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Resurrection

C >> Count Leo Tolstoy >> Resurrection




"Of course, there is a good deal of truth in Lombroso's
teaching," said Kolosoff, lolling back in the low chair and
looking at Sophia Vasilievna with sleepy eyes; "but he
over-stepped the mark. Oh, yes."

"And you? Do you believe in heredity?" asked Sophia Vasilievna,
turning to Nekhludoff, whose silence annoyed her. "In heredity?"
he asked. "No, I don't." At this moment his whole mind was taken
up by strange images that in some unaccountable way rose up in
his imagination. By the side of this strong and handsome Philip
he seemed at this minute to see the nude figure of Kolosoff as an
artist's model; with his stomach like a melon, his bald head, and
his arms without muscle, like pestles. In the same dim way the
limbs of Sophia Vasilievna, now covered with silks and velvets,
rose up in his mind as they must be in reality; but this mental
picture was too horrid and he tried to drive it away.

"Well, you know Missy is waiting for you," she said. "Go and find
her. She wants to play a new piece by Grieg to you; it is most
interesting."

"She did not mean to play anything; the woman is simply lying,
for some reason or other," thought Nekhludoff, rising and
pressing Sophia Vasilievna's transparent and bony, ringed hand.

Katerina Alexeevna met him in the drawing-room, and at once
began, in French, as usual:

"I see the duties of a juryman act depressingly upon you."

"Yes; pardon me, I am in low spirits to-day, and have no right to
weary others by my presence," said Nekhludoff.

"Why are you in low spirits?"

"Allow me not to speak about that," he said, looking round for
his hat.

"Don't you remember how you used to say that we must always tell
the truth? And what cruel truths you used to tell us all! Why do
you not wish to speak out now? Don't you remember, Missy?" she
said, turning to Missy, who had just come in.

"We were playing a game then," said Nekhludoff, seriously; "one
may tell the truth in a game, but in reality we are so bad--I
mean I am so bad--that I, at least, cannot tell the truth."

"Oh, do not correct yourself, but rather tell us why _we_ are
so bad," said Katerina Alexeevna, playing with her words and
pretending not to notice how serious Nekhludoff was.

"Nothing is worse than to confess to being in low spirits," said
Missy. "I never do it, and therefore am always in good spirits."

Nekhludoff felt as a horse must feel when it is being caressed to
make it submit to having the bit put in its mouth and be
harnessed, and to-day he felt less than ever inclined to draw.

"Well, are you coming into my room? We will try to cheer you up."

He excused himself, saying he had to be at home, and began taking
leave. Missy kept his hand longer than usual.

"Remember that what is important to you is important to your
friends," she said. "Are you coming tomorrow?"

"I hardly expect to," said Nekhludoff; and feeling ashamed,
without knowing whether for her or for himself, he blushed and
went away.

"What is it? _Comme cela m'intrigue_," said Katerina Alexeevna. "I
must find it out. I suppose it is some _affaire d'amour propre; il
est tres susceptible, notre cher Mitia_."

"_Plutot une affaire d'amour sale_," Missy was going to say, but
stopped and looked down with a face from which all the light had
gone--a very different face from the one with which she had
looked at him. She would not mention to Katerina Alexeevna even,
so vulgar a pun, but only said, "We all have our good and our bad
days."

"Is it possible that he, too, will deceive?" she thought; "after
all that has happened it would be very bad of him."

If Missy had had to explain what she meant by "after all that has
happened," she could have said nothing definite, and yet she knew
that he had not only excited her hopes but had almost given her a
promise. No definite words had passed between them--only looks
and smiles and hints; and yet she considered him as her own, and
to lose him would be very hard.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE AWAKENING.

"Shameful and stupid, horrid and shameful!" Nekhludoff kept
saying to himself, as he walked home along the familiar streets.
The depression he had felt whilst speaking to Missy would not
leave him. He felt that, looking at it externally, as it were, he
was in the right, for he had never said anything to her that
could be considered binding, never made her an offer; but he knew
that in reality he had bound himself to her, had promised to be
hers. And yet to-day he felt with his whole being that he could
not marry her.

