by Лев Толстой
"I know it, but there is a nurse here who had been transferred from the prison."
"Yes, there are two. What do you wish, then?"
"I am closely related to one of them, Maslova," said Nekhludoff, "and would like to see her. I am going to St. Petersburg to enter an appeal in her case. I would like to hand her this; it is only a photograph," and he produced an envelope from his pocket.
"Yes, you may do that," said the softened physician, and turning to an old nurse in a white apron, told her to call Maslova. "Won't you take a seat, or come into the reception-room?"
"Thank you," said Nekhludoff, and taking advantage of the favorable change in the physician's demeanor, asked him what they thought of Maslova in the hospital.
"Her work is fair, considering the conditions amid which she had lived," answered the physician. "But there she comes."
The old nurse appeared at one of the doors, and behind her came Maslova. She wore a white apron over a striped skirt; a white cap on her head hid her hair. Seeing Nekhludoff she flushed, stopped waveringly, then frowned, and with downcast eyes approached him with quick step. Coming near him she stood for a moment without offering her hand, then she did offer her hand and became even more flushed. Nekhludoff had not seen her since the conversation in which she excused herself for her impetuosity, and he expected to find her in a similar mood. But she was entirely different to-day; there was something new in the expression of her face; something timid and reserved, and, as it seemed to him, malevolent toward him. He repeated the words he had said to the physician and handed her the envelope with the photograph which he had brought from Panov.
"It is an old picture which I came across in Panov. It may please you to have it. Take it."
Raising her black eyebrows she looked at him with her squinting eyes, as though asking, "What is that for?" Then she silently took the envelope and tucked it under her apron.
"I saw your aunt there," said Nekhludoff.
"Did you?" she said, with indifference.
"How do you fare here?" asked Nekhludoff.
"Fairly well," she said.
"It is not very hard?"
"Not very. I am not used to it yet."
"I am very glad. At any rate, it is better than there."
"Than where?" she said, and her face became purple.
"There, in the prison," Nekhludoff hastened to say.
"Why better?" she asked.
"I think the people here are better. There are no such people here as there."
"There are many good people there."
"I did what I could for the Menshovs and hope they will be freed," said Nekhludoff.
"May God grant it. Such a wonderful little woman," she said, repeating her description of the old woman, and slightly smiled.
"I am going to-day to St. Petersburg. Your case will be heard soon, and, I hope, will be reversed."
"It is all the same now, whether they reverse it or not," she said.
"Why now?"
"So," she answered, and stealthily glanced at him inquiringly.
Nekhludoff understood this answer and this glance as a desire on her part to know if he were still holding to his decision, or had changed it since her refusal.
"I don't know why it is all the same to you," he said, "but to me it really is all the same whether you are acquitted or not. In either case, I am ready to do what I said," he said, with determination.
She raised her head, and her black, squinting eyes fixed themselves on his face and past it, and her whole face became radiant with joy. But her words were in an entirely different strain.
"Oh, you needn't talk that way," she said.
"I say it that you may know."
"Everything has been already said, and there is no use talking any more," she said, with difficulty repressing a smile.
There was some noise in the ward. A child was heard crying.
"I think I am called," she said, looking around with anxiety.
"Well, then, good-by," he said.
She pretended not to see his extended hand, turned round, and endeavoring to hide her elation, she walked away with quick step.
"What is taking place in her? What is she thinking? What are her feelings? Is she putting me to a test, or is she really unable to forgive me? Can she not say what she thinks and feels, or simply will not? Is she pacified or angered?" Nekhludoff asked himself, but could give no answer. One thing he knew, however, and that was that she had changed; that a spiritual transformation was taking place in her, and this transformation united him not only to her, but to Him in whose name it was taking place. And this union caused him joyful agitation.
