The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents)

by Leo Tolstoy

  The affair of which Vera Efremovna wished to speak to Nekhludoff consisted of the following: A chum of hers, Shustova, who did not even belong to her sub-section, was arrested because in her dwelling were found books and papers which had been left with her for safe keeping. Vera Efremovna thought that it was partly her fault that Shustova was imprisoned, and implored Nekhludoff, who was well connected, to do everything in his power to effect her release.

  Of herself, she related that, after having graduated as midwife, she joined some party. At first everything went on smoothly, but afterward one of the party was caught, the papers were seized, and then all were taken in a police drag-net.

  "They also took me, and now I am going to be transported," she wound up her story. "But that is nothing. I feel excellently," and she smiled piteously.

  Nekhludoff asked her about the girl with the sheep eyes, and Vera Efremovna told him that she was the daughter of a general, that she had assumed the guilt of another person, and was now going to serve at hard labor in Siberia.

  "An altruistic, honest person," said Vera Efremovna.

  The other case of which Vera Efremovna wished to speak concerned Maslova. As the history of every prisoner was known to everyone in prison, she knew Maslova's history, and advised him to procure her removal to the ward for politicals, or, at least, to the hospital, which was just now crowded, requiring a larger staff of nurses.

  Nekhludoff said that he could hardly do anything, but promised to make an attempt when he reached St. Petersburg.

  CHAPTER LIV.

  Their conversation was interrupted by the inspector, who announced that it was time to depart. Nekhludoff rose, took leave of Vera Efremovna, and strode to the door, where he stopped to observe what was taking place before him.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, the time is up," said the inspector as he was going out. But neither visitors nor prisoners stirred.

  The inspector's demand only called forth greater animation, but no one thought of departing. Some got up and talked standing; some continued to talk sitting; others began to cry and take leave. The young man continued to crumple the bit of paper, and he made such a good effort to remain calm that his face seemed to bear an angry expression. His mother, hearing that the visit was over, fell on his shoulder and began to sob. The girl with the sheep eyes--Nekhludoff involuntarily followed her movements--stood before the sobbing mother, pouring words of consolation into her ear. The old man with the blue eye-glasses held his daughter by the hand and nodded affirmatively to her words. The young lovers rose, holding each other's hands and silently looking into each other's eyes.

  "Those are the only happy people here," said the young man in the rubber jacket who stood near Nekhludoff, pointing to the young lovers.

  Seeing the glances of Nekhludoff and the young man, the lovers--the convict and the flaxen-haired girl--stretched their clasping hands, threw back their heads, and began to dance in a circle.

  "They will be married this evening in the prison, and she will go with him to Siberia," said the young man.

  "Who is he, then?"

  "He is a penal convict. Although they are making merry, it is very painful to listen," added the young man, listening to the sobbing of the old man with the blue eye-glasses.

  "Please, please don't compel me to take severe measures," said the inspector, several times repeating the same thing. "Please, please," he said, weakly and irresolutely. "Well, now, this cannot go on. Please, now come. For the last time I repeat it," he said, in a sad voice, seating himself and rising again; lighting and then extinguishing his cigarette.

  Finally the prisoners and visitors began to depart--the former passing through the inner, the latter through the outer, door. First the man in the rubber coat passed out; then the consumptive and the dark-featured convict; next Vera Efremovna and Maria Pavlovna, and the boy who was born in the prison.

  The visitors also filed out. The old man with the blue eye-glasses started with a heavy gait, and after him came Nekhludoff.

  "What a peculiar state of things!" said the talkative young man to Nekhludoff on the stairs, as though continuing the interrupted conversation. "It is fortunate that the captain is a kind-hearted man, and does not enforce the rules. But for him it would be tantalizing. As it is, they talk together and relieve their feelings."

  When Nekhludoff, talking to this man, who gave his name as Medyntzev, reached the entrance-hall, the inspector, with weary countenance, approached him.

  "So, if you wish to see Maslova, then please call to-morrow," he said, evidently desiring to be pleasant.

  "Very well," said Nekhludoff, and hastened away. As on the former occasion, besides pity he was seized with a feeling of doubt and a sort of moral nausea.

  "What is all that for?" he asked himself, but found no answer.

  CHAPTER LV.

  On the following day Nekhludoff drove to the lawyer and told him of the Menshovs' case, asking him to take up their defense. The lawyer listened to him attentively, and said that if the facts were really as told to Nekhludoff, he would undertake their defense without compensation. Nekhludoff also told him of the hundred and thirty men kept in prison through some misunderstanding, and asked him whose fault he thought it was. The lawyer was silent for a short while, evidently desiring to give an accurate answer.

