The Awakening / The Resurrection

CHAPTER XL.

This room, like the one in the men's ward, was also divided in three, by two nets, but it was considerably smaller. There were also fewer visitors and fewer prisoners, but the noise was as great as in the men's room. Here, also, the authorities stood guard between the nets. The authorities were here represented by a matron in uniform with crown-laced sleeves and fringed with blue braid and a belt of the same color. Here, too, people pressed against the nets—in the passage—city folks in divers dresses; behind the nets, female prisoners, some in white, others in their own dresses. The whole net was lined with people. Some stood on tip-toe, speaking over the heads of others; others, again, sat on the floor and conversed.

The most remarkable of the women prisoners, both in her shouting and appearance, was a thin, ragged gipsy, with a 'kerchief which had slipped from her head, who stood almost in the middle of the room, near a post, behind the net, gesticulating and shouting to a short and tightly belted gipsy in a blue coat. A soldier sat beside him on the floor, talking to a prisoner. Beyond stood a young peasant with a light beard and in bast shoes, pressing his flushed face to the net, evidently with difficulty suppressing his tears. He was talking to a pretty, light-haired prisoner who gazed at him with her bright, blue eyes. This was Theodosia, with her husband. Beside them stood a tramp, who was talking to a disheveled, broad-faced woman. Further on there were two women, a man, and again a woman, and opposite each was a prisoner. Maslova was not among them. But behind the prisoners stood another woman. Nekhludoff felt the beating of his heart increasing and his breath failing him. The decisive moment was approaching. He neared the net and recognized Katiousha. She stood behind the blue-eyed Theodosia, and, smiling, listened to her conversation. She did not wear the prison coat, but a white waist, tightly belted, and rising high above the breast. As in the court, her black hair hung in curls over her 'kerchiefed forehead.

"It will all be over in a moment," he thought. "Shall I address her, or shall I wait till she addresses me?"

But she did not address him. She was waiting for Clara, and never thought that that man came to see her.

"Whom do you wish to see?" the matron asked Nekhludoff, approaching him.

"Katherine Maslova," he stammered.

"Maslova, you are wanted," shouted the matron.

Maslova turned round, raised her head, and with the familiar expression of submissiveness, came to the net. She did not recognize Nekhludoff, and gazed at him in surprise. However, judging by his dress that he was a rich man, she smiled.

"What are you?" she asked, pressing her smiling face with squinting eyes against the net.

"I wish to see—" He did not know whether to use the respectful "you" or the endearing "thou," and decided on the former. He spoke no louder than usual. "I wish to see you—I——"

"Don't give me any of your song and dance——" the tramp beside him shouted. "Did you take it, or did you not?"

"She is dying; she is very weak," some one shouted on the other side.

Maslova could not hear Nekhludoff, but the expression of his face, as she spoke, suddenly reminded her of that which she did not wish to think of. The smile disappeared from her face, and a wrinkle on her brow evidenced her suffering.

"I cannot hear what you are saying," she shouted, blinking and still more knitting her brows.

"I came——"

"Yes, I am doing my duty; I am repenting," thought Nekhludoff, and immediately tears filled his eyes, and he felt a choking sensation in his throat. His fingers clutched at the net and he made efforts to keep from sobbing.

"I should not have gone if you were well," came from one side.

"I swear by God I know nothing about it!" cried a prisoner from the other side.

Maslova noticed his agitation, and it communicated itself to her. Her eyes sparkled, and her puffy, white cheeks became covered with red spots, but her face retained its severity, and her squinting eyes stared past him.

"You are like him, but I don't know you," she shouted.

"I came here to ask your forgiveness," he said in a loud voice, without intonation, as if repeating a lesson he had learned by heart.

As he said these words he felt ashamed and looked round. But the thought immediately came to his mind that it was well that he was ashamed, for he ought to bear the shame. And in a loud voice he continued:

"I acted meanly, infamously—forgive me."

She stood motionless, her squinting eyes fixed on him.

He could not continue and left the net, making efforts to stifle the sobbing which was convulsing his breast.

The inspector who directed Nekhludoff to the women's ward, evidently becoming interested in him, came into the room, and, seeing him in the middle of the passage, asked him why he was not speaking with the prisoner he had inquired about. Nekhludoff blew his nose, and, endeavoring to assume an air of calmness, said:

"I can't speak through the net; nothing can be heard."

The inspector mused awhile.

"Well, then, she can be brought out for awhile."