"Shameful and horrid, horrid and shameful!" he repeated to
himself, with reference not only to his relations with Missy but
also to the rest. "Everything is horrid and shameful," he
muttered, as he stepped into the porch of his house. "I am not
going to have any supper," he said to his manservant Corney, who
followed him into the dining-room, where the cloth was laid for
supper and tea. "You may go."

"Yes, sir," said Corney, yet he did not go, but began clearing
the supper off the table. Nekhludoff looked at Corney with a
feeling of ill-will. He wished to be left alone, and it seemed to
him that everybody was bothering him in order to spite him. When
Corney had gone away with the supper things, Nekhludoff moved to
the tea urn and was about to make himself some tea, but hearing
Agraphena Petrovna's footsteps, he went hurriedly into the
drawing-room, to avoid being seen by her, and shut the door after
him. In this drawing-room his mother had died three months
before. On entering the room, in which two lamps with reflectors
were burning, one lighting up his father's and the other his
mother's portrait, he remembered what his last relations with his
mother had been. And they also seemed shameful and horrid. He
remembered how, during the latter period of her illness, he had
simply wished her to die. He had said to himself that he wished
it for her sake, that she might be released from her suffering,
but in reality he wished to be released from the sight of her
sufferings for his own sake.

Trying to recall a pleasant image of her, he went up to look at
her portrait, painted by a celebrated artist for 800 roubles. She
was depicted in a very low-necked black velvet dress. There was
something very revolting and blasphemous in this representation
of his mother as a half-nude beauty. It was all the more
disgusting because three months ago, in this very room, lay this
same woman, dried up to a mummy. And he remembered how a few days
before her death she clasped his hand with her bony, discoloured
fingers, looked into his eyes, and said: "Do not judge me, Mitia,
if I have not done what I should," and how the tears came into
her eyes, grown pale with suffering.

"Ah, how horrid!" he said to himself, looking up once more at the
half-naked woman, with the splendid marble shoulders and arms,
and the triumphant smile on her lips. "Oh, how horrid!" The bared
shoulders of the portrait reminded him of another, a young woman,
whom he had seen exposed in the same way a few days before. It
was Missy, who had devised an excuse for calling him into her
room just as she was ready to go to a ball, so that he should see
her in her ball dress. It was with disgust that he remembered her
fine shoulders and arms. "And that father of hers, with his
doubtful past and his cruelties, and the bel-esprit her mother,
with her doubtful reputation." All this disgusted him, and also
made him feel ashamed. "Shameful and horrid; horrid and shameful!"

"No, no," he thought; "freedom from all these false relations
with the Korchagins and Mary Vasilievna and the inheritance and
from all the rest must be got. Oh, to breathe freely, to go
abroad, to Rome and work at my picture!" He remembered the doubts
he had about his talent for art. "Well, never mind; only just to
breathe freely. First Constantinople, then Rome. Only just to get
through with this jury business, and arrange with the advocate
first."

Then suddenly there arose in his mind an extremely vivid picture
of a prisoner with black, slightly-squinting eyes, and how she
began to cry when the last words of the prisoners had been heard;
and he hurriedly put out his cigarette, pressing it into the
ash-pan, lit another, and began pacing up and down the room. One
after another the scenes he had lived through with her rose in
his mind. He recalled that last interview with her. He remembered
the white dress and blue sash, the early mass. "Why, I loved her,
really loved her with a good, pure love, that night; I loved her
even before: yes, I loved her when I lived with my aunts the
first time and was writing my composition." And he remembered
himself as he had been then. A breath of that freshness, youth
and fulness of life seemed to touch him, and he grew painfully
sad. The difference between what he had been then and what he was
now, was enormous--just as great, if not greater than the
difference between Katusha in church that night, and the
prostitute who had been carousing with the merchant and whom they
judged this morning. Then he was free and fearless, and
innumerable possibilities lay ready to open before him; now he
felt himself caught in the meshes of a stupid, empty, valueless,
frivolous life, out of which he saw no means of extricating
himself even if he wished to, which he hardly did. He remembered
how proud he was at one time of his straightforwardness, how he
had made a rule of always speaking the truth, and really had been
truthful; and how he was now sunk deep in lies: in the most
dreadful of lies--lies considered as the truth by all who
surrounded him. And, as far as he could see, there was no way out
of these lies. He had sunk in the mire, got used to it, indulged
himself in it.