  "Whose fault it is? No one's," he said decisively. "If you ask the prosecutor, he will tell you that it is Maslenikoff's fault, and if you ask Maslenikoff, he will tell you that it is the prosecutor's fault. It is no one's fault."

  "I will go to Maslenikoff and tell him."

  "That is useless," the lawyer retorted, smiling. "He is--he is not your friend or relative, is he? He is such a blockhead, and, saving your presence, at the same time such a sly beast!"

  Nekhludoff recalled what Maslenikoff had said about the lawyer, made no answer, and, taking leave, directed his steps toward Maslenikoff's residence.

  Two things Nekhludoff wanted of Maslenikoff. First, to obtain Maslova's transfer to the hospital, and to help, if possible, the hundred and thirty unfortunates. Although it was hard for him to be dealing with this man, and especially to ask favors of him, yet it was the only way of gaining his end, and he had to go through it.

  As Nekhludoff approached Maslenikoff's house, he saw a number of carriages, cabs and traps standing in front of it, and he recalled that this was the reception day to which he had been invited. While Nekhludoff was approaching the house a carriage was standing near the curb, opposite the door, and a lackey in a cockaded silk hat and cape, was seating a lady, who, raising the long train of her skirt, displayed the sharp joints of her toes through the thin slippers. Among the carriages he recognized the covered landau of the Korchagins. The gray-haired, rosy-cheeked driver deferentially raised his hat. Nekhludoff had scarcely asked the porter where Michael Ivanovich (Maslenikoff) was, when the latter appeared on the carpeted stairway, escorting a very important guest, such as he usually escorted not to the upper landing, but to the vestibule. This very important military guest, while descending the stairs, was conversing in French about a lottery for the benefit of orphan asylums, giving his opinion that it was a good occupation for ladies. "They enjoy themselves while they are raising money."

  "Qu'elles s'amusent et que le bon Dieu les bénisse. Ah, Nekhludoff, how do you do? You haven't shown yourself for a long time," he greeted Nekhludoff. "Allez présenter vos devoirs à madame. The Korchagins are here, too. Toutes les jolies femmes de la ville," he said, holding out and somewhat raising his military shoulders for his overcoat, which was being placed on him by his own magnificent lackey in gold-braided uniform. "Au revoir, mon cher." Then he shook Maslenikoff's hand.

  "Well, now let us go upstairs. How glad I am," Maslenikoff began excitedly, seizing Nekhludoff by the arm, and, notwithstanding his corpulence, nimbly leading him up the stairs. Maslenikoff was in a particularly happy mood, which Nekhludoff could not help ascribing to the attention shown him by the important person. Every attention shown him by a
n important person put him into such an ecstasy as may be observed in a fawning little dog when its master pats it, strokes it, and scratches under its ears. It wags its tail, shrinks, wriggles, and, straightening its ears, madly runs in a circle. Maslenikoff was ready to do the same thing. He did not notice the grave expression on Nekhludoff's face, nor hear what he was saying, but irresistibly dragged him into the reception-room. Nekhludoff involuntarily followed.

  "Business afterward. I will do anything you wish," said Maslenikoff, leading him through the parlor. "Announce Prince Nekhludoff to Her Excellency," he said on the way to a lackey. The lackey, in an ambling gait, ran ahead of them. "Vous n'avez qu'à ordonner. But you must see my wife without fail. She would not forgive my failure to present you last time you were here."

  The lackey had already announced him when they entered, and Anna Ignatievna, the vice-governess--Mrs. General, as she called herself--sat on a couch surrounded by ladies. As Nekhludoff approached she was already leaning forward with a radiant smile on her face. At the other end of the reception-room women sat around a table, while men in military uniforms and civil attire stood over them. An incessant cackle came from that direction.

  "Enfin! Why do you estrange yourself? Have we offended you in any way?"

  With these words, presupposing an intimacy between her and Nekhludoff, which never existed, Anna Ignatievna greeted him.

  "Are you acquainted? Madam Beliavskaia--Michael Ivanovich Chernoff. Take a seat here."

  "Missy, venez donc à notre table. On vous opportera votre thé. And you," she turned to the officer who was conversing with Missy, evidently forgetting his name, "come here, please. Will you have some tea, Prince?"

  "No, no; I will never agree with you. She simply did not love him," said a woman's voice.

  "But she loved pie."

  "Eternally those stupid jests," laughingly interfered another lady in a high hat and dazzling with gold and diamonds.

  "C'est excellent, these waffles, and so light! Let us have some more."

  "Well, how soon are you going to leave us?"

  "Yes, this is the last day. That is why we came here."

  "Such a beautiful spring! How pleasant it is in the country!"

  Missy in her hat and some dark, striped dress which clasped her waist without a wrinkle, was very pretty. She blushed when she saw Nekhludoff.

