now, loved her simply because of the love he bore her. And she
felt that Simonson considered her to be an exceptional woman, having
peculiarly high moral qualities. She did not quite know what the
qualities he attributed to her were, but in order to be on the safe side
and that he should not be disappointed in her, she tried with all her
might to awaken in herself all the highest qualities she could conceive,
and she tried to be as good as possible. This had begun while they
were still in prison, when on a common visiting day she had noticed his
kindly dark blue eyes gazing fixedly at her from under his projecting
brow. Even then she had noticed that this was a peculiar man, and that
he was looking at her in a peculiar manner, and had also noticed the
striking combination of sternness--the unruly hair and the frowning
forehead gave him this appearance--with the child-like kindness and
innocence of his look. She saw him again in Tomsk, where she joined the
political prisoners. Though they had not uttered a word, their looks
told plainly that they had understood one another. Even after that they
had had no serious conversation with each other, but Maslova felt that
when he spoke in her presence his words were addressed to her, and that
he spoke for her sake, trying to express himself as plainly as he could;
but it was when he started walking with the criminal prisoners that they
grew specially near to one another.
CHAPTER V.
THE POLITICAL PRISONERS.
Until they left Perm Nekhludoff only twice managed to see Katusha, once
in Nijni, before the prisoners were embarked on a barge surrounded with
a wire netting, and again in Perm in the prison office. At both these
interviews he found her reserved and unkind. She answered his questions
as to whether she was in want of anything, and whether she was
comfortable, evasively and bashfully, and, as he thought, with the same
feeling of hostile reproach which she had shown several times
before. Her depressed state of mind, which was only the result of the
molestations from the men that she was undergoing at the time, tormented
Nekhludoff. He feared lest, influenced by the hard and degrading
circumstances in which she was placed on the journey, she should again
get into that state of despair and discord with her own self which
formerly made her irritable with him, and which had caused her to drink
and smoke excessively to gain oblivion. But he was unable to help her in
any way during this part of the journey, as it was impossible for him to
be with her. It was only when she joined the political prisoners that he
saw how unfounded his fears were, and at each interview he noticed that
inner change he so strongly desired to see in her becoming more and more
marked. The first time they met in Tomsk she was again just as she had
been when leaving Moscow. She did not frown or become confused when she
saw him, but met him joyfully and simply, thanking him for what he had
done for her, especially for bringing her among the people with whom she
now was.
After two months’ marching with the gang, the change that had taken
place within her became noticeable in her appearance. She grew sunburned
and thinner, and seemed older; wrinkles appeared on her temples and
round her mouth. She had no ringlets on her forehead now, and her hair
was covered with the kerchief; in the way it was arranged, as well as in
her dress and her manners, there was no trace of coquetry left. And this
change, which had taken place and was still progressing in her, made
Nekhludoff very happy.
He felt for her something he had never experienced before. This feeling
had nothing in common with his first poetic love for her, and even less
with the sensual love that had followed, nor even with the satisfaction
of a duty fulfilled, not unmixed with self-admiration, with which he
decided to marry her after the trial. The present feeling was simply one
of pity and tenderness. He had felt it when he met her in prison for
the first time, and then again when, after conquering his repugnance,
he forgave her the imagined intrigue with the medical assistant in the
hospital (the injustice done her had since been discovered); it was the
same feeling he now had, only with this difference, that formerly it was
momentary, and that now it had become permanent. Whatever he was doing,
whatever he was thinking now, a feeling of pity and tenderness dwelt
with him, and not only pity and tenderness for her, but for everybody.
This feeling seemed to have opened the floodgates of love, which had
found no outlet in Nekhludoff’s soul, and the love now flowed out to
every one he met.
During this journey Nekhludoff’s feelings were so stimulated that he
could not help being attentive and considerate to everybody, from the
coachman and the convoy soldiers to the prison inspectors and governors
whom he had to deal with. Now that Maslova was among the political
prisoners, Nekhludoff could not help becoming acquainted with many of
them, first in Ekaterinburg, where they had a good deal of freedom and
were kept altogether in a large cell, and then on the road when Maslova
was marching with three of the men and four of the women. Coming in
contact with political exiles in this way made Nekhludoff completely
change his mind concerning them.
From the very beginning of the revolutionary movement in Russia, but
especially since that first of March, when Alexander II was murdered,
Nekhludoff regarded the revolutionists with dislike and contempt. He
was repulsed by the cruelty and secrecy of the methods they employed
in their struggles against the government, especially the cruel murders
they committed, and their arrogance also disgusted him. But having
learned more intimately to know them and all they had suffered at the
hands of the government, he saw that they could not be other than they
were.
Terrible and endless as were the torments which were inflicted on the
criminals, there was at least some semblance of justice shown them
before and after they were sentenced, but in the case of the political
prisoners there was not even that semblance, as Nekhludoff saw in the
case of Sholostova and that of many and many of his new acquaintances.
These people were dealt with like fish caught with a net; everything
that gets into the nets is pulled ashore, and then the big fish which
are required are sorted out and the little ones are left to perish
unheeded on the shore. Having captured hundreds that were evidently
guiltless, and that could not be dangerous to the government, they left
them imprisoned for years, where they became consumptive, went out of
their minds or committed suicide, and kept them only because they had
no inducement to set them free, while they might be of use to elucidate
some question at a judicial inquiry, safe in prison. The fate of these
persons, often innocent even from the government point of view, depended
on the whim, the humour of, or the amount of leisure at the disposal
of some police officer or spy, or public prosecutor, or magistrate,
or governor, or minister. Some one of these officials feels dull, or
inclined to distinguish himself, and makes a number of arrests, and
imprisons or sets free, according to his own fancy or that of the
higher authorities. And the higher official, actuated by like motives,
according to whether he is inclined to distinguish himself, or to what
his relations to the minister are, exiles men to the other side of the
world or keeps them in solitary confinement, condemns them to Siberia,
to hard labour, to death, or sets them free at the request of some lady.
