The Awakening / The Resurrection

by Лев Толстой

  "You will be the death of me," said the Countess, in a fit of coughing.

  No sooner had Nekhludoff seated himself than Mariette, noticing the serious and slightly displeased expression on his face, immediately changed not only her expression, but her frame of mind. This was with the intention she had in mind since she first saw him—to get him to like her. She suddenly became grave, dissatisfied with her life, seeking something, striving after something. She not merely feigned, but actually induced in herself a state of mind similar to that in which Nekhludoff was, although she would not be able to say what it consisted of. In a sympathetic conversation about the injustice of the strong, the poverty of the people, the awful condition of the prisoners, she succeeded in rousing in him the least expected feeling of physical attraction, and under the din of conversation their eyes plainly queried, "Can you love me?" and they answered, "Yes, I can."

  On leaving, she told him that she was always ready to be of service to him, and asked him to visit her at the theatre the next day, if only for a minute, saying that she wished to have a talk with him on a matter of importance.

  "When will I see you again?" she added, sighing, and carefully putting the gloves on her ring-bedecked hand. "Tell me that you will come."

  Nekhludoff promised to come.

  For a long time that night Nekhludoff could not fall asleep. When he recalled Maslova, the decision of the Senate, and his determination to follow her; when he recalled his relinquishment of his right to the land, there suddenly appeared before him, as if in answer to these questions, the face of Mariette; her sigh and glance when she said, "When will I see you again?" and her smile—all so distinct that she seemed to stand before him, and he smiled himself. "Would it be proper for me to follow her to Siberia? And would it be proper to deprive myself of my property?" he asked himself.

  And the answers to these questions on that bright St. Petersburg night were indefinite. His mind was all in confusion. He called forth his former trend of thought, but those thoughts had lost their former power of conviction.

  "And what if all my ideas are due to an over-wrought imagination, and I should be unable to live up to them? If I should repent of what I have done?" he asked himself, and, being unable to find answers to these questions, he was stricken with such sadness and despair as he had rarely experienced before, and he fell into that deep slumber which had been habitual with him after heavy losses at cards.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  Nekhludoff's first feeling on rising the following morning was that he had committed something abominable the preceding evening.

  He began to recall what had happened. There was nothing abominable; he had done nothing wrong. He had only thought that all his present intentions—that of marrying Katiousha, giving the land to the peasants—artificial, unnatural, and that he must continued to live as he had lived before.

  He could recall no wrong act, but he remembered what was worse than a wrong act—there were the bad thoughts in which all bad acts have their origin. Bad acts may not be repeated; one may repent of them, while bad thoughts give birth to bad acts.

  A bad act only smooths the way to other bad acts, while bad thoughts irresistibly lead toward them.

  Recalling his thoughts of the day before, Nekhludoff wondered how he could have believed them. How so novel and difficult might be that which he intended to do, he knew that it was the only life possible to him now, and that, however easy it might be for him to return to his old mode of life, he knew that that was death, not life. This temptation of the day before was similar to that of a man who, after a night's sound sleep, feels like taking his ease on the soft mattress for a while, although he knows that it is time to be up and away on an important affair.

  Nekhludoff would have left the same evening but for his promise to Mariette to visit her at the theatre. Though he knew that it was wrong to do it, he went there, contrary to the dictates of his own conscience, considering himself bound to keep his word. Besides his wish to see Mariette again, he also wished, as he thought, to measure himself against that world lately so near, but now so strange to him.

  "Could I withstand these temptations?" he thought, but not with entire sincerity. "I will try it for the last time."

  Attired in a dress-coat, he arrived in the theatre where the eternal "Dame aux Camelias" was being played. A French actress was showing in a novel way how consumptive women die.

  Nekhludoff was shown to the box occupied by Mariette. In the corridor a liveried servant bowed and opened the door for him.

