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Resurrection

C >> Count Leo Tolstoy >> Resurrection




As soon as Nekhludoff came up to the women he saw Maslova; she
was in the second row. The first in the row was a short-legged,
black-eyed, hideous woman, who had her cloak tucked up in her
girdle. This was Koroshavka. The next was a pregnant woman, who
dragged herself along with difficulty. The third was Maslova; she
was carrying her sack on her shoulder, and looking straight
before her. Her face looked calm and determined. The fourth in
the row was a young, lovely woman who was walking along briskly,
dressed in a short cloak, her kerchief tied in peasant fashion.
This was Theodosia.

Nekhludoff got down and approached the women, meaning to ask
Maslova if she had got the things he had sent her, and how she
was feeling, but the convoy sergeant, who was walking on that
side, noticed him at once, and ran towards him.

"You must not do that, sir. It is against the regulations to
approach the gang," shouted the sergeant as he came up.

But when he recognised Nekhludoff (every one in the prison knew
Nekhludoff) the sergeant raised his fingers to his cap, and,
stopping in front of Nekhludoff, said: "Not now; wait till we get
to the railway station; here it is not allowed. Don't lag behind;
march!" he shouted to the convicts, and putting on a brisk air,
he ran back to his place at a trot, in spite of the heat and the
elegant new boots on his feet.

Nekhludoff went on to the pavement and told the isvostchik to
follow him; himself walking, so as to keep the convicts in sight.
Wherever the gang passed it attracted attention mixed with horror
and compassion. Those who drove past leaned out of the vehicles
and followed the prisoners with their eyes. Those on foot stopped
and looked with fear and surprise at the terrible sight. Some
came up and gave alms to the prisoners. The alms were received by
the convoy. Some, as if they were hypnotised, followed the gang,
but then stopped, shook their heads, and followed the prisoners
only with their eyes. Everywhere the people came out of the gates
and doors, and called others to come out, too, or leaned out of
the windows looking, silent and immovable, at the frightful
procession. At a cross-road a fine carriage was stopped by the
gang. A fat coachman, with a shiny face and two rows of buttons
on his back, sat on the box; a married couple sat facing the
horses, the wife, a pale, thin woman, with a light-coloured
bonnet on her head and a bright sunshade in her hand, the husband
with a top-hat and a well-cut light-coloured overcoat. On the
seat in front sat their children--a well-dressed little girl,
with loose, fair hair, and as fresh as a flower, who also held a
bright parasol, and an eight-year-old boy, with a long, thin neck
and sharp collarbones, a sailor hat with long ribbons on his
head.

The father was angrily scolding the coachman because he had not
passed in front of the gang when he had a chance, and the mother
frowned and half closed her eyes with a look of disgust,
shielding herself from the dust and the sun with her silk
sunshade, which she held close to her face.

The fat coachman frowned angrily at the unjust rebukes of his
master--who had himself given the order to drive along that
street--and with difficulty held in the glossy, black horses,
foaming under their harness and impatient to go on.

The policeman wished with all his soul to please the owner of the
fine equipage by stopping the gang, yet felt that the dismal
solemnity of the procession could not be broken even for so rich
a gentleman. He only raised his fingers to his cap to show his
respect for riches, and looked severely at the prisoners as if
promising in any case to protect the owners of the carriage from
them. So the carriage had to wait till the whole of the
procession had passed, and could only move on when the last of
the carts, laden with sacks and prisoners, rattled by. The
hysterical woman who sat on one of the carts, and had grown calm,
again began shrieking and sobbing when she saw the elegant
carriage. Then the coachman tightened the reins with a slight
touch, and the black trotters, their shoes ringing against the
paving stones, drew the carriage, softly swaying on its rubber
tires, towards the country house where the husband, the wife, the
girl, and the boy with the sharp collar-bones were going to amuse
themselves. Neither the father nor the mother gave the girl and
boy any explanation of what they had seen, so that the children
had themselves to find out the meaning of this curious sight. The
girl, taking the expression of her father's and mother's faces
into consideration, solved the problem by assuming that these
people were quite another kind of men and women than her father
and mother and their acquaintances, that they were bad people,
and that they had therefore to be treated in the manner they were
being treated.

Therefore the girl felt nothing but fear, and was glad when she
could no longer see those people.