They were dealt with as in war, and they naturally employed the
means that were used against them. And as the military men live in an
atmosphere of public opinion that not only conceals from them the guilt
of their actions, but sets these actions up as feats of heroism,
so these political offenders were also constantly surrounded by
an atmosphere of public opinion which made the cruel actions they
committed, in the face of danger and at the risk of liberty and life,
and all that is dear to men, seem not wicked but glorious actions.
Nekhludoff found in this the explanation of the surprising phenomenon
that men, with the mildest characters, who seemed incapable of
witnessing the sufferings of any living creature, much less of
inflicting pain, quietly prepared to murder men, nearly all of them
considering murder lawful and just on certain occasions as a means
for self-defence, for the attainment of higher aims or for the general
welfare.
The importance they attribute to their cause, and consequently to
themselves, flowed naturally from the importance the government attached
to their actions, and the cruelty of the punishments it inflicted on
them. When Nekhludoff came to know them better he became convinced that
they were not the right-down villains that some imagined them to be, nor
the complete heroes that others thought them, but ordinary people, just
the same as others, among whom there were some good and some bad, and
some mediocre, as there are everywhere.
There were some among them who had turned revolutionists because they
honestly considered it their duty to fight the existing evils, but there
were also those who chose this work for selfish, ambitious motives; the
majority, however, was attracted to the revolutionary idea by the desire
for danger, for risks, the enjoyment of playing with one’s life, which,
as Nekhludoff knew from his military experiences, is quite common to
the most ordinary people while they are young and full of energy. But
wherein they differed from ordinary people was that their moral standard
was a higher one than that of ordinary men. They considered not only
self-control, hard living, truthfulness, but also the readiness to
sacrifice everything, even life, for the common welfare as their duty.
Therefore the best among them stood on a moral level that is not often
reached, while the worst were far below the ordinary level, many of them
being untruthful, hypocritical and at the same time self-satisfied and
proud. So that Nekhludoff learned not only to respect but to love some
of his new acquaintances, while he remained more than indifferent to
others.
CHAPTER VI.
KRYLTZOFF’S STORY.
Nekhludoff grew especially fond of Kryltzoff, a consumptive young man
condemned to hard labour, who was going with the same gang as Katusha.
Nekhludoff had made his acquaintance already in Ekaterinburg, and
talked with him several times on the road after that. Once, in summer,
Nekhludoff spent nearly the whole of a day with him at a halting
station, and Kryltzoff, having once started talking, told him his
story and how he had become a revolutionist. Up to the time of his
imprisonment his story was soon told. He lost his father, a rich landed
proprietor in the south of Russia, when still a child. He was the only
son, and his mother brought him up. He learned easily in the university,
as well as the gymnasium, and was first in the mathematical faculty
in his year. He was offered a choice of remaining in the university
or going abroad. He hesitated. He loved a girl and was thinking of
marriage, and taking part in the rural administration. He did not like
giving up either offer, and could not make up his mind. At this time
his fellow-students at the university asked him for money for a common
cause. He did not know that this common cause was revolutionary, which
he was not interested in at that time, but gave the money from a sense
of comradeship and vanity, so that it should not be said that he was
afraid. Those who received the money were caught, a note was found which
proved that the money had been given by Kryltzoff, he was arrested, and
first kept at the police station, then imprisoned.
“The prison where I was put,” Kryltzoff went on to relate (he was
sitting on the high shelf bedstead, his elbows on his knees, with
sunken chest, the beautiful, intelligent eyes with which he looked at
Nekhludoff glistening feverishly)--“they were not specially strict in
that prison. We managed to converse, not only by tapping the wall, but
could walk about the corridors, share our provisions and our tobacco,
and in the evenings we even sang in chorus. I had a fine voice--yes, if
it had not been for mother it would have been all right, even pleasant
and interesting. Here I made the acquaintance of the famous Petroff--he
afterwards killed himself with a piece of glass at the fortress--and
also of others. But I was not yet a revolutionary. I also became
acquainted with my neighbours in the cells next to mine. They were both
caught with Polish proclamations and arrested in the same cause, and
were tried for an attempt to escape from the convoy when they were being
taken to the railway station. One was a Pole, Lozinsky; the other a
Jew, Rozovsky. Yes. Well, this Rozovsky was quite a boy. He said he
was seventeen, but he looked fifteen--thin, small, active, with black,
sparkling eyes, and, like most Jews, very musical. His voice was still
breaking, and yet he sang beautifully. Yes. I saw them both taken to be
tried. They were taken in the morning. They returned in the evening, and
said they were condemned to death. No one had expected it. Their case
was so unimportant; they only tried to get away from the convoy, and had
not even wounded any one. And then it was so unnatural to execute such
a child as Rozovsky. And we in prison all came to the conclusion that it
was only done to frighten them, and would not be confirmed. At first
we were excited, and then we comforted ourselves, and life went on
as before. Yes. Well, one evening, a watchman comes to my door and
mysteriously announces to me that carpenters had arrived, and were
putting up the gallows. At first I did not understand. What’s that? What
gallows? But the watchman was so excited that I saw at once it was
for our two. I wished to tap and communicate with my comrades, but was
afraid those two would hear. The comrades were also silent. Evidently
everybody knew. In the corridors and in the cells everything was as
still as death all that evening. They did not tap the wall nor sing.
At ten the watchman came again and announced that a hangman had arrived
from Moscow. He said it and went away. I began calling him back.
