AT an evening party at the Eropkins, Mahin, who was paying attentions
to the two young daughters of the house--they were rich matches, both of
them--having earned great applause for his fine singing and playing
the piano, began telling the company about the strange convict who had
converted the hangman. Mahin told his story very accurately, as he had a
very good memory, which was all the more retentive because of his
total indifference to those with whom he had to deal. He never paid the
slightest attention to other people’s feelings, and was therefore better
able to keep all they did or said in his memory. He got interested in
Stepan Pelageushkine, and, although he did not thoroughly understand
him, yet asked himself involuntarily what was the matter with the
man? He could not find an answer, but feeling that there was certainly
something remarkable going on in Stepan’s soul, he told the company
at the Eropkins all about Stepan’s conversion of the hangman, and also
about his strange behaviour in prison, his reading the Gospels and his
great influence on the rest of the prisoners. All this made a special
impression on the younger daughter of the family, Lisa, a girl of
eighteen, who was just recovering from the artificial life she had
been living in a boarding-school; she felt as if she had emerged out of
water, and was taking in the fresh air of true life with ecstasy. She
asked Mahin to tell her more about the man Pelageushkine, and to explain
to her how such a great change had come over him. Mahin told her what he
knew from the police official about Stepan’s last murder, and also what
he had heard from Pelageushkine himself--how he had been conquered by
the humility, mildness, and fearlessness of a kind woman, who had been
his last victim, and how his eyes had been opened, while the reading of
the Gospels had completed the change in him.
Lisa Eropkin was not able to sleep that night. For a couple of months a
struggle had gone on in her heart between society life, into which her
sister was dragging her, and her infatuation for Mahin, combined with
a desire to reform him. This second desire now became the stronger. She
had already heard about poor Maria Semenovna. But, after that kind woman
had been murdered in such a ghastly way, and after Mahin, who learnt
it from Stepan, had communicated to her all the facts concerning Maria
Semenovna’s life, Lisa herself passionately desired to become like her.
She was a rich girl, and was afraid that Mahin had been courting her
because of her money. So she resolved to give all she possessed to the
poor, and told Mahin about it.
Mahin was very glad to prove his disinterestedness, and told Lisa that
he loved her and not her money. Such proof of his innate nobility made
him admire himself greatly. Mahin helped Lisa to carry out her decision.
And the more he did so, the more he came to realise the new world of
Lisa’s spiritual ambitions, quite unknown to him heretofore.