Returning to the ward where eight children lay in their beds, Maslova began to remake one of the beds, by order of the Sister, and, leaning over too far with the sheet, slipped and nearly fell. The convalescing boy, wound in bandages to his neck, began to laugh. Maslova could restrain herself no longer, and seating herself on the bedstead she burst into loud laughter, infecting several children, who also began to laugh. The Sister angrily shouted:
"What are you roaring about? Think you this is like the place you came from? Go fetch the rations."
Maslova stopped laughing, and taking a dish went on her errand, but exchanging looks with the bandaged boy, who giggled again.
Several times during the day, when Maslova remained alone, she drew out a corner of the picture and looked at it with admiration, but in the evening, when she and another nurse retired for the night, she removed the picture from the envelope and immovably looked with admiration at the faces; her own, his and the aunt's, their dresses, the stairs of the balcony, the bushes in the background, her eyes feasting especially on herself, her young, beautiful face with the hair hanging over her forehead. She was so absorbed that she failed to notice that the other nurse had entered.
"What is that? Did he give it you?" asked the stout, good-natured nurse, leaning over the photograph.
"Is it possible that that is you?"
"Who else?" Maslova said, smiling and looking into her companion's face.
"And who is that? He himself? And that is his mother?"
"His aunt. Couldn't you recognize me?" asked Maslova.
"Why, no. I could never recognize you. The face is entirely different. That must have been taken about ten years ago."
"Not years, but a lifetime," said Maslova, and suddenly her face became sullen and a wrinkle formed between her eyebrows.
"Yours was an easy life, wasn't it?"
"Yes, easy," Maslova repeated, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "Worse than penal servitude."
"Why so?"
"Because. From eight in the evening to four in the morning—every day the same."
"Then why don't they get out?"
"They like to, but cannot. But what is the use of talking!" cried Maslova, and she sprang to her feet, threw the photograph into the drawer of the table, and suppressing her angry tears, ran into the corridor, slamming the door. Looking on the photograph she imagined herself as she had been at the time the photograph was made, and dreamed how happy she had been and might still be with him. The words of her companion reminded her what she was now—reminded her of all the horror of that life which she then felt but confusedly, and would not allow herself to admit. Only now she vividly recalled all those terrible nights, particularly one Shrovetide night. She recalled how she, in a low-cut, wine-bespattered, red silk dress, with a red bow in her dishevelled hair, weak, jaded and tipsy, after dancing attendance upon the guest, had seated herself, at two in the morning, near the thin, bony, pimpled girl-pianist and complained of her hard life. The girl said that her life was also disagreeable to her, and that she wished to change her occupation. Afterward their friend Clara joined them, and all three suddenly decided to change their life. They were about to leave the place when the drunken guests became noisy, the fiddler struck up a lively song of the first figure of a Russian quadrille, the pianist began to thump in unison, a little drunken man in a w
hite necktie and dress coat caught her up. Another man, stout and bearded, and also in a dress coat, seized Clara, and for a long time they whirled, danced, shouted and drank. Thus a year passed, a second and a third. How could she help changing! And the cause of it all was he. And suddenly her former wrath against him rose in her; and she felt like chiding and reproving him. She was sorry that she had missed the opportunity of telling him again that she knew him, and would not yield to him; that she would not allow him to take advantage of her spiritually as he had done corporeally; that she would not allow him to make her the subject of his magnanimity. And in order to deaden the painful feeling of pity for herself and the useless reprobation of him, she yearned for wine. And she would have broken her word and drunk some wine had she been in the prison. But here wine could only be obtained from the assistant surgeon, and she was afraid of him, because he pursued her with his attentions, and all relations with men were disgusting to her. For some time she sat on a bench in the corridor, and returning to her closet, without heeding her companion's questions, she wept for a long time over her ruined life.
CHAPTER IX.
Nekhludoff had four cases in hand: Maslova's appeal, the petition of Theodosia Birukova, the case of Shustova's release, by request of Vera Bogodukhovskaia, and the obtaining of permission for a mother to visit her son kept in a fortress, also by Bogodukhovskaia's request.