Suddenly I hear Rozovsky shouting to me across the corridor: ‘What’s the
matter? Why do you call him?’ I answered something about asking him to
get me some tobacco, but he seemed to guess, and asked me: ‘Why did we
not sing to-night, why did we not tap the walls?’ I do not remember
what I said, but I went away so as not to speak to him. Yes. It was a
terrible night. I listened to every sound all night. Suddenly, towards
morning, I hear doors opening and somebody walking--many persons. I went
up to my window. There was a lamp burning in the corridor. The first
to pass was the inspector. He was stout, and seemed a resolute,
self-satisfied man, but he looked ghastly pale, downcast, and seemed
frightened; then his assistant, frowning but resolute; behind them the
watchman. They passed my door and stopped at the next, and I hear the
assistant calling out in a strange voice: ‘Lozinsky, get up and put on
clean linen.’ Yes. Then I hear the creaking of the door; they entered
into his cell. Then I hear Lozinsky’s steps going to the opposite side
of the corridor. I could only see the inspector. He stood quite pale,
and buttoned and unbuttoned his coat, shrugging his shoulders. Yes.
Then, as if frightened of something, he moved out of the way. It was
Lozinsky, who passed him and came up to my door. A handsome young fellow
he was, you know, of that nice Polish type: broad shouldered, his head
covered with fine, fair, curly hair as with a cap, and with beautiful
blue eyes. So blooming, so fresh, so healthy. He stopped in front of my
window, so that I could see the whole of his face. A dreadful, gaunt,
livid face. ‘Kryltzoff, have you any cigarettes?’ I wished to pass him
some, but the assistant hurriedly pulled out his cigarette case and
passed it to him. He took out one, the assistant struck a match, and he
lit the cigarette and began to smoke and seemed to be thinking. Then,
as if he had remembered something, he began to speak. ‘It is cruel and
unjust. I have committed no crime. I--’ I saw something quiver in his
white young throat, from which I could not take my eyes, and he stopped.
Yes. At that moment I hear Rozovsky shouting in his fine, Jewish
voice. Lozinsky threw away the cigarette and stepped from the door.
And Rozovsky appeared at the window. His childish face, with the limpid
black eyes, was red and moist. He also had clean linen on, the trousers
were too wide, and he kept pulling them up and trembled all over. He
approached his pitiful face to my window. ‘Kryltzoff, it’s true that the
doctor has prescribed cough mixture for me, is it not? I am not well.
I’ll take some more of the mixture.’ No one answered, and he looked
inquiringly, now at me, now at the inspector. What he meant to say
I never made out. Yes. Suddenly the assistant again put on a stern
expression, and called out in a kind of squeaking tone: ‘Now, then, no
nonsense. Let us go.’ Rozovsky seemed incapable of understanding what
awaited him, and hurried, almost ran, in front of him all along the
corridor. But then he drew back, and I could hear his shrill voice
and his cries, then the trampling of feet, and general hubbub. He was
shrieking and sobbing. The sounds came fainter and fainter, and at
last the door rattled and all was quiet. Yes. And so they hanged them.
Throttled them both with a rope. A watchman, another one, saw it done,
and told me that Lozinsky did not resist, but Rozovsky struggled for
a long time, so that they had to pull him up on to the scaffold and to
force his head into the noose. Yes. This watchman was a stupid fellow.
He said: ‘They told me, sir, that it would be frightful, but it was
not at all frightful. After they were hanged they only shrugged their
shoulders twice, like this.’ He showed how the shoulders convulsively
rose and fell. ‘Then the hangman pulled a bit so as to tighten the
noose, and it was all up, and they never budged.”’ And Kryltzoff
repeated the watchman’s words, “Not at all frightful,” and tried to
smile, but burst into sobs instead.
For a long time after that he kept silent, breathing heavily, and
repressing the sobs that were choking him.
“From that time I became a revolutionist. Yes,” he said, when he was
quieter and finished his story in a few words. He belonged to the
Narodovoltzy party, and was even at the head of the disorganising group,
whose object was to terrorise the government so that it should give
up its power of its own accord. With this object he travelled
to Petersburg, to Kiev, to Odessa and abroad, and was everywhere
successful. A man in whom he had full confidence betrayed him. He was
arrested, tried, kept in prison for two years, and condemned to death,
but the sentence was mitigated to one of hard labour for life.
He went into consumption while in prison, and in the conditions he was
now placed he had scarcely more than a few months longer to live. This
he knew, but did not repent of his action, but said that if he had
another life he would use it in the same way to destroy the conditions
in which such things as he had seen were possible.
This man’s story and his intimacy with him explained to Nekhludoff much
that he had not previously understood.
CHAPTER VII.
NEKHLUDOFF SEEKS AN INTERVIEW WITH MASLOVA.
On the day when the convoy officer had the encounter with the prisoners
at the halting station about the child, Nekhludoff, who had spent
the night at the village inn, woke up late, and was some time writing
letters to post at the next Government town, so that he left the inn
later than usual, and did not catch up with the gang on the road as
he had done previously, but came to the village where the next halting
station was as it was growing dusk.
Having dried himself at the inn, which was kept by an elderly woman who
had an extraordinarily fat, white neck, he had his tea in a clean room
decorated with a great number of icons and pictures and then hurried
away to the halting station to ask the officer for an interview
with Katusha. At the last six halting stations he could not get the
permission for an interview from any of the officers. Though they had
been changed several times, not one of them would allow Nekhludoff
inside the halting stations, so that he had not seen Katusha for
more than a week. This strictness was occasioned by the fact that
an important prison official was expected to pass that way. Now this
official had passed without looking in at the gang, after all, and
Nekhludoff hoped that the officer who had taken charge of the gang in
the morning would allow him an interview with the prisoners, as former
officers had done.
The landlady offered Nekhludoff a trap to drive him to the halting
station, situated at the farther end of the village, but Nekhludoff
preferred to walk. A young labourer, a broad-shouldered young fellow
of herculean dimensions, with enormous top-boots freshly blackened with
strongly smelling tar, offered himself as a guide.