  All the spectators in the circle of boxes—sitting and standing, gray-haired, bald and pomaded heads—were intently following the movements of a slim actress making wry faces and in an unnatural voice reading a monologue. Some one hissed when the door was opened, and two streams of cold and warm air were wafted on Nekhludoff's face.

  In the box he found Mariette and a strange lady with a red mantle over her shoulders and high head-dress, and two men—a general, Mariette's husband, a handsome, tall man with a high, artificial, military breast, and a flaxen haired, bald-headed man with shaved chin and solemn side-whiskers. Mariette, graceful, slim, elegant, decolette, with her strong, muscular shoulders sloping down from the neck, at the jointure of which was a darkening little mole, immediately turned around, and, pointing with her fan to a chair behind her, greeted him with a welcome, grateful, and, as it seemed to Nekhludoff, significant smile. Her husband calmly, as was his wont, looked at Nekhludoff and bowed his head. In the glance which he exchanged with his wife, as in everything else, he looked the master, the owner, of a beautiful woman.

  There was a thunder of applause when the monologue ended. Mariette rose, and, holding in one hand her rustling silk skirt, walked to the rear of the box and introduced Nekhludoff to her husband. The general incessantly smiled with his eyes, said he was glad, and remained calm and mute.

  "I had to leave to-day, but I promised you," said Nekhludoff, turning to Mariette.

  "If you don't wish to see me, you will see a remarkable actress," Mariette said, answering the meaning of his words. "Wasn't she great in the last scene?" she turned to her husband.

  The general bowed his head.

  "That does not affect me," said Nekhludoff. "I have seen so much real misfortune to-day that——"

  "Sit down and tell us what you have seen."

  The husband listened, and ironically smiled with his eyes.

  "I went to see that woman who has been released. She is entirely broken down."

  "That is the woman of whom I have spoken to you," Mariette said to her husband.

  "Yes; I was very glad that she could be released," he calmly said, nodding his head and smiling ironically, as it seemed to Nekhludoff, under his mustache. "I will go to the smoking-room."

  Nekhludoff waited, expecting that Mariette would tell him that something which she said she had to tell him, but instead she only jested and talked of the performance, which, she thought, ought to affect him particularly.

  Nekhludoff understood that the only purpose for which she had brought him to the theatre was to display her evening toilet with her shoulders and mole, and he was both pleased and disgusted. Now he saw what was under the veil of the charm that at first attracted him. Looking on Mariette, he admired her, but he knew that she was a prevaricator who was living with her career-making husband; that what she had said the other day was untrue, and that she only wished—and neither knew why—to make him love her. And, as has been said, he was both pleased and disgusted. Several times he attempted to leave, took his hat but still remained. But finally, when the general, his thick mustache reeking with tobacco, returned to the box and glanced at Nekhludoff patronizingly disdainful, as if he did not recognize him, Nekhludoff walked out before the door closed behind the general, and, finding his overcoat, left the theatre.

  On his way home he suddenly noticed before him a tall, well-built, loudly-dressed woman. Every passer-by turned to look at her. Nekhludoff walked quicker than the woman, and al
so involuntarily looked her in the face. Her face, probably rouged, was pretty; her eyes flashed at him, and she smiled. Nekhludoff involuntarily thought of Mariette, for he experienced the same feeling of attraction and disgust which took hold of him in the theatre. Passing her hastily, Nekhludoff turned the corner of the street, and, to the surprise of the policeman, began to walk up and down the water-front.

  "That one in the theatre also smiled that way when I entered," he thought, "and the smile of the former conveyed the same meaning as that of the latter. The only difference between them is that this one speaks openly and plainly, while the other pretends to be exercising higher and refined feelings. But in reality they are alike. This one is at least truthful, while the other is lying." Nekhludoff recalled his relations with the wife of the district commander, and a flood of shameful recollections came upon him. "There is a disgusting bestiality in man," he thought; "but when it is in a primitive state, one looks down upon and despises it, whether he is carried away with or withstands it. But when this same bestiality hides itself under a so-called aesthetic, poetic cover, and demands to be worshiped, then, deifying the beast, one gives himself up to it, without distinguishing between the good and the bad. Then it is horrible."