But the boy with the long, thin neck, who looked at the
procession of prisoners without taking his eyes off them, solved
the question differently.

He still knew, firmly and without any doubt, for he had it from
God, that these people were just the same kind of people as he
was, and like all other people, and therefore some one had done
these people some wrong, something that ought not to have been
done, and he was sorry for them, and felt no horror either of
those who were shaved and chained or of those who had shaved and
chained them. And so the boy's lips pouted more and more, and he
made greater and greater efforts not to cry, thinking it a shame
to cry in such a case.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE TENDER MERCIES OF THE LORD.

Nekhludoff kept up with the quick pace of the convicts. Though
lightly clothed he felt dreadfully hot, and it was hard to
breathe in the stifling, motionless, burning air filled with
dust.

When he had walked about a quarter of a mile he again got into
the trap, but it felt still hotter in the middle of the street.
He tried to recall last night's conversation with his
brother-in-law, but the recollections no longer excited him as
they had done in the morning. They were dulled by the impressions
made by the starting and procession of the gang, and chiefly by
the intolerable heat.

On the pavement, in the shade of some trees overhanging a fence,
he saw two schoolboys standing over a kneeling man who sold ices.
One of the boys was already sucking a pink spoon and enjoying his
ices, the other was waiting for a glass that was being filled
with something yellowish.

"Where could I get a drink?" Nekhludoff asked his isvostchik,
feeling an insurmountable desire for some refreshment.

"There is a good eating-house close by," the isvostchik answered,
and turning a corner, drove up to a door with a large signboard.
The plump clerk in a Russian shirt, who stood behind the counter,
and the waiters in their once white clothing who sat at the
tables (there being hardly any customers) looked with curiosity
at the unusual visitor and offered him their services. Nekhludoff
asked for a bottle of seltzer water and sat down some way from
the window at a small table covered with a dirty cloth. Two men
sat at another table with tea-things and a white bottle in front
of them, mopping their foreheads, and calculating something in a
friendly manner. One of them was dark and bald, and had just such
a border of hair at the back as Rogozhinsky. This sight again
reminded Nekhludoff of yesterday's talk with his brother-in-law
and his wish to see him and Nathalie.

"I shall hardly be able to do it before the train starts," he
thought; "I'd better write." He asked for paper, an envelope, and
a stamp, and as he was sipping the cool, effervescent water he
considered what he should say. But his thoughts wandered, and he
could not manage to compose a letter.

"My dear Nathalie,--I cannot go away with the heavy impression
that yesterday's talk with your husband has left," he began.
"What next? Shall I ask him to forgive me what I said yesterday?
But I only said what I felt, and he will think that I am taking
it back. Besides, this interference of his in my private matters.
. . . No, I cannot," and again he felt hatred rising in his heart
towards that man so foreign to him. He folded the unfinished
letter and put it in his pocket, paid, went out, and again got
into the trap to catch up the gang. It had grown still hotter.
The stones and the walls seemed to be breathing out hot air. The
pavement seemed to scorch the feet, and Nekhludoff felt a burning
sensation in his hand when he touched the lacquered splashguard
of his trap.

The horse was jogging along at a weary trot, beating the uneven,
dusty road monotonously with its hoofs, the isvostchik kept
falling into a doze, Nekhludoff sat without thinking of anything.

At the bottom of a street, in front of a large house, a group of
people had collected, and a convoy soldier stood by.

"What has happened?" Nekhludoff asked of a porter.

"Something the matter with a convict."

Nekhludoff got down and came up to the group. On the rough
stones, where the pavement slanted down to the gutter, lay a
broadly-built, red-bearded, elderly convict, with his head lower
than his feet, and very red in the face. He had a grey cloak and
grey trousers on, and lay on his back with the palms of his
freckled hands downwards, and at long intervals his broad, high
chest heaved, and he groaned, while his bloodshot eyes were fixed
on the sky. By him stood a cross-looking policeman, a pedlar, a
postman, a clerk, an old woman with a parasol, and a short-haired
boy with an empty basket.

"They are weak. Having been locked up in prison they've got weak,
and then they lead them through the most broiling heat," said the
clerk, addressing Nekhludoff, who had just come up.

"He'll die, most likely," said the woman with the parasol, in a
doleful tone.

"His shirt should be untied," said the postman.