How was he to break off his relations with Mary Vasilievna and
her husband in such a way as to be able to look him and his
children in the eyes? How disentangle himself from Missy? How
choose between the two opposites--the recognition that holding
land was unjust and the heritage from his mother? How atone for
his sin against Katusha? This last, at any rate, could not be
left as it was. He could not abandon a woman he had loved, and
satisfy himself by paying money to an advocate to save her from
hard labour in Siberia. She had not even deserved hard labour.
Atone for a fault by paying money? Had he not then, when he gave
her the money, thought he was atoning for his fault?

And he clearly recalled to mind that moment when, having caught
her up in the passage, he thrust the money into her bib and ran
away. "Oh, that money!" he thought with the same horror and
disgust he had then felt. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! how disgusting,"
he cried aloud as he had done then. "Only a scoundrel, a knave,
could do such a thing. And I am that knave, that scoundrel!" He
went on aloud: "But is it possible?"--he stopped and stood
still--"is it possible that I am really a scoundrel? . . .
Well, who but I?" he answered himself. "And then, is this the
only thing?" he went on, convicting himself. "Was not my conduct
towards Mary Vasilievna and her husband base and disgusting? And
my position with regard to money? To use riches considered by me
unlawful on the plea that they are inherited from my mother? And
the whole of my idle, detestable life? And my conduct towards
Katusha to crown all? Knave and scoundrel! Let men judge me as
they like, I can deceive them; but myself I cannot deceive."

And, suddenly, he understood that the aversion he had lately, and
particularly to-day, felt for everybody--the Prince and Sophia
Vasilievna and Corney and Missy--was an aversion for himself.
And, strange to say, in this acknowledgement of his baseness
there was something painful yet joyful and quieting.

More than once in Nekhludoff's life there had been what he called
a "cleansing of the soul." By "cleansing of the soul" he meant a
state of mind in which, after a long period of sluggish inner
life, a total cessation of its activity, he began to clear out
all the rubbish that had accumulated in his soul, and was the
cause of the cessation of the true life. His soul needed
cleansing as a watch does. After such an awakening Nekhludoff
always made some rules for himself which he meant to follow
forever after, wrote his diary, and began afresh a life which he
hoped never to change again. "Turning over a new leaf," he called
it to himself in English. But each time the temptations of the
world entrapped him, and without noticing it he fell again, often
lower than before.

Thus he had several times in his life raised and cleansed
himself. The first time this happened was during the summer he
spent with his aunts; that was his most vital and rapturous
awakening, and its effects had lasted some time. Another
awakening was when he gave up civil service and joined the army
at war time, ready to sacrifice his life. But here the choking-up
process was soon accomplished. Then an awakening came when he
left the army and went abroad, devoting himself to art.

From that time until this day a long period had elapsed without
any cleansing, and therefore the discord between the demands of
his conscience and the life he was leading was greater than it
had ever been before. He was horror-struck when he saw how great
the divergence was. It was so great and the defilement so
complete that he despaired of the possibility of getting
cleansed. "Have you not tried before to perfect yourself and
become better, and nothing has come of it?" whispered the voice
of the tempter within. "What is the use of trying any more? Are
you the only one?--All are alike, such is life," whispered the
voice. But the free spiritual being, which alone is true, alone
powerful, alone eternal, had already awakened in Nekhludoff, and
he could not but believe it. Enormous though the distance was
between what he wished to be and what he was, nothing appeared
insurmountable to the newly-awakened spiritual being.

"At any cost I will break this lie which binds me and confess
everything, and will tell everybody the truth, and act the truth,"
he said resolutely, aloud. "I shall tell Missy the truth, tell
her I am a profligate and cannot marry her, and have only
uselessly upset her. I shall tell Mary Vasilievna. . . Oh, there
is nothing to tell her. I shall tell her husband that I,
scoundrel that I am, have been deceiving him. I shall dispose of
the inheritance in such a way as to acknowledge the truth. I
shall tell her, Katusha, that I am a scoundrel and have sinned
towards her, and will do all I can to ease her lot. Yes, I will
see her, and will ask her to forgive me.

"Yes, I will beg her pardon, as children do." . . . He
stopped---"will marry her if necessary." He stopped again, folded
his hands in front of his breast as he used to do when a little
child, lifted his eyes, and said, addressing some one: "Lord,
help me, teach me, come enter within me and purify me of all this
abomination."