"Maria Karlovna!" he turned to the matron. "Lead Maslova out."

CHAPTER XLI.

A moment afterward Maslova came out through a side door. With gentle step she came up to Nekhludoff; stopped and glanced at him from under her lowered eyebrows. Her black hair stood out on her forehead in curly ringlets; her unhealthy, bloated, white face was pretty and very calm, only her shining-black, squinting eyes sparkled from under their swollen lashes.

"You may talk here," said the inspector and went aside.

Nekhludoff moved toward a bench standing beside the wall.

Maslova glanced inquiringly at the inspector, and shrugging her shoulders, as if in wonder, followed Nekhludoff to the bench, and straightening her skirt, sat down beside him.

"I know that it is hard for you to forgive me," began Nekhludoff, but feeling the tears flooding his eyes, again stopped, "but if the past cannot be mended, I will do now everything in my power. Tell me——"

"How did you find me?" she asked without answering his question, her squinting eyes looking and not looking at him.

"Oh, Lord! Help me, teach me what to do!" Nekhludoff said to himself as he looked at her face so completely changed.

"I was on the jury when you were tried," he said. "You did not recognize me?"

"No, I did not. I had no time to recognize you. Besides, I did not look," she answered.

"Wasn't there a child?" he asked, and he felt his face turning red.

"It died at that time, thank God," she said with bitterness, turning away her head.

"How did it happen?"

"I was ill myself—nearly died," she said without raising her eyes.

"How could the aunts let you go?"

"Who would keep a servant with a child? As soon as they noticed it they drove me out. But what is the use of talking! I don't remember anything. It is all over now."

"No, it is not over. I cannot leave it thus. I now wish to atone for my sin."

"There is nothing to atone for; what's gone is gone," she said, and, all unexpected to him, she suddenly looked at him and smiled in an alluring and piteous manner.

His appearance was entirely unexpected to Maslova, especially at this time and place, and therefore the astonishment of the first moment brought to her mind that of which she never thought before. At the first moment she hazily recalled that new, wonderful world of feeling and thought which had been opened to her by that charming young man who loved her, and whom she loved, and then his inexplicable cruelty and the long chain of humiliation and suffering which followed as the direct result of that enchanting bliss, and it pained her. But being unable to account for it all, she did the customary thing for her—banished all these recollections from her mind, and endeavored to obscure them by a life of dissipation. At first she associated this man who sat beside her with that young man whom she had loved once, but as the thought pained her, she drove it from her mind. And now this neatly dressed gentleman, with perfumed beard, was to her not that Nekhludoff whom she had loved, but one of those people who, as opportunity afforded, were taking advantage of such creatures as she, and of whom such creatures as she ought to take advantage as opportunity offers. For this reason she smiled alluringly.

She was silent, thinking how to profit by him.

"All that is over now," she said. "And here I am, sentenced to penal servitude."

Her lips trembled as she spoke the terrible word.

"I knew, I was certain that you were innocent," said Nekhludoff.

"Of course I was innocent. I am no thief or robber. They say here that it all depends on the lawyer; that it is necessary to appeal. Only they say it comes very high——"

"Yes, certainly," said Nekhludoff. "I have already seen a lawyer."

"One must not be sparing, and get a good one," she said.

"I will do everything in my power."

They were silent. She again smiled as before.

"I would like to ask you—for some money, if you have it—not much, say ten rubles," she said suddenly.

"Yes, yes," said Nekhludoff, abashed, and thrust his hand in his pocket.

She quickly glanced at the inspector, who was walking up and down the aisle.

"Don't let him see it, or he will take it away."

Nekhludoff took out his pocketbook as soon as the director turned his back on them, but before he could hand her the ten-ruble bill the inspector turned round, facing them. He crumpled the bill in his hand.

"Why, she is a dead woman," thought Nekhludoff as he looked at her once lovely, but now defiled, bloated face with the unhealthy sparkle in her black, squinting eyes, which looked now at the inspector, now at Nekhludoff's hand with the crumpled bill. And a moment of hesitation came over him.

Again the tempter of the night before whispered in his soul, endeavoring to turn the question, What would be the best thing to do? into, What will be the end of it?

"You can do nothing with that woman," whispered the voice. "She will be like a stone around your neck, which will drag you down, and prevent your being useful to others. Give her all the money you have, bid her good-by and put an end to it for all time."