  As there was no soothing, rest-giving darkness that night, but instead there was a hazy, cheerless, unnatural light, so even was there no rest-giving darkness—ignorance—for Nekhludoff's soul. Everything was clear. It was plain that all that is considered important and useful is really insignificant and wicked, and that all that splendor and luxury were hiding old crimes, familiar to every one, and not only stalking unpunished, but triumphing and adorned with all the allurements man is capable of conceiving.

  Nekhludoff wished to forget it, not to see it, but he could no longer help seeing it. Although he did not see the source of the light which revealed these things to him, as he did not see the source of the light which spread over St. Petersburg, and though this light seemed to him hazy, cheerless and unnatural, he could not help seeing that which the light revealed to him, and he felt at the same time both joy and alarm.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  Immediately upon his arrival in Moskow, Nekhludoff made his way to the prison hospital, intending to make known to Maslova the Senate's decision and to tell her to prepare for the journey to Siberia.

  Of the petition which he brought for Maslova's signature, he had little hope. And, strange to say, he no longer wished to succeed. He had accustomed himself to the thought of going to Siberia, and living among the exiles and convicts, and it was difficult for him to imagine how he should order his life and that of Maslova if she were freed.

  The door-keeper at the hospital, recognizing Nekhludoff, immediately informed him that Maslova was no longer there.

  "Where is she, then?"

  "Why, again in the prison."

  "Why was she transferred?" asked Nekhludoff.

  "Your Excellency knows their kind," said the door-keeper, with a contemptuous smile. "She was making love to the assistant, so the chief physician sent her back."

  Nekhludoff did not suspect that Maslova and her spiritual condition were so close to him. This news stunned him. The feeling he experienced was akin to that which people experience when hearing suddenly of some great misfortune. He was deeply grieved. The first feeling he experienced was that of shame. His joyful portraying of her spiritual awakening now seemed to him ridiculous. Her reluctance to accept his sacrifice, the reproaches and the tears, were the mere cunning, he thought, of a dissolute woman who wished to make the most use of him. It seemed to him now that at his last visit he had seen in her the symptoms of incorrigibility which were now evident. All this flashed through his mind at the time he instinctively donned his hat and left the hospital.

  "But what's to be done now?" he asked himself. "Am I bound to her? Am I not released now by this, her act?"

  But no sooner did he form the question than he understood that in considering himself released and leaving her to her fate he would be punishing not her, which he desired, but himself, and he was terrified.

  "No! That will not alter my decision—it will only strengthen it. Let her do whatever her soul prompts her to do; if she would make love to the assistant, let her do so. It is her business. It is my business to do what my conscience demands," he said to himself. "And my conscience demands that I sacrifice my liberty in expiation of my sin, and my decision to marry her, although but fictitiously, and follow her wherever she may be sent, remains unaltered," he said to himself, with spiteful obstinacy, and, leaving the hospital, he made his way with resolute step to the prison gate.

  Coming to the gate, he asked the officer on duty to tell the inspector that he wished to see Maslova. The officer knew Nekhludoff, and told him an important piece of prison news. The captain had resigned, and another man, who was very strict, had taken his place.

  The inspector, who was in the prison at the time, soon made his appearance. He was tall, bony, very slow in his movements, and gloomy.

  "Visitors are allowed only on certain days," he said, without looking at Nekhludoff.

  "But I have a petition here which she must sign."

  "You may give it to me."

  "I must see the prisoner myself. I was always permitted to see her before."

  "That was before," said the inspector, glancing at Nekhludoff.

  "I have a pass from the Governor," Nekhludoff insisted, producing his pocket-book.