  "I thought you had left the city," she said to him.

  "Almost. Business keeps me here. I come here also for business."

  "Call on mamma. She is very anxious to see you," she said, and, feeling that she was lying, and that he understood it, her face turned a still deeper purple.

  "I shall hardly have the time," gloomily answered Nekhludoff, pretending not to see that she was blushing.

  Missy frowned angrily, shrugged her shoulders, and turned to an elegant officer, who took from her hands the empty teacup and valiantly carried it to another table, his sword striking every object it encountered.

  "You must also contribute toward the asylum."

  "I am not refusing, only I wish to keep my contribution for the lottery. There I will show all my liberality."

  "Don't forget, now," a plainly dissimulating laugh was heard.

  The reception day was brilliant, and Anna Ignatievna was delighted.

  "Mika told me that you busy yourself in the prisons. I understand it very well," she said to Nekhludoff. "Mika"--she meant her stout husband, Maslenikoff--"may have his faults, but you know that he is kind. All these unfortunate prisoners are his children. He does not look on them in any other light. Il est d'une bonté----"

  She stopped, not finding words to express bonté of a husband, and immediately, smiling, turned to an old, wrinkled woman in lilac-colored bows who had just entered.

  Having talked as much and as meaninglessly as it was necessary to preserve the decorum, Nekhludoff arose and went over to Maslenikoff.

  "Will you please hear me now?"

  "Ah! yes. Well, what is it?"

  "Come in here."

  They entered a small Japanese cabinet and seated themselves near the window.

  CHAPTER LVI.

  "Well, je suis à vous. Will you smoke a cigarette? But wait; we must not soil the things here," and he brought an ash-holder. "Well?"

  "I want two things of you."

  "Is that so?"

  Maslenikoff's face became gloomy and despondent. All traces of that animation of the little dog whom its master had scratched under the ears entirely disappeared. Voices came from the reception-room. One, a woman's voice, said: "Jamais, jamais je ne croirais;" another, a man's voice from the other corner, was telling something, constantly repeating: "La Comtesse Vorouzoff" and "Victor Apraksine." From the third side only a humming noise mingled with laughter was heard. Maslenikoff listened to the voices; so did Nekhludoff.

  "I want to talk to you again about that woman."

  "Yes; who was innocently condemned. I know, I know."

  "I would like her to be transferred to the hospital. I was told that it can be done."

  Maslenikoff pursed up his lips and began to meditate.

  "It can hardly be done," he said. "However, I will consult about it, and will wire you to-morrow."

  "I was told that there are many sick people in the hospital, and they need assistants."

  "Well, yes. But I will let you know, as I said."

  "Please do," said Nekhludoff.

  There was a burst of general and even natural laughter in the reception-room.

  "That is caused by Victor," said Maslenikoff, smiling. "He is remarkably witty when in high spirits."

  "Another thing," said Nekhludoff. "There are a hundred and thirty men languishing in prison for the only reason that their passports were not renewed in time. They have been in prison now for a month."

  And he related the causes that kept them there.

  "How did you come to know it?" asked Nekhludoff, and his face showed disquietude and displeasure.

  "I was visiting a prisoner, and these people surrounded me and asked----"

  "What prisoner were you visiting?"

  "The peasant who is innocently accused, and for whom I have obtained counsel. But that is not to the point. Is it possible that these innocent people are kept in prison only because they failed to renew their passports?"

  "That is the prosecutor's business," interrupted Maslenikoff, somewhat vexed. "Now, you say that trials must be speedy and just. It is the duty of the assistant prosecutor to visit the prisons and see that no one is innocently kept there. But these assistants do nothing but play cards."

  "So you can do nothing for them?" Nekhludoff asked gloomily, recalling the words of the lawyer, that the governor would shift the responsibility.

  "I will see to it. I will make inquiries immediately."

  "So much the worse for her. C'est un souffre-douleur," came from the reception-room, the voice of a woman apparently entirely indifferent to what she was saying.

  "So much the better; I will take this," from the other side was heard a man's playful voice, and the merry laughter of a woman who refused him something.

  "No, no, for no consideration," said a woman's voice.

  "Well, then, I will do everything," repeated Maslenikoff, extinguishing the cigarette with his white hand, on which was a turquoise ring. "Now, let us go to the ladies."

  "And yet another question," said Nekhludoff, without going into the reception-room, and stopping at the door. "I was told that some people in the prison were subjected to corporal punishment. Is it true?"

  Maslenikoff's face flushed.

  "Ah! you have reference to that affair? No, mon cher, you must positively not be admitted there--you want to know everything. Come, come; Annette is calling us," he said, seizing Nekhludoff's arm with the same excitement he evinced after the attention shown him by the important person, but this time alarming, and not joyful.