A dense mist obscured the sky, and it was so dark that when the young
fellow was three steps in advance of him Nekhludoff could not see him
unless the light of some window happened to fall on the spot, but he
could hear the heavy boots wading through the deep, sticky slush. After
passing the open place in front of the church and the long street,
with its rows of windows shining brightly in the darkness, Nekhludoff
followed his guide to the outskirts of the village, where it was pitch
dark. But soon here, too, rays of light, streaming through the mist
from the lamps in the front of the halting station, became discernible
through the darkness. The reddish spots of light grew bigger and bigger;
at last the stakes of the palisade, the moving figure of the sentinel, a
post painted with white and black stripes and the sentinel’s box became
visible.
The sentinel called his usual “Who goes there?” as they approached, and
seeing they were strangers treated them with such severity that he would
not allow them to wait by the palisade; but Nekhludoff’s guide was not
abashed by this severity.
“Hallo, lad! why so fierce? You go and rouse your boss while we wait
here?”
The sentinel gave no answer, but shouted something in at the gate and
stood looking at the broad-shouldered young labourer scraping the mud
off Nekhludoff’s boots with a chip of wood by the light of the lamp.
From behind the palisade came the hum of male and female voices. In
about three minutes more something rattled, the gate opened, and a
sergeant, with his cloak thrown over his shoulders, stepped out of the
darkness into the lamplight.
The sergeant was not as strict as the sentinel, but he was extremely
inquisitive. He insisted on knowing what Nekhludoff wanted the officer
for, and who he was, evidently scenting his booty and anxious not to let
it escape. Nekhludoff said he had come on special business, and would
show his gratitude, and would the sergeant take a note for him to the
officer. The sergeant took the note, nodded, and went away. Some time
after the gate rattled again, and women carrying baskets, boxes, jugs
and sacks came out, loudly chattering in their peculiar Siberian dialect
as they stepped over the threshold of the gate. None of them wore
peasant costumes, but were dressed town fashion, wearing jackets and
fur-lined cloaks. Their skirts were tucked up high, and their heads
wrapped up in shawls. They examined Nekhludoff and his guide curiously
by the light of the lamp. One of them showed evident pleasure at the
sight of the broad-shouldered fellow, and affectionately administered to
him a dose of Siberian abuse.
“You demon, what are you doing here? The devil take you,” she said,
addressing him.
“I’ve been showing this traveller here the way,” answered the young
fellow. “And what have you been bringing here?”
“Dairy produce, and I am to bring more in the morning.”
The guide said something in answer that made not only the women but even
the sentinel laugh, and, turning to Nekhludoff, he said:
“You’ll find your way alone? Won’t get lost, will you?”
“I shall find it all right.”
“When you have passed the church it’s the second from the two-storied
house. Oh, and here, take my staff,” he said, handing the stick he
was carrying, and which was longer than himself, to Nekhludoff; and
splashing through the mud with his enormous boots, he disappeared in the
darkness, together with the women.
His voice mingling with the voices of the women was still audible
through the fog, when the gate again rattled, and the sergeant appeared
and asked Nekhludoff to follow him to the officer.
CHAPTER VIII.
NEKHLUDOFF AND THE OFFICER.
This halting station, like all such stations along the Siberian
road, was surrounded by a courtyard, fenced in with a palisade of
sharp-pointed stakes, and consisted of three one-storied houses. One of
them, the largest, with grated windows, was for the prisoners, another
for the convoy soldiers, and the third, in which the office was, for the
officers.
There were lights in the windows of all the three houses, and, like
all such lights, they promised, here in a specially deceptive manner,
something cosy inside the walls. Lamps were burning before the porches
of the houses and about five lamps more along the walls lit up the yard.
The sergeant led Nekhludoff along a plank which lay across the yard up
to the porch of the smallest of the houses.
When he had gone up the three steps of the porch he let Nekhludoff pass
before him into the ante-room, in which a small lamp was burning, and
which was filled with smoky fumes. By the stove a soldier in a coarse
shirt with a necktie and black trousers, and with one top-boot on, stood
blowing the charcoal in a somovar, using the other boot as bellows. [The
long boots worn in Russia have concertina-like sides, and when held to
the chimney of the somovar can be used instead of bellows to make the
charcoal inside burn up.] When he saw Nekhludoff, the soldier left the
somovar and helped him off with his waterproof; then went into the inner
room.
“He has come, your honour.”
“Well, ask him in,” came an angry voice.
“Go in at the door,” said the soldier, and went back to the somovar.
In the next room an officer with fair moustaches and a very red face,
dressed in an Austrian jacket that closely fitted his broad chest and
shoulders, sat at a covered table, on which were the remains of his
dinner and two bottles; there was a strong smell of tobacco and some
very strong, cheap scent in the warm room. On seeing Nekhludoff the
officer rose and gazed ironically and suspiciously, as it seemed, at the
newcomer.
“What is it you want?” he asked, and, not waiting for a reply, he
shouted through the open door:
“Bernoff, the somovar! What are you about?”
“Coming at once.”
“You’ll get it ‘at once’ so that you’ll remember it,” shouted the
officer, and his eyes flashed.
“I’m coming,” shouted the soldier, and brought in the somovar.
Nekhludoff waited while the soldier placed the somovar on the table.
When the officer had followed the soldier out of the room with his cruel
little eyes looking as if they were aiming where best to hit him, he
made the tea, got the four-cornered decanter out of his travelling case
and some Albert biscuits, and having placed all this on the cloth he
again turned to Nekhludoff. “Well, how can I be of service to you?”
“I should like to be allowed to visit a prisoner,” said Nekhludoff,
without sitting down.
“A political one? That’s forbidden by the law,” said the officer.
“The woman I mean is not a political prisoner,” said Nekhludoff.
“Yes. But pray take a scat,” said the officer. Nekhludoff sat down.