The policeman began, with his thick, trembling fingers, clumsily
to untie the tapes that fastened the shirt round the red, sinewy
neck. He was evidently excited and confused, but still thought it
necessary to address the crowd.

"What have you collected here for? It is hot enough without your
keeping the wind off."

"They should have been examined by a doctor, and the weak ones
left behind," said the clerk, showing off his knowledge of the
law.

The policeman, having undone the tapes of the shirt, rose and
looked round.

"Move on, I tell you. It is not your business, is it? What's
there to stare at?" he said, and turned to Nekhludoff for
sympathy, but not finding any in his face he turned to the convoy
soldier.

But the soldier stood aside, examining the trodden-down heel of
his boot, and was quite indifferent to the policeman's
perplexity.

"Those whose business it is don't care. Is it right to do men to
death like this? A convict is a convict, but still he is a man,"
different voices were heard saying in the crowd.

"Put his head up higher, and give him some water," said
Nekhludoff.

"Water has been sent for," said the policeman, and taking the
prisoner under the arms he with difficulty pulled his body a
little higher up.

"What's this gathering here?" said a decided, authoritative
voice, and a police officer, with a wonderfully clean, shiny
blouse, and still more shiny top-boots, came up to the assembled
crowd.

"Move on. No standing about here," he shouted to the crowd,
before he knew what had attracted it.

When he came near and saw the dying convict, he made a sign of
approval with his head, just as if he had quite expected it, and,
turning to the policeman, said, "How is this?"

The policeman said that, as a gang of prisoners was passing, one
of the convicts had fallen down, and the convoy officer had
ordered him to be left behind.

"Well, that's all right. He must be taken to the police station.
Call an isvostchik."

"A porter has gone for one," said the policeman, with his fingers
raised to his cap.

The shopman began something about the heat.

"Is it your business, eh? Move on," said the police officer, and
looked so severely at him that the clerk was silenced.

"He ought to have a little water," said Nekhludoff. The police
officer looked severely at Nekhludoff also, but said nothing.
When the porter brought a mug full of water, he told the
policeman to offer some to the convict. The policeman raised the
drooping head, and tried to pour a little water down the mouth;
but the prisoner could not swallow it, and it ran down his beard,
wetting his jacket and his coarse, dirty linen shirt.

"Pour it on his head," ordered the officer; and the policeman
took off the pancake-shaped cap and poured the water over the red
curls and bald part of the prisoner's head. His eyes opened wide
as if in fear, but his position remained unchanged.

Streams of dirt trickled down his dusty face, but the mouth
continued to gasp in the same regular way, and his whole body
shook.

"And what's this? Take this one," said the police officer,
pointing to Nekhludoff's isvostchik. "You, there, drive up."

"I am engaged," said the isvostchik, dismally, and without
looking up.

"It is my isvostchik; but take him. I will pay you," said
Nekhludoff, turning to the isvostchik.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" shouted the officer. "Catch
hold."

The policeman, the porter, and the convoy soldier lifted the
dying man and carried him to the trap, and put him on the seat.
But he could not sit up; his head fell back, and the whole of his
body glided off the seat.

"Make him lie down," ordered the officer.

"It's all right, your honour; I'll manage him like this," said
the policeman, sitting down by the dying man, and clasping his
strong, right arm round the body under the arms. The convoy
soldier lifted the stockingless feet, in prison shoes, and put
them into the trap.

The police officer looked around, and noticing the pancake-shaped
hat of the convict lifted it up and put it on the wet, drooping
head.

"Go on," he ordered.

The isvostchik looked angrily round, shook his head, and,
accompanied by the convoy soldier, drove back to the police
station. The policeman, sitting beside the convict, kept dragging
up the body that was continually sliding down from the seat,
while the head swung from side to side.

The convoy soldier, who was walking by the side of the trap, kept
putting the legs in their place. Nekhludoff followed the trap.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

SPILLED LIKE WATER ON THE GROUND.

