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

by Leo Tolstoy

  "What I want to speak to you about is this," Simonson began, when they had come out into the passage. In the passage the din of the criminal's voices and shouts sounded louder. Nekhludoff made a face, but Simonson did not seem to take any notice.

  "Knowing of your relations to Katerina Maslova," he began seriously and frankly, with his kind eyes looking straight into Nekhludoff's face, "I consider it my duty"--He was obliged to stop because two voices were heard disputing and shouting, both at once, close to the door.

  "I tell you, blockhead, they are not mine," one voice shouted.

  "May you choke, you devil," snorted the other.

  At this moment Mary Pavlovna came out into the passage.

  "How can one talk here?" she said; "go in, Vera is alone there," and she went in at the second door, and entered a tiny room, evidently meant for a solitary cell, which was now placed at the disposal of the political women prisoners, Vera Doukhova lay covered up, head and all, on the bed.

  "She has got a headache, and is asleep, so she cannot hear you, and I will go away," said Mary Pavlovna.

  "On the contrary, stay here," said Simonson; "I have no secrets from any one, certainly none from you."

  "All right," said Mary Pavlovna, and moving her whole body from side to side, like a child, so as to get farther back on to the bed, she settled down to listen, her beautiful hazel eyes seeming to look somewhere far away.

  "Well, then, this is my business," Simonson repeated. "Knowing of your relations to Katerina Maslova, I consider myself bound to explain to you my relations to her."

  Nekhludoff could not help admiring the simplicity and truthfulness with which Simonson spoke to him.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I should like to marry Katerina Maslova--"

  "How strange!" said Mary Pavlovna, fixing her eyes on Simonson.

  "--And so I made up my mind to ask her to be my wife," Simonson continued.

  "What can I do? It depends on her," said Nekhludoff.

  "Yes; but she will not come to any decision without you."

  "Why?"

  "Because as long as your relations with her are unsettled she cannot make up her mind."

  "As far as I am concerned, it is finally settled. I should like to do what I consider to be my duty and also to lighten her fate, but on no account would I wish to put any restraint on her."

  "Yes, but she does not wish to accept your sacrifice."

  "It is no sacrifice."

  "And I know that this decision of hers is final."

  "Well, then, there is no need to speak to me," said Nekhludoff.

  "She wants you to acknowledge that you think as she does."

  "How can I acknowledge that I must not do what I consider to be my duty? All I can say is that I am not free, but she is."

  Simonson was silent; then, after thinking a little, he said: "Very well, then, I'll tell her. You must not think I am in love with her," he continued; "I love her as a splendid, unique, human being who has suffered much. I want nothing from her. I have only an awful longing to help her, to lighten her posi--"

  Nekhludoff was surprised to hear the trembling in Simonson's voice.

  "--To lighten her position," Simonson continued. "If she does not wish to accept your help, let her accept mine. If she consents, I shall ask to be sent to the place where she will be imprisoned. Four years are not an eternity. I would live near her, and perhaps might lighten her fate--" and he again stopped, too agitated to continue.

  "What am I to say?" said Nekhludoff. "I am very glad she has found such a protector as you--"

  "That's what I wanted to know," Simonson interrupted.

  "I wanted to know if, loving her and wishing her happiness, you would consider it good for her to marry me?"

  "Oh, yes," said Nekhludoff decidedly.

  "It all depends on her; I only wish that this suffering soul should find rest," said Simonson, with such childlike tenderness as no one could have expected from so morose-looking a man.

  Simonson rose, and stretching his lips out to Nekhludoff, smiled shyly and kissed him.

  "So I shall tell her," and he went away.

  CHAPTER XVII

  .

  "I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY."

  "What do you think of that?" said Mary Pavlovna. "In love--quite in love. Now, that's a thing I never should have expected, that Valdemar Simonson should be in love, and in the silliest, most boyish manner. It is strange, and, to say the truth, it is sad," and she sighed.