Since his visit to Maslenikoff, especially since his trip to the country, Nekhludoff felt an aversion for that sphere in which he had been living heretofore, and in which the sufferings borne by millions of people in order to secure the comforts and pleasures of a few, were so carefully concealed that the people of that sphere did not and could not see these sufferings, and consequently the cruelty and criminality of their own lives.
Nekhludoff could no longer keep up relations with these people without reproving himself. And yet the habits of his past life, the ties of friendship and kinship, and especially his one great aim of helping Maslova and the other unfortunates, drew him into that sphere against his will; and he was compelled to ask the aid and services of people whom he had not only ceased to respect but who called forth his indignation and contempt.
Arriving at St. Petersburg, and stopping at his aunt's, the wife of an ex-Minister of State, he found himself in the very heart of the aristocratic circle. It was unpleasant to him, but he could do no different. Not to stop at his aunt's was to offend her. Besides, through her connections she could be of great service to him in those affairs for the sake of which he came to St. Petersburg.
"What wonders I hear about you!" said Countess Catherine Ivanovna Charskaia, while Nekhludoff was drinking the coffee brought him immediately after his arrival. "Vous posez pour un Howard. You are helping the convicts; making the rounds of the prisons; reforming them."
"You are mistaken; I never had such intentions."
"Why, that is not bad. Only, I understand, there is some love affair—come, tell me."
Nekhludoff related the story of Maslova, exactly as it happened.
"Yes, yes, I remember. Poor Hellen told me at the time you lived at the old maids' house that, I believe, they wished you to marry their ward." Countess Catherine Ivanovna always hated Nekhludoff's aunts on his father's side. "So, that is she? Elle est encore jolie?"
Aunt Catherine Ivanovna was a sixty-year-old, healthy, jolly, energetic, talkative woman. She was tall, very stout, with a black, downy mustache on her upper lip. Nekhludoff loved her, and since childhood had been accustomed to get infected with her energy and cheerfulness.
"No, ma tante, all that belongs to the past. I only wish to help her, because she is innocent, and it is my fault that she was condemned, her whole wrecked life is upon my conscience. I feel it to be my duty to do for her what I can."
"But how is it? I was told that you wish to marry her."
"I do wish it, it is true; but she doesn't."
Catherine Ivanovna raised her eyebrows and silently looked at Nekhludoff in surprise. Suddenly her face changed and assumed a pleased expression.
"Well, she is wiser than you are. Ah! what a fool you are! And you would marry her?"
"Certainly."
"After what she has been?"
"The more so—is it not all my fault?"
"Well, you are simply a crank," said the aunt, suppressing a smile. "You are an awful crank, but I love you for the very reason that you are such an awful crank," she repeated, the word evidently well describing, according to her view, the mental and moral condition of her nephew. "And how opportune. You know, Aline has organized a wonderful asylum for Magdalens. I visited it once. How disgusting they are! I afterward washed myself from head to foot. But Aline is corps et ame in this affair. So we will send her, your Magdalen, to her. If any one will reform her, it is Aline."
"But she was sentenced to penal servitude. I came here for the express purpose of obtaining a reversal of her sentence. That is my first business to you."
"Is that so? Where is the case now?"
"In the Senate."
"In the Senate? Why, my dear cousin Levoushka is in the Senate. However, he is in the Heraldry Department. Let me see. No, of the real ones I do not know any. Heaven knows what a mixture they are: either Germans, such as Ge, Fe, De—tout l'alphabet—or all sorts of Ivanvas, Semenovs, Nikitins, or Ivaneukos, Semeneukos, Nikitenkas pour varier. Des gens de l'autre monde. However, I will tell my husband. He knows all sorts of people. I will tell him. You explain it to him, for he never understands me. No matter what I may say, he always says that he cannot understand me. C'est un parti pris. Everybody understands, only he does not understand."
At that moment a servant in knee-breeches entered with a letter on a silver tray.
"Ah, that is from Aline. Now you will have an opportunity to hear Kisiweather."
"Who is that Kisiweather?"
