The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents) (170 page)

"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.

Nekhludoff tore himself loose, and, without bowing or saying anything, gloomily passed through the reception-room, the parlor and by the lackeys, who sprang to their feet in the ante-chamber, to the street.

"What is the matter with him? What did you do to him?" Annette asked her husband.

"That is à la française," said some one.

"Rather à la zoulon."

"Oh, he has always been queer."

Some one arose, some one arrived, and the chirping continued.

The following morning Nekhludoff received from Maslenikoff a letter on heavy, glossy paper, bearing a coat-of-arms and seals, written in a fine, firm hand, in which he said that he had written to the prison physician asking that Maslova be transferred, and that he hoped his request would be acceded to. It was signed, "Your loving senior comrade," followed by a remarkably skillful flourish.

"Fool!" Nekhludoff could not help exclaiming, especially because he felt that by the word "comrade" Maslenikoff was condescending, i. e., although he considered himself a very important personage, he nevertheless was not too proud of his greatness, and called himself his comrade.

CHAPTER LVII.

One of the most popular superstitions consists in the belief that every man is endowed with definite qualities--that some men are kind, some wicked; some wise, some foolish; some energetic, some apathetic, etc. This is not true. We may say of a man that he is oftener kind than wicked; oftener wise than foolish; oftener energetic than apathetic, and vice versa. But it would not be true to say of one man that he is always kind or wise, and of another that he is always wicked or foolish. And yet we thus divide people. This is erroneous. Men are like rivers--the water in all of them, and at every point, is the same, but every one of them is now narrow, now swift, now wide, now calm, now clear, now cold, now muddy, now warm. So it is with men. Every man bears within him the germs of all human qualities, sometimes manifesting one quality, sometimes another; and often does not resemble himself at all, manifesting no change. With some people these changes are particularly sharp. And to this class Nekhludoff belonged. These changes in him had both physical and spiritual causes; and one of these changes he was now undergoing.

That feeling of solemnity and joy of rejuvenation which he had experienced after the trial and after his first meeting with Katiousha had passed away, and, after the last meeting, fear and even disgust toward her had taken its place. He was also conscious that his duty was burdensome to him. He had decided not to leave her, to carry out his intention of marrying her, if she so desired; but this was painful and tormenting to him.

On the day following his visit to Maslenikoff he again went to the prison to see her.

The inspector permitted him to see her; not in the office, however, nor in the lawyer's room, but in the women's visiting-room. Notwithstanding his kind-heartedness, the inspector was more reserved than formerly. Evidently Nekhludoff's conversations with Maslenikoff had resulted in instructions being given to be more careful with this visitor.

"You may see her," he said, "only please remember what I told you as to giving her money. And as to her transfer to the hospital, about which His Excellency has written, there is no objection to it, and the physician also consented. But she herself does not wish it. 'I don't care to be chambermaid to that scurvy lot,' she said. That is the kind of people they are, Prince," he added.

Nekhludoff made no answer and asked to be admitted to her. The inspector sent the warden, and Nekhludoff followed him into the empty visiting-room.

Maslova was already there, quietly and timidly emerging from behind the grating. She approached close to Nekhludoff, and, looking past him, quietly said:

"Forgive me, Dmitri Ivanovich; I have spoken improperly the other day."

"It is not for me to forgive you----" Nekhludoff began.

"But you must leave me," she added, and in the fearfully squinting eyes with which she glanced at him Nekhludoff again saw a strained and spiteful expression.

[Illustration: EASTER SERVICES.]

"But why should I leave you?"

"So."

"Why so?"

She again looked at him with that spiteful glance, as it seemed to him.

"Well, then, I will tell you," she said. "You leave me--I tell you that truly. I cannot. You must drop that entirely," she said, with quivering lips, and became silent. "That is true. I would rather hang myself."

Nekhludoff felt that in this answer lurked a hatred for him, an unforgiven wrong, but also something else--something good and important. This reiteration of her refusal in a perfectly calm state destroyed in Nekhludoff's soul all his doubts, and brought him back to his former grave, solemn and benign state of mind.

"Katiousha, I repeat what I said," he said, with particular gravity. "I ask you to marry me. If, however, you do not wish to, and so long as you do not wish to, I will be wherever you will be, and follow you wherever you may be sent."

"That is your business. I will speak no more," she said, and again her lips quivered.

He was also silent, feeling that he had no strength to speak.

"I am now going to the country, and from there to St. Petersburg," he said finally. "I will press your--our case, and with God's help the sentence will be set aside."

"I don't care if they don't. I deserved it, if not for that, for something else," she said, and he saw what great effort she had to make to repress her tears.

"Well, have you seen Menshova?" she asked suddenly, in order to hide her agitation. "They are innocent, are they not?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Such a wonderful little woman!" she said.

He related everything he had learned from Menshova, and asked her if she needed anything. She said she needed nothing.

They were silent again.