  "But she? Katusha? How does she look at it, do you think?" Nekhludoff asked.

  "She?" Mary Pavlovna waited, evidently wishing to give as exact an answer as possible. "She? Well, you see, in spite of her past she has one of the most moral natures--and such fine feelings. She loves you--loves you well, and is happy to be able to do you even the negative good of not letting you get entangled with her. Marriage with you would be a terrible fall for her, worse than all that's past, and therefore she will never consent to it. And yet your presence troubles her."

  "Well, what am I to do? Ought I to vanish?"

  Mary Pavlovna smiled her sweet, childlike smile, and said, "Yes, partly."

  "How is one to vanish partly?"

  "I am talking nonsense. But as for her, I should like to tell you that she probably sees the silliness of this rapturous kind of love (he has not spoken to her), and is both flattered and afraid of it. I am not competent to judge in such affairs, you know, still I believe that on his part it is the most ordinary man's feeling, though it is masked. He says that this love arouses his energy and is Platonic, but I know that even if it is exceptional, still at the bottom it is degrading."

  Mary Pavlovna had wandered from the subject, having started on her favourite theme.

  "Well, but what am I to do?" Nekhludoff asked.

  "I think you should tell her everything; it is always best that everything should be clear. Have a talk with her; I shall call her. Shall I?" said Mary Pavlovna.

  "If you please," said Nekhludoff, and Mary Pavlovna went.

  A strange feeling overcame Nekhludoff when he was alone in the little room with the sleeping Vera Doukhova, listening to her soft breathing, broken now and then by moans, and to the incessant dirt that came through the two doors that separated him from the criminals. What Simonson had told him freed him from the self-imposed duty, which had seemed hard and strange to him in his weak moments, and yet now he felt something that was not merely unpleasant but painful.

  He had a feeling that this offer of Simonson's destroyed the exceptional character of his sacrifice, and thereby lessened its value in his own and others' eyes; if so good a man who was not bound to her by any kind of tie wanted to join his fate to hers, then this sacrifice was not so great. There may have also been an admixture of ordinary jealousy. He had got so used to her love that he did not like to admit that she loved another.

  Then it also upset the plans he had formed of living near her while she was doing her term. If she married Simonson his presence would be unnecessary, and he would have to form new plans.

  Before he had time to analyse his feelings the loud din of the prisoners' voices came in with a rush (something special was going on among them to-day) as the door opened to let Katusha in.

  She stepped briskly close up to him and said, "Mary Pavlovna has sent me."

  "Yes, I must have a talk with you. Sit down. Valdemar Simonson has been speaking to me."

  She sat down and folded her hands in her lap and seemed quite calm, but hardly had Nekhludoff uttered Simonson's name when she flushed crimson.

  "What did he say?" she asked.

  "He told me he wanted to marry you."

  Her face suddenly puckered up with pain, but she said nothing and only cast down her eyes.

  "He is asking for my consent or my advice. I told him that it all depends entirely on you--that you must decide."

  "Ah, what does it all mean? Why?" she muttered, and looked in his eyes with that peculiar squint tha
t always strangely affected Nekhludoff.

  They sat silent for a few minutes looking into each other's eyes, and this look told much to both of them.

  "You must decide," Nekhludoff repeated.

  "What am I to decide? Everything has long been decided."

  "No; you must decide whether you will accept Mr. Simonson's offer," said Nekhludoff.

  "What sort of a wife can I be--I, a convict? Why should I ruin Mr. Simonson, too?" she said, with a frown.

  "Well, but if the sentence should be mitigated."

  "Oh, leave me alone. I have nothing more to say," she said, and rose to leave the room.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  .

  NEVEROFF'S FATE.