The trap passed the fireman who stood sentinel at the entrance,
[the headquarters of the fire brigade and the police stations are
generally together in Moscow] drove into the yard of the police
station, and stopped at one of the doors. In the yard several
firemen with their sleeves tucked up were washing some kind of
cart and talking loudly. When the trap stopped, several policemen
surrounded it, and taking the lifeless body of the convict under
the arms, took him out of the trap, which creaked under him. The
policeman who had brought the body got down, shook his numbed
arm, took off his cap, and crossed himself. The body was carried
through the door and up the stairs. Nekhludoff followed. In the
small, dirty room where the body was taken there stood four beds.
On two of them sat a couple of sick men in dressing-gowns, one
with a crooked mouth, whose neck was bandaged, the other one in
consumption. Two of the beds were empty; the convict was laid on
one of them. A little man, wish glistening eyes and continually
moving brows, with only his underclothes and stockings on, came
up with quick, soft steps, looked at the convict and then at
Nekhludoff, and burst into loud laughter. This was a madman who
was being kept in the police hospital.

"They wish to frighten me, but no, they won't succeed," he said.

The policemen who carried the corpse were followed by a police
officer and a medical assistant. The medical assistant came up to
the body and touched the freckled hand, already growing cold,
which, though still soft, was deadly pale. He held it for a
moment, and then let it go. It fell lifelessly on the stomach of
the dead man.

"He's ready," said the medical assistant, but, evidently to be
quite in order, he undid the wet, brown shirt, and tossing back
the curls from his ear, put it to the yellowish, broad, immovable
chest of the convict. All were silent. The medical assistant
raised himself again, shook his head, and touched with his
fingers first one and then the other lid over the open, fixed
blue eyes.

"I'm not frightened, I'm not frightened." The madman kept
repeating these words, and spitting in the direction of the
medical assistant.

"Well?" asked the police officer.

"Well! He must be put into the mortuary."

"Are you sure? Mind," said the police officer.

"It's time I should know," said the medical assistant, drawing
the shirt over the body's chest. "However, I will send for
Mathew Ivanovitch. Let him have a look. Petrov, call him," and
the medical assistant stepped away from the body.

"Take him to the mortuary," said the police officer. "And then
you must come into the office and sign," he added to the convoy
soldier, who had not left the convict for a moment.

"Yes, sir," said the soldier.

The policemen lifted the body and carried it down again.
Nekhludoff wished to follow, but the madman kept him back.

"You are not in the plot! Well, then, give me a cigarette," he
said. Nekhludoff got out his cigarette case and gave him one.

The madman, quickly moving his brows all the time, began relating
how they tormented him by thought suggestion.

"Why, they are all against me, and torment and torture me through
their mediums."

"I beg your pardon," said Nekhludoff, and without listening any
further he left the room and went out into the yard, wishing to
know where the body would be put.

The policemen with their burden had already crossed the yard, and
were coming to the door of a cellar. Nekhludoff wished to go up
to them, but the police officer stopped him.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Then go away."

Nekhludoff obeyed, and went back to his isvostchik, who was
dozing. He awoke him, and they drove back towards the railway
station.

They had not made a hundred steps when they met a cart
accompanied by a convoy soldier with a gun. On the cart lay
another convict, who was already dead. The convict lay on his
back in the cart, his shaved head, from which the pancake-shaped
cap had slid over the black-bearded face down to the nose,
shaking and thumping at every jolt. The driver, in his heavy
boots, walked by the side of the cart, holding the reins; a
policeman followed on foot. Nekhludoff touched his isvostchik's
shoulder.

"Just look what they are doing," said the isvostchik, stopping
his horse.

Nekhludoff got down and, following the cart, again passed the
sentinel and entered the gate of the police station. By this time
the firemen had finished washing the cart, and a tall, bony man,
the chief of the fire brigade, with a coloured band round his
cap, stood in their place, and, with his hands in his pockets,
was severely looking at a fat-necked, well-fed, bay stallion that
was being led up and down before him by a fireman. The stallion
was lame on one of his fore feet, and the chief of the firemen
was angrily saying something to a veterinary who stood by.

The police officer was also present. When he saw the cart he went
up to the convoy soldier.

"Where did you bring him from?" he asked, shaking his head
disapprovingly.

"From the Gorbatovskaya," answered the policeman.

"A prisoner?" asked the chief of the fire brigade.

"Yes. It's the second to-day."

"Well, I must say they've got some queer arrangements. Though of
course it's a broiling day," said the chief of the fire brigade;
then, turning to the fireman who was leading the lame stallion,
he shouted: "Put him into the corner stall. And as to you, you
hound, I'll teach you how to cripple horses which are worth more
than you are, you scoundrel."

The dead man was taken from the cart by the policemen just in the
same way as the first had been, and carried upstairs into the
hospital. Nekhludoff followed them as if he were hypnotised.