"Kisiweather? Come around to-day and you will find out who he is. He speaks so that the most hardened criminals fall on their knees and weep, and repent."
Countess Catherine Ivanovna, however strange it might be, and how so little it agreed with her character, was a follower of that teaching which held that essence of Christianity consisted in a belief in redemption. She visited the meetings where sermons were delivered on this teaching then in vogue, and invited the adherents to her own house. Although this teaching rejected all rites, images and even the sacraments, the Princess had images hanging in all her rooms, even over her bedstead, and she complied with all the ritual requirements of the church, seeing nothing contradictory in that.
"Your Magdalen ought to hear him; she would become converted," said the Countess. "Don't fail to come to-night. You will hear him then. He is a remarkable man."
"It is not interesting to me, ma tante."
"I tell you it is interesting. You must come to-night. Now, what else do you want me to do? Videz votre sac."
"There is the man in the fortress."
"In the fortress? Well, I can give you a note to Baron Kriegmuth. C'est un très-brave homme. But you know him yourself. He was your father's comrade. Il donne dans le spiritisme. But that is nothing. He is a kind man. What do you want there?"
"It is necessary to obtain permission for a mother to visit her son who is incarcerated there. But I was told that Cherviansky and not Kriegmuth is the person to be applied to."
"I do not like Cherviansky, but he is Mariette's husband. I will ask her; she will do it for me. Elle est tres gentille."
"There is another woman I wish you would speak to her about. She has been in prison for several months, and no one knows for what."
"Oh, no; she herself surely knows for what. They know very well. And it serves them right, those short-haired ones."
"I do not know whether it serves them right or not. But they are suffering. You are a Christian, and believe in the Gospel, and yet are so pitiless."
"That has nothing to do with it. The Gospel is one thing; what I dislike is another thing. It would be worse if I pretended to
like the Nihilists, especially the female Nihilists, when as a matter of fact I hate them."
"Why do you hate them?"
"Why do they meddle in other people's affairs? It is not a woman's business."
"But you have nothing against Mariette occupying herself with business," said Nekhludoff.
"Mariette? Mariette is Mariette, but who is she? A conceited ignoramus who wants to teach everybody."
"They do not wish to teach; they only wish to help the people."
"We know without them who should and who should not be helped."
"But the people are impoverished. I have just been in the country. Is it proper that peasants should overwork themselves without getting enough to eat, while we are living in such wasteful luxury?"
"What do you wish me to do? You would like to see me work and not eat anything?"
"No, I do not wish you not to eat," smiling involuntarily, answered Nekhludoff. "I only wish that we should all work, and all have enough to eat."
The aunt again raised her eyebrows and gazed at him with curiosity.
"Mon cher, vous finirez mal," she said.
At that moment a tall, broad-shouldered general entered the room. It was Countess Charskaia's husband, a retired Minister of State.
"Ah, Dmitri, how do you do?" he said, putting out his clean-shaven cheek. "When did you get here?"
He silently kissed his wife on the forehead.
"Non, il est impayable." Countess Catherine Ivanovna turned to her husband. "He wants me to do washing on the river and feast on potatoes. He is an awful fool, but, nevertheless, do for him what he asks. An awful crank," she corrected herself. "By the way, they say that Kamenskaia is in a desperate condition; her life is despaired of," she turned to her husband. "You ought to visit her."
"Yes, it is awful," said the husband.
"Go, now, and have a talk together; I must write some letters."
Nekhludoff had just reached the room next to the reception-room when she shouted after him:
"Shall I write then to Mariette?"
"If you please, ma tante."
"I will learn that which you want to say about the short-haired en blanc, and she will have her husband attend to it. Don't think that I am angry. They are hateful, your protegees, but—je ne leur veux pas de mal. But God forgive them. Now, go, and don't forget to come in the evening; you will hear Kisiweather. We will also pray. And if you do not resist, ca vous fera beaucoup de bien. I know that Hellen and all of you are very backward in that respect. Now, au revoir."