And immediately he became aware that something important was taking place in his soul; that his inner life was on a wavering scale, which could by the slightest effort be made to overbalance to one side or the other. And he made that effort, calling on that God whom the other day he felt in his soul, and God immediately came to his aid. He resolved to tell her all.

"Katiousha! I came to ask your forgiveness, but you have not answered me whether you have forgiven me, or ever will forgive me," he said suddenly.

She was not listening to him, but looked now at his hand, now at the inspector. When the latter turned away, she quickly stretched forth her hand, seized the money from Nekhludoff's hand and stuck it behind her belt.

"How funny!" she said, smiling contemptuously as it seemed to him.

Nekhludoff saw that there was something inimical to him in her, which stood guard, as it were, over her as she was now, and prevented him from penetrating into her heart.

But—wonderful to relate—so far from repulsing him, this only drew him to her by some new peculiar force. He felt that he ought to awaken her spirit; that it was extremely difficult to do so; but the very difficulty of the undertaking attracted him. He experienced a feeling toward her which he had never experienced before, either toward her or any one else, and in which there was nothing personal. He desired nothing of her for himself, and only wished her to to cease to be what she was now, and become what she had been before.

"Katiousha, why do you speak thus? I know you, I remember you as you were in Panoff——"

But she did not yield—she would not yield.

"Why recall the past!" she said dryly, frowning even more.

"Because I wish to efface, to expiate my sin. Katiousha——" he began, and was about to tell her that he would marry her, but he met her eyes in which he read something so terrible, rude and repulsive that he could not finish.

At that moment the visitors began to take leave. The inspector approached Nekhludoff and told him that the time for interviewing was ended. Maslova rose and submissively waited to be dismissed.

"Good-by. I have a great deal to tell you yet, but, as you see, I cannot do it now," said Nekhludoff, and extended his hand. "I will call again."

"I think you have said everything——"

She extended her hand, but did not press his.

"No. I will try to see you again, where we can speak together, and then I will tell you something very important," said Nekhludoff.

"Well, all right," she said, smiling as she used to do when she wished to please a man.

"You are more to me than a sister," said Nekhludoff.

"Funny," she repeated, and, shaking her head, she went behind the grating.

CHAPTER XLII.

Nekhludoff expected that at the first meeting Katiousha, learning of his intention to serve her, and of his repentance, would be moved to rejoicing, would become again Katiousha, but to his surprise and horror, he saw that Katiousha was no more; that only Maslova remained.

It surprised him particularly that not only was Maslova not ashamed of her condition, but, on the contrary, she seemed to be content with, and even took pride in it. And yet it could not be different.

It is usually thought that a thief or murderer, acknowledging the harmfulness of his occupation, ought to be ashamed of it. The truth is just the contrary. People, whom fate and their sinful mistakes have placed in a given condition, form such views of life generally that they are enabled to consider their condition useful and morally tenable. In order, however, to maintain such views they instinctively cling to such circles in which the same views are held. We are surprised when we hear thieves boasting of their cleverness, or murderers boasting of their cruelty, but that is only because their circle is limited, and because we are outside of it.

This was the case also with Maslova. She was sentenced to penal servitude, and yet she formed such views of life and her place in it that she could find reasons for self-approval and even boast before people of her condition.

The substance of this view was that the greatest welfare of all men, without exception—young, old, students, generals, educated and uneducated—consisted in associating with attractive women, and that therefore all men, while pretending to occupy themselves with other business, in reality desire nothing else. Now, she is an attractive woman, and can satisfy that desire of theirs, or not, as she wishes, hence she is a necessary and important person. All her life, past and present, attested the justice of this view.

Whomever she met during ten years, beginning with Nekhludoff and the old commissary of police, and ending with the jailers, all wanted her. She had not met any one who did not want her. Hence the world appeared to her as an aggregation of people who watched her from all sides and by all possible means—deceit, violence, gold or craftiness—strewn to possess her.

With such an idea of life, Maslova considered herself a most important person. And she cherished this view above all else in the world, because to change it would be to lose that standing among people which it assured her. And in order not to lose her standing she instinctively clung to that circle which held the same views of life. Seeing, however, that Nekhludoff wished to lead her into another world, she resisted it, feeling that in that other world into which he was luring her she would lose her present standing which gave her confidence and self-respect. For the same reason she drove from her mind all recollection of her first youth and her first relations to Nekhludoff. These recollections clashed with her present views of life, and for that reason were entirely effaced from her memory, or, rather, were preserved somewhere in her memory, but were covered up, as it were, with a thick plastering, to prevent any access to them. Nekhludoff was, therefore, to her not that man whom she had loved with a pure love, but merely a rich gentleman by whom one may and ought to profit, and who was to be treated like any other man.