"What do you want?" asked one of the policemen. But Nekhludoff
did not answer, and followed where the body was being carried.
The madman, sitting on a bed, was smoking greedily the cigarette
Nekhludoff had given him.

"Ah, you've come back," he said, and laughed. When he saw the
body he made a face, and said, "Again! I am sick of it. I am not
a boy, am I, eh?" and he turned to Nekhludoff with a questioning
smile.

Nekhludoff was looking at the dead man, whose face, which had
been hidden by his cap, was now visible. This convict was as
handsome in face and body as the other was hideous. He was a man
in the full bloom of life. Notwithstanding that he was disfigured
by the half of his head being shaved, the straight, rather low
forehead, raised a bit over the black, lifeless eyes, was very
fine, and so was the nose above the thin, black moustaches. There
was a smile on the lips that were already growing blue, a small
beard outlined the lower part of the face, and on the shaved side
of the head a firm, well-shaped car was visible.

One could see what possibilities of a higher life had been
destroyed in this man. The fine bones of his hands and shackled
feet, the strong muscles of all his well-proportioned limbs,
showed what a beautiful, strong, agile human animal this had
been. As an animal merely he had been a far more perfect one of
his kind than the bay stallion, about the laming of which the
fireman was so angry.

Yet he had been done to death, and no one was sorry for him as a
man, nor was any one sorry that so fine a working animal had
perished. The only feeling evinced was that of annoyance because
of the bother caused by the necessity of getting this body,
threatening putrefaction, out of the way. The doctor and his
assistant entered the hospital, accompanied by the inspector of
the police station. The doctor was a thick-set man, dressed in
pongee silk coat and trousers of the same material, closely
fitting his muscular thighs. The inspector was a little fat
fellow, with a red face, round as a ball, which he made still
broader by a habit he had of filling his cheeks with air, and
slowly letting it out again. The doctor sat down on the bed by
the side of the dead man, and touched the hands in the same way
as his assistant had done, put his ear to the heart, rose, and
pulled his trousers straight. "Could not be more dead," he said.

The inspector filled his mouth with air and slowly blew it out
again.

"Which prison is he from?" he asked the convoy soldier.

The soldier told him, and reminded him of the chains on the dead
man's feet.

"I'll have them taken off; we have got a smith about, the Lord be
thanked," said the inspector, and blew up his cheeks again; he
went towards the door, slowly letting out the air.

"Why has this happened?" Nekhludoff asked the doctor.

The doctor looked at him through his spectacles.

"Why has what happened? Why they die of sunstroke, you mean? This
is why: They sit all through the winter without exercise and
without light, and suddenly they are taken out into the sunshine,
and on a day like this, and they march in a crowd so that they
get no air, and sunstroke is the result."

"Then why are they sent out?"

"Oh, as to that, go and ask those who send them. But may I ask
who are you?"

"I am a stranger."

"Ah, well, good-afternoon; I have no time." The doctor was vexed;
he gave his trousers a downward pull, and went towards the beds
of the sick.

"Well, how are you getting on?" he asked the pale man with the
crooked mouth and bandaged neck.

Meanwhile the madman sat on a bed, and having finished his
cigarette, kept spitting in the direction of the doctor.

Nekhludoff went down into the yard and out of the gate past the
firemen's horses and the hens and the sentinel in his brass
helmet, and got into the trap, the driver of which had again
fallen asleep.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE CONVICT TRAIN.

When Nekhludoff came to the station, the prisoners were all
seated in railway carriages with grated windows. Several persons,
come to see them off, stood on the platform, but were not allowed
to come up to the carriages.

The convoy was much troubled that day. On the way from the prison
to the station, besides the two Nekhludoff had seen, three other
prisoners had fallen and died of sunstroke. One was taken to the
nearest police station like the first two, and the other two died
at the railway station. [In Moscow, in the beginning of the eighth
decade of this century, five convicts died of sunstroke in one
day on their way from the Boutyrki prison to the Nijni railway
station.] The convoy men were not troubled because five men who
might have been alive died while in their charge. This did not
trouble them, but they were concerned lest anything that the law
required in such cases should be omitted. To convey the bodies to
the places appointed, to deliver up their papers, to take them
off the lists of those to be conveyed to Nijni--all this was very
troublesome, especially on so hot a day.

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