He prayed, asking God to help him, to enter into him and cleanse
him; and what he was praying for had happened already: the God
within him had awakened his consciousness. He felt himself one
with Him, and therefore felt not only the freedom, fulness and
joy of life, but all the power of righteousness. All, all the
best that a man could do he felt capable of doing.

His eyes filled with tears as he was saying all this to himself,
good and bad tears: good because they were tears of joy at the
awakening of the spiritual being within him, the being which had
been asleep all these years; and bad tears because they were
tears of tenderness to himself at his own goodness.

He felt hot, and went to the window and opened it. The window
opened into a garden. It was a moonlit, quiet, fresh night; a
vehicle rattled past, and then all was still. The shadow of a
tall poplar fell on the ground just opposite the window, and all
the intricate pattern of its bare branches was clearly defined on
the clean swept gravel. To the left the roof of a coach-house
shone white in the moonlight, in front the black shadow of the
garden wall was visible through the tangled branches of the
trees.

Nekhludoff gazed at the roof, the moonlit garden, and the shadows
of the poplar, and drank in the fresh, invigorating air.

"How delightful, how delightful; oh, God, how delightful," he
said, meaning that which was going on in his soul.



CHAPTER XXIX.

MASLOVA IN PRISON.

Maslova reached her cell only at six in the evening, tired and
footsore, having, unaccustomed as she was to walking, gone 10
miles on the stony road that day. She was crushed by the
unexpectedly severe sentence and tormented by hunger. During the
first interval of her trial, when the soldiers were eating bread
and hard-boiled eggs in her presence, her mouth watered and she
realised she was hungry, but considered it beneath her dignity to
beg of them. Three hours later the desire to eat had passed, and
she felt only weak. It was then she received the unexpected
sentence. At first she thought she had made a mistake; she could
not imagine herself as a convict in Siberia, and could not
believe what she heard. But seeing the quiet, business-like faces
of judges and jury, who heard this news as if it were perfectly
natural and expected, she grew indignant, and proclaimed loudly
to the whole Court that she was not guilty. Finding that her cry
was also taken as something natural and expected, and feeling
incapable of altering matters, she was horror-struck and began to
weep in despair, knowing that she must submit to the cruel and
surprising injustice that had been done her. What astonished her
most was that young men--or, at any rate, not old men--the same
men who always looked so approvingly at her (one of them, the
public prosecutor, she had seen in quite a different humour) had
condemned her. While she was sitting in the prisoners' room
before the trial and during the intervals, she saw these men
looking in at the open door pretending they had to pass there on
some business, or enter the room and gaze on her with approval.
And then, for some unknown reason, these same men had condemned
her to hard labour, though she was innocent of the charge laid
against her. At first she cried, but then quieted down and sat
perfectly stunned in the prisoners' room, waiting to be led back.
She wanted only two things now--tobacco and strong drink. In this
state Botchkova and Kartinkin found her when they were led into
the same room after being sentenced. Botchkova began at once to
scold her, and call her a "convict."

"Well! What have you gained? justified yourself, have you? What
you have deserved, that you've got. Out in Siberia you'll give up
your finery, no fear!"

Maslova sat with her hands inside her sleeves, hanging her head
and looking in front of her at the dirty floor without moving,
only saying: "I don't bother you, so don't you bother me. I don't
bother you, do I?" she repeated this several times, and was
silent again. She did brighten up a little when Botchkova and
Kartinkin were led away and an attendant brought her three
roubles.

"Are you Maslova?" he asked. "Here you are; a lady sent it you,"
he said, giving her the money.

"A lady--what lady?"

"You just take it. I'm not going to talk to you."

This money was sent by Kitaeva, the keeper of the house in which
she used to live. As she was leaving the court she turned to the
usher with the question whether she might give Maslova a little
money. The usher said she might. Having got permission, she
removed the three-buttoned Swedish kid glove from her plump,
white hand, and from an elegant purse brought from the back folds
of her silk skirt took a pile of coupons, [in Russia coupons cut
off interest-bearing papers are often used as money] just cut
off from the interest-bearing papers which she had earned in her
establishment, chose one worth 2 roubles and 50 copecks, added
two 20 and one 10-copeck coins, and gave all this to the usher.
The usher called an attendant, and in his presence gave the
money.