  "Let me see it," said the inspector, without looking in Nekhludoff's eyes, and taking the document with his skinny, long, white hand, on the index finger of which there was a gold ring, he slowly read it. "Walk into the office, please," he said.

  On this occasion there was no one in the office. The inspector seated himself at the table, looking through the papers that lay on it, evidently intending to stay through the meeting. When Nekhludoff asked him if Bogodukhovskaia could be seen, he answered: "Visiting the politicals is not allowed," and again buried his head in the papers.

  When Maslova entered the room, the inspector raised his eyes, and, without looking either at Maslova or Nekhludoff, said: "You may go ahead," and continued to busy himself with his papers.

  Maslova was again dressed in a white skirt, waist and 'kerchief. Coming near Nekhludoff and seeing his cold, angry face, her own turned a purple color, and, with downcast eyes, she began to pick a corner of her waist. Her confusion Nekhludoff considered as confirmation of the hospital porter's words.

  So abhorent was she to him now that he could not extend his hand to her, as he desired.

  WARDEN AND MATRON.

  "I bring you bad news," he said in an even voice, without looking at her. "The Senate affirmed the verdict."

  "I knew it would be so," she said in a strange voice, as if choking.

  If it had happened before, Nekhludoff would have asked her why she knew it; now he only looked at her. Her eyes were filled with tears, but this not only did not soften him, but made him even more inflamed against her.

  The inspector rose and began to walk up and down the room.

  Notwithstanding the abhorence Nekhludoff felt for Maslova, he thought it proper to express his regret at the Senate's action.

  "Do not despair," he said. "This petition may be more successful, and I hope that——"

  "Oh, it is not that," she said, looking at him with the tearful and squinting eyes.

  "What, then?"

  "You have been in the hospital, and they must have told you there about me."

  "What of it? That is your business," frowning, Nekhludoff said with indifference. The cruel feeling of offended pride rose in him with greater force at her mention of the hospital. "I, a man of the world, whom any girl of the upper class would be only too happy to marry, offered to become the husband of that woman, and she could not wait, but made love to the assistant surgeon," he thought, looking at her with hatred.

  "Sign this petition," he said, and, taking from his pocket a large envelope, placed it on the table. She
wiped her tears with a corner of her 'kerchief, seated herself at the table, and asked him where to sign.

  He showed her where, and she, seating herself, smoothed with her left hand the sleeve of the right. He stood over her, silently looking at her back bent over the table, and now and then shaking from the sobs she tried to suppress, and his soul was convulsed by a struggle between good and evil, between offended pride and pity for her sufferings. The feeling of pity conquered.

  Whether it was the feeling of pity that first asserted itself, or the recollection of his own deeds of the same character for which he reproached her, he scarcely knew, but suddenly he felt himself guilty and pitied her.

  Having signed the petition and wiped her soiled fingers on her skirt, she rose and glanced at him.

  "Whatever the result, and no matter what happens, I shall keep my word," said Nekhludoff.

  The thought that he was forgiving her strengthened in him the feeling of pity and tenderness for her, and he wished to console her.

  "I will do what I said. I will be with you wherever you may be."

  "That's no use," she hastened to say, and her face became radiant.

  "Make note of what you need for the road."

  "Nothing particular, I think. Thank you."

  The inspector approached them, and Nekhludoff, without waiting to be told that the time was up, took leave of her, experiencing a new feeling of quiet happiness, calmness and love for all mankind. It was the consciousness that no act of Maslova could alter his love for her that raised his spirit and made him feel happy. Let her make love to the assistant—that was her business. He loved her not for himself, but for her and for God.

  The love-making for which Maslova was expelled from the hospital, and to which Nekhludoff gave credence, consisted only in that, when Maslova, coming to the drug department for some pectoral herbs, prescribed by her superior, she found there an assistant, named Ustinoff. This Ustinoff had been pursuing her with his attentions for a long time, and as he tried to embrace her she pushed him away with such force that he struck the shelving, and two bottles came crashing to the floor.