“She is not a political one, but at my request she has been allowed by
the higher authorities to join the political prisoners--”
“Oh, yes, I know,” interrupted the other; “a little dark one? Well,
yes, that can be managed. Won’t you smoke?” He moved a box of cigarettes
towards Nekhludoff, and, having carefully poured out two tumblers of
tea, he passed one to Nekhludoff. “If you please,” he said.
“Thank you; I should like to see--”
“The night is long. You’ll have plenty of time. I shall order her to be
sent out to you.”
“But could I not see her where she is? Why need she be sent for?”
Nekhludoff said.
“In to the political prisoners? It is against the law.”
“I have been allowed to go in several times. If there is any danger of
my passing anything in to them I could do it through her just as well.”
“Oh, no; she would be searched,” said the officer, and laughed in an
unpleasant manner.
“Well, why not search me?”
“All right; we’ll manage without that,” said the officer, opening the
decanter, and holding it out towards Nekhludoff’s tumbler of tea. “May
I? No? Well, just as you like. When you are living here in Siberia you
are too glad to meet an educated person. Our work, as you know, is the
saddest, and when one is used to better things it is very hard. The idea
they have of us is that convoy officers are coarse, uneducated men, and
no one seems to remember that we may have been born for a very different
position.”
This officer’s red face, his scents, his rings, and especially his
unpleasant laughter disgusted Nekhludoff very much, but to-day, as
during the whole of his journey, he was in that serious, attentive state
which did not allow him to behave slightingly or disdainfully towards
any man, but made him feel the necessity of speaking to every one
“entirely,” as he expressed to himself, this relation to men. When he
had heard the officer and understood his state of mind, he said in a
serious manner:
“I think that in your position, too, some comfort could be found in
helping the suffering people,” he said.
“What are their sufferings? You don’t know what these people are.”
“They are not special people,” said Nekhludoff; “they are just such
people as others, and some of them are quite innocent.”
“Of course, there are all sorts among them, and naturally one pities
them. Others won’t let anything off, but I try to lighten their
condition where I can. It’s better that I should suffer, but not they.
Others keep to the law in every detail, even as far as to shoot, but
I show pity. May I?--Take another,” he said, and poured out another
tumbler of tea for Nekhludoff.
“And who is she, this woman that you want to see?” he asked.
“It is an unfortunate woman who got into a brothel, and was there
falsely accused of poisoning, and she is a very good woman,” Nekhludoff
answered.
The officer shook his head. “Yes, it does happen. I can tell you about
a certain Emma who lived in Kasan. She was a Hungarian by birth, but she
had quite Persian eyes,” he continued, unable to restrain a smile at the
recollection; “there was so much chic about her that a countess--”
Nekhludoff interrupted the officer and returned to the former topic of
conversation.
“I think that you could lighten the condition of the people while they
are in your charge. And in acting that way I am sure you would find
great joy!” said Nekhludoff, trying to pronounce as distinctly as
possible, as he might if talking to a foreigner or a child.
The officer looked at Nekhludoff impatiently, waiting for him to stop
so as to continue the tale about the Hungarian with Persian eyes, who
evidently presented herself very vividly to his imagination and quite
absorbed his attention.
“Yes, of course, this is all quite true,” he said, “and I do pity them;
but I should like to tell you about Emma. What do you think she did--?”
“It does not interest me,” said Nekhludoff, “and I will tell you
straight, that though I was myself very different at one time, I now
hate that kind of relation to women.”
The officer gave Nekhludoff a frightened look.
“Won’t you take some more tea?” he said.
“No, thank you.”
“Bernoff!” the officer called, “take the gentleman to Vakouloff. Tell
him to let him into the separate political room. He may remain there
till the inspection.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE POLITICAL PRISONERS.
Accompanied by the orderly, Nekhludoff went out into the courtyard,
which was dimly lit up by the red light of the lamps.
“Where to?” asked the convoy sergeant, addressing the orderly.
“Into the separate cell, No. 5.”
“You can’t pass here; the boss has gone to the village and taken the
keys.”
“Well, then, pass this way.”
The soldier led Nekhludoff along a board to another entrance. While
still in the yard Nekhludoff could hear the din of voices and general
commotion going on inside as in a beehive when the bees are preparing to
swarm; but when he came nearer and the door opened the din grew louder,
and changed into distinct sounds of shouting, abuse and laughter. He
heard the clatter of chairs and smelt the well-known foul air. This din
of voices and the clatter of the chairs, together with the close smell,
always flowed into one tormenting sensation, and produced in Nekhludoff
a feeling of moral nausea which grew into physical sickness, the two
feelings mingling with and heightening each other.
The first thing Nekhludoff saw, on entering, was a large, stinking tub.
A corridor into which several doors opened led from the entrance. The
first was the family room, then the bachelors’ room, and at the very end
two small rooms were set apart for the political prisoners.
The buildings, which were arranged to hold one hundred and fifty
prisoners, now that there were four hundred and fifty inside, were so
crowded that the prisoners could not all get into the rooms, but filled
the passage, too. Some were sitting or lying on the floor, some were
going out with empty teapots, or bringing them back filled with boiling
water. Among the latter was Taras. He overtook Nekhludoff and greeted
him affectionately. The kind face of Taras was disfigured by dark
bruises on his nose and under his eye.
“What has happened to you?” asked Nekhludoff.
“Yes, something did happen,” Taras said, with a smile.
“All because of the woman,” added a prisoner, who followed Taras; “he’s
had a row with Blind Fedka.”
“And how’s Theodosia?”
“She’s all right. Here I am bringing her the water for her tea,” Taras
answered, and went into the family room.