"Belease to giff it accurately," said Carolina Albertovna
Kitaeva.

The attendant was hurt by her want of confidence, and that was
why he treated Maslova so brusquely. Maslova was glad of the
money, because it could give her the only thing she now desired.
"If I could but get cigarettes and take a whiff!" she said to
herself, and all her thoughts centred on the one desire to smoke
and drink. She longed for spirits so that she tasted them and
felt the strength they would give her; and she greedily breathed
in the air when the fumes of tobacco reached her from the door of
a room that opened into the corridor. But she had to wait long,
for the secretary, who should have given the order for her to go,
forgot about the prisoners while talking and even disputing with
one of the advocates about the article forbidden by the censor.

At last, about five o'clock, she was allowed to go, and was led
away through the back door by her escort, the Nijni man and the
Tchoovash. Then, still within the entrance to the Law Courts, she
gave them 50 copecks, asking them to get her two rolls and some
cigarettes. The Tchoovash laughed, took the money, and said, "All
right; I'll get 'em," and really got her the rolls and the
cigarettes and honestly returned the change. She was not allowed
to smoke on the way, and, with her craving unsatisfied, she
continued her way to the prison. When she was brought to the gate
of the prison, a hundred convicts who had arrived by rail were
being led in. The convicts, bearded, clean-shaven, old, young,
Russians, foreigners, some with their heads shaved and rattling
with the chains on their feet, filled the anteroom with dust,
noise and an acid smell of perspiration. Passing Maslova, all the
convicts looked at her, and some came up to her and brushed her
as they passed.

"Ay, here's a wench--a fine one," said one.

"My respects to you, miss," said another, winking at her. One
dark man with a moustache, the rest of his face and the back of
his head clean shaved, rattling with his chains and catching her
feet in them, sprang near and embraced her.

"What! don't you know your chum? Come, come; don't give yourself
airs," showing his teeth and his eyes glittering when she pushed
him away.

"You rascal! what are you up to?" shouted the inspector's
assistant, coming in from behind. The convict shrank back and
jumped away. The assistant assailed Maslova.

"What are you here for?"

Maslova was going to say she had been brought back from the Law
Courts, but she was so tired that she did not care to speak.

"She has returned from the Law Courts, sir," said one of the
soldiers, coming forward with his fingers lifted to his cap.

"Well, hand her over to the chief warder. I won't have this sort
of thing."

"Yes, sir."

"Sokoloff, take her in!" shouted the assistant inspector.

The chief warder came up, gave Maslova a slap on the shoulder,
and making a sign with his head for her to follow led her into
the corridor of the women's ward. There she was searched, and as
nothing prohibited was found on her (she had hidden her box of
cigarettes inside a roll) she was led to the cell she had left in
the morning.



CHAPTER XXX.

THE CELL.

The cell in which Maslova was imprisoned was a large room 21 feet
long and 10 feet broad; it had two windows and a large stove.
Two-thirds of the space were taken up by shelves used as beds.
The planks they were made of had warped and shrunk. Opposite the
door hung a dark-coloured icon with a wax candle sticking to it
and a bunch of everlastings hanging down from it. By the door to
the right there was a dark spot on the floor on which stood a
stinking tub. The inspection had taken place and the women were
locked up for the night.

The occupants of this room were 15 persons, including three
children. It was still quite light. Only two of the women were
lying down: a consumptive woman imprisoned for theft, and an
idiot who spent most of her time in sleep and who was arrested
because she had no passport. The consumptive woman was not
asleep, but lay with wide open eyes, her cloak folded under her
head, trying to keep back the phlegm that irritated her throat,
and not to cough.