  When, following Katusha, Nekhludoff returned to the men's room, he found every one there in agitation. Nabatoff, who went about all over the place, and who got to know everybody, and noticed everything, had just brought news which staggered them all. The news was that he had discovered a note on a wall, written by the revolutionist Petlin, who had been sentenced to hard labour, and who, every one thought, had long since reached the Kara; and now it turned out that he had passed this way quite recently, the only political prisoner among criminal convicts.

  "On the 17th of August," so ran the note, "I was sent off alone with the criminals. Neveroff was with me, but hanged himself in the lunatic asylum in Kasan. I am well and in good spirits and hope for the best."

  All were discussing Petlin's position and the possible reasons of Neveroff's suicide. Only Kryltzoff sat silent and preoccupied, his glistening eyes gazing fixedly in front of him.

  "My husband told me that Neveroff had a vision while still in the Petropavlovski prison," said Rintzeva.

  "Yes, he was a poet, a dreamer; this sort of people cannot stand solitary confinement," said Novodvoroff. "Now, I never gave my imagination vent when in solitary confinement, but arranged my days most systematically, and in this way always bore it very well."

  "What is there unbearable about it? Why, I used to be glad when they locked me up," said Nabatoff cheerfully, wishing to dispel the general depression.

  "A fellow's afraid of everything; of being arrested himself and entangling others, and of spoiling the whole business, and then he gets locked up, and all responsibility is at an end, and he can rest; he can just sit and smoke."

  "You knew him well?" asked Mary Pavlovna, glancing anxiously at the altered, haggard expression of Kryltzoff's face.

  "Neveroff a dreamer?" Kryltzoff suddenly began, panting for breath as if he had been shouting or singing for a long time. "Neveroff was a man 'such as the earth bears few of,' as our doorkeeper used to express it. Yes, he had a nature like crystal, you could see him right through; he could not lie, he could not dissemble; not simply thin skinned, but with all his nerves laid bare, as if he were flayed. Yes, his was a complicated, rich nature, not such a-- But where is the use of talking?" he added, with a vicious frown. "Shall we first educate the people and then change the forms of life, or first change the forms and then struggle, using peaceful propaganda or terrorism? So we go on disputing while they kill; they do not dispute--they know their business; they don't care whether dozens, hundreds of men perish--and what men! No; that the best should perish is just what they want. Yes, Herzen said that when the Decembrists were withdrawn from circulation the average level of our society sank. I should think so, indeed. Then Herzen himself and his fellows were withdrawn; now is the turn of the Neveroffs."

  "They can't all be got rid off," said Nabatoff, in his cheerful tones. "There will always be left enough to continue the breed. No, there won't, if we show any pity to them there," Nabatoff said, raising his voice; and not letting himself be interrupted, "Give me a cigarette."

  "Oh, Anatole, it is not good for you," said Mary Pavlovna. "Please do not smoke."

  "Oh, leave me alone," he said angrily, and lit a cigarette, but at once began to cough and to retch, as if he were going to be sick. Having cleared his throat though, he went on:

  "What we have been doing is not the thing at all. Not to argue, but for all to unite--to destroy them--that's it."

  "But they are also human beings," said Nekhludoff.

  "No, they are not human, they who can do what they are doing-- No-- There, now, I heard that some kind of bombs and balloons have been invented. Well, one ought to go up in such a balloon and sprinkle bombs down on them as if they were bugs, until they are all exterminated-- Yes. Because--" he was going to continue, but, flushing all over, he began coughing worse than before, and a stream of blood rushed from his mouth.

  Nabatoff ran to get ice. Mary Pavlovna brought valerian drops and offered them to him, but he, breathing quickly and heavily, pushed her away with his thin, white hand, and kept his eyes closed. When the ice and cold water had eased Kryltzoff a little, and he had been put to bed, Nekhludoff, having said good-night to everybody, went out with the sergeant, who had been waiting for him some time.