Nekhludoff looked in at the door. The room was crowded with women and
men, some of whom were on and some under the bedsteads; it was full of
steam from the wet clothes that were drying, and the chatter of women’s
voices was unceasing. The next door led into the bachelors’ room. This
room was still more crowded; even the doorway and the passage in front
of it were blocked by a noisy crowd of men, in wet garments, busy doing
or deciding something or other.
The convoy sergeant explained that it was the prisoner appointed to buy
provisions, paying off out of the food money what was owing to a sharper
who had won from or lent money to the prisoners, and receiving back
little tickets made of playing cards. When they saw the convoy soldier
and a gentleman, those who were nearest became silent, and followed
them with looks of ill-will. Among them Nekhludoff noticed the criminal
Fedoroff, whom he knew, and who always kept a miserable lad with
a swelled appearance and raised eyebrows beside him, and also a
disgusting, noseless, pock-marked tramp, who was notorious among the
prisoners because he killed his comrade in the marshes while trying to
escape, and had, as it was rumoured, fed on his flesh. The tramp stood
in the passage with his wet cloak thrown over one shoulder, looking
mockingly and boldly at Nekhludoff, and did not move out of the way.
Nekhludoff passed him by.
Though this kind of scene had now become quite familiar to him, though
he had during the last three months seen these four hundred criminal
prisoners over and over again in many different circumstances; in the
heat, enveloped in clouds of dust which they raised as they dragged
their chained feet along the road, and at the resting places by the way,
where the most horrible scenes of barefaced debauchery had occurred, yet
every time he came among them, and felt their attention fixed upon him
as it was now, shame and consciousness of his sin against them tormented
him. To this sense of shame and guilt was added an unconquerable feeling
of loathing and horror. He knew that, placed in a position such as
theirs, they could not be other than they were, and yet he was unable to
stifle his disgust.
“It’s well for them do-nothings,” Nekhludoff heard some one say in a
hoarse voice as he approached the room of the political prisoners. Then
followed a word of obscene abuse, and spiteful, mocking laughter.
CHAPTER X.
MAKAR DEVKIN.
When they had passed the bachelors’ room the sergeant who accompanied
Nekhludoff left him, promising to come for him before the inspection
would take place. As soon as the sergeant was gone a prisoner, quickly
stepping with his bare feet and holding up the chains, came close up to
Nekhludoff, enveloping him in the strong, acid smell of perspiration,
and said in a mysterious whisper:
“Help the lad, sir; he’s got into an awful mess. Been drinking. To-day
he’s given his name as Karmanoff at the inspection. Take his part, sir.
We dare not, or they’ll kill us,” and looking uneasily round he turned
away.
This is what had happened. The criminal Kalmanoff had persuaded a young
fellow who resembled him in appearance and was sentenced to exile to
change names with him and go to the mines instead of him, while he only
went to exile. Nekhludoff knew all this. Some convict had told him about
this exchange the week before. He nodded as a sign that he understood
and would do what was in his power, and continued his way without
looking round.
Nekhludoff knew this convict, and was surprised by his action. When in
Ekaterinburg the convict had asked Nekhludoff to get a permission for
his wife to follow him. The convict was a man of medium size and of the
most ordinary peasant type, about thirty years old. He was condemned to
hard labour for an attempt to murder and rob. His name was Makar Devkin.
His crime was a very curious one. In the account he gave of it to
Nekhludoff, he said it was not his but his devil’s doing. He said that
a traveller had come to his father’s house and hired his sledge to drive
him to a village thirty miles off for two roubles. Makar’s father told
him to drive the stranger. Makar harnessed the horse, dressed, and
sat down to drink tea with the stranger. The stranger related at the
tea-table that he was going to be married and had five hundred roubles,
which he had earned in Moscow, with him. When he had heard this, Makar
went out into the yard and put an axe into the sledge under the straw.
“And I did not myself know why I was taking the axe,” he said. “‘Take
the axe,’ says _he_, and I took it. We got in and started. We drove
along all right; I even forgot about the axe. Well, we were getting
near the village; only about four miles more to go. The way from the
cross-road to the high road was up hill, and I got out. I walked behind
the sledge and _he_ whispers to me, ‘What are you thinking about? When
you get to the top of the hill you will meet people along the highway,
and then there will be the village. He will carry the money away. If
you mean to do it, now’s the time.’ I stooped over the sledge as if to
arrange the straw, and the axe seemed to jump into my hand of itself.
The man turned round. ‘What are you doing?’ I lifted the axe and tried
to knock him down, but he was quick, jumped out, and took hold of my
hands. ‘What are you doing, you villain?’ He threw me down into the
snow, and I did not even struggle, but gave in at once. He bound my arms
with his girdle, and threw me into the sledge, and took me straight to
the police station. I was imprisoned and tried. The commune gave me a
good character, said that I was a good man, and that nothing wrong had
been noticed about me. The masters for whom I worked also spoke well of
me, but we had no money to engage a lawyer, and so I was condemned to
four years’ hard labour.”
It was this man who, wishing to save a fellow-villager, knowing that he
was risking his life thereby, told Nekhludoff the prisoner’s secret, for
doing which (if found out) he should certainly be throttled.
CHAPTER XI.
MASLOVA AND HER COMPANIONS.
The political prisoners were kept in two small rooms, the doors of which
opened into a part of the passage partitioned off from the rest. The
first person Nekhludoff saw on entering into this part of the passage
was Simonson in his rubber jacket and with a log of pine wood in his
hands, crouching in front of a stove, the door of which trembled, drawn
in by the heat inside.
When he saw Nekhludoff he looked up at him from under his protruding
brow, and gave him his hand without rising.
“I am glad you have come; I want to speak to you,” he said, looking
Nekhludoff straight in the eyes with an expression of importance.
“Yes; what is it?” Nekhludoff asked.
“It will do later on; I am busy just now,” and Simonson turned again
towards the stove, which he was heating according to a theory of his
own, so as to lose as little heat energy as possible.