Some of the other women, most of whom had nothing on but coarse
brown holland chemises, stood looking out of the window at the
convicts down in the yard, and some sat sewing. Among the latter
was the old woman, Korableva, who had seen Maslova off in the
morning. She was a tall, strong, gloomy-looking woman; her fair
hair, which had begun to turn grey on the temples, hung down in a
short plait. She was sentenced to hard labour in Siberia because
she had killed her husband with an axe for making up to their
daughter. She was at the head of the women in the cell, and found
means of carrying on a trade in spirits with them. Beside her sat
another woman sewing a coarse canvas sack. This was the wife of a
railway watchman, [There are small watchmen's cottages at
distances of about one mile from each other along the Russian
railways, and the watchmen or their wives have to meet every
train.] imprisoned for three months because she did not come out
with the flags to meet a train that was passing, and an accident
had occurred. She was a short, snub-nosed woman, with small,
black eyes; kind and talkative. The third of the women who were
sewing was Theodosia, a quiet young girl, white and rosy, very
pretty, with bright child's eyes, and long fair plaits which she
wore twisted round her head. She was in prison for attempting to
poison her husband. She had done this immediately after her
wedding (she had been given in marriage without her consent at
the age of 16) because her husband would give her no peace. But
in the eight months during which she had been let out on bail,
she had not only made it up with her husband, but come to love
him, so that when her trial came they were heart and soul to one
another. Although her husband, her father-in-law, but especially
her mother-in-law, who had grown very fond of her, did all they
could to get her acquitted, she was sentenced to hard labour in
Siberia. The kind, merry, ever-smiling Theodosia had a place next
Maslova's on the shelf bed, and had grown so fond of her that she
took it upon herself as a duty to attend and wait on her. Two
other women were sitting without any work at the other end of the
shelf bedstead. One was a woman of about 40, with a pale, thin
face, who once probably had been very handsome. She sat with her
baby at her thin, white breast. The crime she had committed was
that when a recruit was, according to the peasants' view,
unlawfully taken from their village, and the people stopped the
police officer and took the recruit away from him, she (an aunt
of the lad unlawfully taken) was the first to catch hold of the
bridle of the horse on which he was being carried off. The other,
who sat doing nothing, was a kindly, grey-haired old woman,
hunchbacked and with a flat bosom. She sat behind the stove on
the bedshelf, and pretended to catch a fat four-year-old boy, who
ran backwards and forwards in front of her, laughing gaily. This
boy had only a little shirt on and his hair was cut short. As he
ran past the old woman he kept repeating, "There, haven't caught
me!" This old woman and her son were accused of incendiarism.
She bore her imprisonment with perfect cheerfulness, but was
concerned about her son, and chiefly about her "old man," who she
feared would get into a terrible state with no one to wash for
him. Besides these seven women, there were four standing at one
of the open windows, holding on to the iron bars. They were
making signs and shouting to the convicts whom Maslova had met
when returning to prison, and who were now passing through the
yard. One of these women was big and heavy, with a flabby body,
red hair, and freckled on her pale yellow face, her hands, and
her fat neck. She shouted something in a loud, raucous voice, and
laughed hoarsely. This woman was serving her term for theft.
Beside her stood an awkward, dark little woman, no bigger than a
child of ten, with a long waist and very short legs, a red,
blotchy face, thick lips which did not hide her long teeth, and
eyes too far apart. She broke by fits and starts into screeching
laughter at what was going on in the yard. She was to be tried
for stealing and incendiarism. They called her Khoroshavka.
Behind her, in a very dirty grey chemise, stood a thin,
miserable-looking pregnant woman, who was to be tried for
concealment of theft. This woman stood silent, but kept smiling
with pleasure and approval at what was going on below. With these
stood a peasant woman of medium height, the mother of the boy who
was playing with the old woman and of a seven-year-old girl.
These were in prison with her because she had no one to leave
them with. She was serving her term of imprisonment for illicit
sale of spirits. She stood a little further from the window
knitting a stocking, and though she listened to the other
prisoners' words she shook her head disapprovingly, frowned, and
closed her eyes. But her seven-year-old daughter stood in her
little chemise, her flaxen hair done up in a little pigtail, her
blue eyes fixed, and, holding the red-haired woman by the skirt,
attentively listened to the words of abuse that the women and the
convicts flung at each other, and repeated them softly, as if
learning them by heart. The twelfth prisoner, who paid no
attention to what was going on, was a very tall, stately girl,
the daughter of a deacon, who had drowned her baby in a well. She
went about with bare feet, wearing only a dirty chemise. The
thick, short plait of her fair hair had come undone and hung down
dishevelled, and she paced up and down the free space of the
cell, not looking at any one, turning abruptly every time she
came up to the wall.

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