  The criminals were now quiet, and most of them were asleep. Though the people were lying on and under the bed shelves and in the space between, they could not all be placed inside the rooms, and some of them lay in the passage with their sacks under their heads and covered with their cloaks. The moans and sleepy voices came through the open doors and sounded through the passage. Everywhere lay compact heaps of human beings covered with prison cloaks. Only a few men who were sitting in the bachelors' room by the light of a candle end, which they put out when they noticed the sergeant, were awake, and an old man who sat naked under the lamp in the passage picking the vermin off his shirt. The foul air in the political prisoners' rooms seemed pure compared to the stinking closeness here. The smoking lamp shone dimly as through a mist, and it was difficult to breathe. Stepping along the passage, one had to look carefully for an empty space, and having put down one foot had to find place for the other. Three persons, who had evidently found no room even in the passage, lay in the anteroom, close to the stinking and leaking tub. One of these was an old idiot, whom Nekhludoff had often seen marching with the gang; another was a boy about twelve; he lay between the two other convicts, with his head on the leg of one of them.

  When he had passed out of the gate Nekhludoff took a deep breath and long continued to breathe in deep draughts of frosty air.

  CHAPTER XIX

  .

  WHY IS IT DONE?

  It had cleared up and was starlight. Except in a few places the mud was frozen hard when Nekhludoff returned to his inn and knocked at one of its dark windows. The broad-shouldered labourer came barefooted to open the door for him and let him in. Through a door on the right, leading to the back premises, came the loud snoring of the carters, who slept there, and the sound of many horses chewing oats came from the yard. The front room, where a red lamp was burning in front of the icons, smelt of wormwood and perspiration, and some one with mighty lungs was snoring behind a partition. Nekhludoff undressed, put his leather travelling pillow on the oilcloth sofa, spread out his rug and lay down, thinking over all he had seen and heard that day; the boy sleeping on the liquid that oozed from the stinking tub, with his head on the convict's leg, seemed more dreadful than all else.

  Unexpected and important as his conversation with Simonson and Katusha that evening had been, he did not dwell on it; his situation in relation to that subject was so complicated and indefinite that he drove the thought from his mind. But the picture of those unfortunate beings, inhaling the noisome air, and lying in the liquid oozing out of the stinking tub, especially that of the boy, with his innocent face asleep on the leg of a criminal, came all the more vividly to his mind, and he could not get it out of his head.

  To know that somewhere far away there are men who torture other men by inflicting all sorts of humiliations and inhuman degradation and sufferings on them, or for three months incessantly to look on while men were inflicting these humiliations and sufferings on other men is a very different thing. And Nekhludoff felt it. More than once during these three months he asked h
imself, "Am I mad because I see what others do not, or are they mad that do these things that I see?"

  Yet they (and there were many of them) did what seemed so astonishing and terrible to him with such quiet assurance that what they were doing was necessary and was important and useful work that it was hard to believe they were mad; nor could he, conscious of the clearness of his thoughts, believe he was mad; and all this kept him continually in a state of perplexity.

  This is how the things he saw during these three months impressed Nekhludoff: From among the people who were free, those were chosen, by means of trials and the administration, who were the most nervous, the most hot tempered, the most excitable, the most gifted, and the strongest, but the least careful and cunning. These people, not a wit more dangerous than many of those who remained free, were first locked in prisons, transported to Siberia, where they were provided for and kept months and years in perfect idleness, and away from nature, their families, and useful work--that is, away from the conditions necessary for a natural and moral life. This firstly. Secondly, these people were subjected to all sorts of unnecessary indignity in these different Places--chains, shaved heads, shameful clothing--that is, they were deprived of the chief motives that induce the weak to live good lives, the regard for public opinion, the sense of shame and the consciousness of human dignity. Thirdly, they were continually exposed to dangers, such as the epidemics so frequent in places of confinement, exhaustion, flogging, not to mention accidents, such as sunstrokes, drowning or conflagrations, when the instinct of self-preservation makes even the kindest, most moral men commit cruel actions, and excuse such actions when committed by others.