Nekhludoff was going to enter in at the first door, when Maslova,
stooping and pushing a large heap of rubbish and dust towards the stove
with a handleless birch broom, came out of the other. She had a white
jacket on, her skirt was tucked up, and a kerchief, drawn down to her
eyebrows, protected her hair from the dust. When she saw Nekhludoff, she
drew herself up, flushing and animated, put down the broom, wiped her
hands on her skirt, and stopped right in front of him. “You are tidying
up the apartments, I see,” said Nekhludoff, shaking hands.
“Yes; my old occupation,” and she smiled. “But the dirt! You can’t
imagine what it is. We have been cleaning and cleaning. Well, is the
plaid dry?” she asked, turning to Simonson.
“Almost,” Simonson answered, giving her a strange look, which struck
Nekhludoff.
“All right, I’ll come for it, and will bring the cloaks to dry. Our
people are all in here,” she said to Nekhludoff, pointing to the first
door as she went out of the second.
Nekhludoff opened the door and entered a small room dimly lit by a
little metal lamp, which was standing low down on the shelf bedstead. It
was cold in the room, and there was a smell of the dust, which had not
had time to settle, damp and tobacco smoke.
Only those who were close to the lamp were clearly visible, the
bedsteads were in the shade and wavering shadows glided over the walls.
Two men, appointed as caterers, who had gone to fetch boiling water and
provisions, were away; most of the political prisoners were gathered
together in the small room. There was Nekhludoff’s old acquaintance,
Vera Doukhova, with her large, frightened eyes, and the swollen vein on
her forehead, in a grey jacket with short hair, and thinner and yellower
than ever.. She had a newspaper spread out in front of her, and sat
rolling cigarettes with a jerky movement of her hands.
Emily Rintzeva, whom Nekhludoff considered to be the pleasantest of the
political prisoners, was also here. She looked after the housekeeping,
and managed to spread a feeling of home comfort even in the midst of
the most trying surroundings. She sat beside the lamp, with her sleeves
rolled up, wiping cups and mugs, and placing them, with her deft, red
and sunburnt hands, on a cloth that was spread on the bedstead. Rintzeva
was a plain-looking young woman, with a clever and mild expression of
face, which, when she smiled, had a way of suddenly becoming merry,
animated and captivating. It was with such a smile that she now welcomed
Nekhludoff.
“Why, we thought you had gone back to Russia,” she said.
Here in a dark corner was also Mary Pavlovna, busy with a little,
fair-haired girl, who kept prattling in her sweet, childish accents.
“How nice that you have come,” she said to Nekhludoff.
“Have you seen Katusha? And we have a visitor here,” and she pointed to
the little girl.
Here was also Anatole Kryltzoff with felt boots on, sitting in a far
corner with his feet under him, doubled up and shivering, his arms
folded in the sleeves of his cloak, and looking at Nekhludoff with
feverish eyes. Nekhludoff was going up to him, but to the right of
the door a man with spectacles and reddish curls, dressed in a rubber
jacket, sat talking to the pretty, smiling Grabetz. This was the
celebrated revolutionist Novodvoroff. Nekhludoff hastened to greet him.
He was in a particular hurry about it, because this man was the only one
among all the political prisoners whom he disliked. Novodvoroff’s eyes
glistened through his spectacles as he looked at Nekhludoff and held his
narrow hand out to him.
“Well, are you having a pleasant journey?” he asked, with apparent
irony.
“Yes, there is much that is interesting,” Nekhludoff answered, as if
he did not notice the irony, but took the question for politeness, and
passed on to Kryltzoff.
Though Nekhludoff appeared indifferent, he was really far from
indifferent, and these words of Novodvoroff, showing his evident desire
to say or do something unpleasant, interfered with the state of kindness
in which Nekhludoff found himself, and he felt depressed and sad.
“Well, how are you?” he asked, pressing Kryltzoff’s cold and trembling
hand.
“Pretty well, only I cannot get warm; I got wet through,” Kryltzoff
answered, quickly replacing his hands into the sleeves of his cloak.
“And here it is also beastly cold. There, look, the window-panes are
broken,” and he pointed to the broken panes behind the iron bars. “And
how are you? Why did you not come?”
“I was not allowed to, the authorities were so strict, but to-day the
officer is lenient.”
“Lenient indeed!” Kryltzoff remarked. “Ask Mary what she did this
morning.”
Mary Pavlovna from her place in the corner related what had happened
about the little girl that morning when they left the halting station.
“I think it is absolutely necessary to make a collective protest,” said
Vera Doukhova, in a determined tone, and yet looking now at one, now
at another, with a frightened, undecided look. “Valdemar Simonson did
protest, but that is not sufficient.”
“What protest!” muttered Kryltzoff, cross and frowning. Her want
of simplicity, artificial tone and nervousness had evidently been
irritating him for a long time.
“Are you looking for Katusha?” he asked, addressing Nekhludoff. “She is
working all the time. She has cleaned this, the men’s room, and now she
has gone to clean the women’s! Only it is not possible to clean away
the fleas. And what is Mary doing there?” he asked, nodding towards the
corner where Mary Pavlovna sat.
“She is combing out her adopted daughter’s hair,” replied Rintzeva.
“But won’t she let the insects loose on us?” asked Kryltzoff.
“No, no; I am very careful. She is a clean little girl now. You take
her,” said Mary, turning to Rintzeva, “while I go and help Katusha, and
I will also bring him his plaid.”
Rintzeva took the little girl on her lap, pressing her plump, bare,
little arms to her bosom with a mother’s tenderness, and gave her a bit
of sugar. As Mary Pavlovna left the room, two men came in with boiling
water and provisions.
CHAPTER XII.
NABATOFF AND MARKEL.
One of the men who came in was a short, thin, young man, who had a
cloth-covered sheepskin coat on, and high top-boots. He stepped lightly
and quickly, carrying two steaming teapots, and holding a loaf wrapped
in a cloth under his arm.
“Well, so our prince has put in an appearance again,” he said, as he
placed the teapot beside the cups, and handed the bread to Rintzeva.
“We have bought wonderful things,” he continued, as he took off his
sheepskin, and flung it over the heads of the others into the corner
of the bedstead. “Markel has bought milk and eggs. Why, we’ll have
a regular ball to-day. And Rintzeva is spreading out her aesthetic
cleanliness,” he said, and looked with a smile at Rintzeva, “and now she
will make the tea.”
The whole presence of this man--his motion, his voice, his look--seemed
to breathe vigour and merriment. The other newcomer was just the reverse
of the first. He looked despondent and sad. He was short, bony, had very
prominent cheek bones, a sallow complexion, thin lips and beautiful,
greenish eyes, rather far apart. He wore an old wadded coat, top-boots
and goloshes, and was carrying two pots of milk and two round boxes
made of birch bark, which he placed in front of Rintzeva. He bowed to
Nekhludoff, bending only his neck, and with his eyes fixed on him. Then,
having reluctantly given him his damp hand to shake, he began to take
out the provisions.
Both these political prisoners were of the people; the first was
Nabatoff, a peasant; the second, Markel Kondratieff, a factory hand.
Markel did not come among the revolutionists till he was quite a man,
Nabatoff only eighteen. After leaving the village school, owing to
his exceptional talents Nabatoff entered the gymnasium, and maintained
himself by giving lessons all the time he studied there, and obtained
the gold medal. He did not go to the university because, while still in
the seventh class of the gymnasium, he made up his mind to go among the
people and enlighten his neglected brethren. This he did, first getting
the place of a Government clerk in a large village. He was soon arrested
because he read to the peasants and arranged a co-operative industrial
association among them. They kept him imprisoned for eight months and
then set him free, but he remained under police supervision. As soon
as he was liberated he went to another village, got a place as
schoolmaster, and did the same as he had done in the first village.
He was again taken up and kept fourteen months in prison, where his
convictions became yet stronger. After that he was exiled to the Perm
Government, from where he escaped. Then he was put to prison for seven
months and after that exiled to Archangel. There he refused to take the
oath of allegiance that was required of them and was condemned to
be exiled to the Takoutsk Government, so that half his life since he
reached manhood was passed in prison and exile. All these adventures did
not embitter him nor weaken his energy, but rather stimulated it. He was
a lively young fellow, with a splendid digestion, always active, gay
and vigorous. He never repented of anything, never looked far ahead, and
used all his powers, his cleverness, his practical knowledge to act in
the present. When free he worked towards the aim he had set himself, the
enlightening and the uniting of the working men, especially the country
labourers. When in prison he was just as energetic and practical in
finding means to come in contact with the outer world, and in arranging
his own life and the life of his group as comfortably as the conditions
would allow. Above all things he was a communist. He wanted, as it
seemed to him, nothing for himself and contented himself with very
little, but demanded very much for the group of his comrades, and could
work for it either physically or mentally day and night, without sleep
or food. As a peasant he had been industrious, observant, clever at
his work, and naturally self-controlled, polite without any effort, and
attentive not only to the wishes but also the opinions of others. His
widowed mother, an illiterate, superstitious, old peasant woman, was
still living, and Nabatoff helped her and went to see her while he was
free. During the time he spent at home he entered into all the interests
of his mother’s life, helped her in her work, and continued his
intercourse with former playfellows; smoked cheap tobacco with them in
so-called “dog’s feet,” [a kind of cigarette that the peasants smoke,
made of a bit of paper and bent at one end into a hook] took part
in their fist fights, and explained to them how they were all being
deceived by the State, and how they ought to disentangle themselves out
of the deception they were kept in. When he thought or spoke of what a
revolution would do for the people he always imagined this people from
whom he had sprung himself left in very nearly the same conditions
as they were in, only with sufficient land and without the gentry and
without officials. The revolution, according to him, and in this
he differed from Novodvoroff and Novodvoroff’s follower, Markel
Kondratieff, should not alter the elementary forms of the life of the
people, should not break down the whole edifice, but should only alter
the inner walls of the beautiful, strong, enormous old structure he
loved so dearly. He was also a typical peasant in his views on religion,
never thinking about metaphysical questions, about the origin of
all origin, or the future life. God was to him, as also to Arago, an
hypothesis, which he had had no need of up to now. He had no business
with the origin of the world, whether Moses or Darwin was right.
Darwinism, which seemed so important to his fellows, was only the same
kind of plaything of the mind as the creation in six days. The question
how the world had originated did not interest him, just because the
question how it would be best to live in this world was ever before him.
He never thought about future life, always bearing in the depth of his
soul the firm and quiet conviction inherited from his forefathers, and
common to all labourers on the land, that just as in the world of plants
and animals nothing ceases to exist, but continually changes its form,
the manure into grain, the grain into a food, the tadpole into a frog,
the caterpillar into a butterfly, the acorn into an oak, so man also
does not perish, but only undergoes a change. He believed in this, and
therefore always looked death straight in the face, and bravely bore the
sufferings that lead towards it, but did not care and did not know how
to speak about it. He loved work, was always employed in some practical
business, and put his comrades in the way of the same kind of practical
work.
The other political prisoner from among the people, Markel Kondratieff,
was a very different kind of man. He began to work at the age of
fifteen, and took to smoking and drinking in order to stifle a dense
sense of being wronged. He first realised he was wronged one Christmas
when they, the factory children, were invited to a Christmas tree, got
up by the employer’s wife, where he received a farthing whistle, an
apple, a gilt walnut and a fig, while the employer’s children had
presents given them which seemed gifts from fairyland, and had cost more
than fifty roubles, as he afterwards heard.