"I did not tell her the most important thing," thought Nekhludoff, as with the other people he walked toward the door. "I did not tell her that I would marry her, but I will do it."

The inspectors at the doors counted the visitors each with one hand slapping every visitor on the back. But Nekhludoff was not offended by it now; he even took no notice of it.

CHAPTER XLIII.

It was Nekhludoff's intention to alter his manner of living—discharge the servants, let the house and take rooms in a hotel. But Agrippina Petrovna argued that no one would rent the house in the summer, and that as it was necessary to live somewhere and keep the furniture and things, he might as well remain where he was. So that all efforts of Nekhludoff to lead a simple, student life, came to naught. Not only was the old arrangement of things continued, but, as in former times, the house received a general cleaning. First were brought out and hung on a rope uniforms and strange fur garments which were never used by anybody; then carpets, furniture, and the porter, with his assistant, rolling up the sleeves on their muscular arms, began to beat these things, and the odor of camphor rose all over the house. Walking through the court-yard and looking out of the window, Nekhludoff wondered at the great number of unnecessary things kept in the house. The only purpose these things served, he thought, was to afford the servants an opportunity of exercise.

"It isn't worth while to alter my mode of life while Maslova's affair is unsettled," he thought. "Besides, it is too hard. When she is discharged or transported and I follow her, things will change of their own accord."

On the day appointed by the lawyer Fanirin, Nekhludoff called on him. On entering the magnificently appointed apartments of the house owned by the lawyer himself, with its huge plants, remarkable curtains and other evidences of luxury, attesting easily earned wealth, Nekhludoff found in the reception-room a number of people sitting dejectedly around tables on which lay illustrated journals intended for their diversion. The lawyer's clerk, who was sitting in this room at a high desk, recognizing Nekhludoff, greeted him and said that he would announce him. But before the clerk reached the door of the cabinet, the door opened and the animated voices of a thick-set man with a red face and stubby mustache, wearing a new suit, and Fanirin himself were heard. The expression on their faces was such as is seen on people who had just made a profitable, but not very honest, bargain.

"It is your own fault, my dear sir," Fanirin said, smiling.

"I would gladly go to heaven, but my sins prevent me."

"That is all right."

And both laughed unnaturally.

"Ah, Prince Nekhludoff! Pleased to see you," said Fanirin, and bowing again to the departing merchant, he led Nekhludoff into his business-like cabinet. "Please take a cigarette," said the lawyer, seating himself opposite Nekhludoff and suppressing a smile, called forth by the success of the preceding affair.

"Thank you. I came to inquire about Maslova's case."

"Yes, yes, immediately. My, what rogues these moneybags are!" he said. "You have seen that fellow; he is worth twelve millions, and is the meanest skinflint I ever met."

Nekhludoff felt an irresistible loathing toward this ready talker who, by his tone of voice, meant to show that he and Nekhludoff belonged to a different sphere than the other clients.

"He worried me to death. He is an awful rogue. I wanted to ease my mind," said the lawyer, as if justifying his not speaking about Nekhludoff's case. "And now as to your case. I have carefully examined it, 'and could not approve the contents thereof,' as Tourgeniff has it. That is to say, the lawyer was a wretched one, and he let slip all the grounds of appeal."

"What have you decided to do?"

"One moment. Tell him," he turned to his clerk, who had just entered, "that I will not change my terms. He can accept them or not, as he pleases."

"He does not accept them."

"Well, then, let him go," said the lawyer, and his benign and joyful countenance suddenly assumed a gloomy and angry expression.

"They say that lawyers take money for nothing," he said, again assuming a pleasant expression. "I succeeded in obtaining the discharge of an insolent debtor who was incarcerated on flimsy accusations of fraud, and now they all run after me. And every such case requires great labor. We, too, you know, leave some of our flesh in the ink-pot, as some author said."

"Well, now, your case, or rather the case in which you are interested," he continued; "was badly conducted. There are no good grounds for appeal, but, of course, we can make an attempt. This is what I have written."

He took a sheet of paper, and quickly swallowing some uninteresting, formal words, and emphasizing others, he began to read:

"To the Department of Cassation, etc., etc., Katherine, etc. Petition. By the decision, etc., of the etc., rendered, etc., a certain Maslova was found guilty of taking the life, by poisoning, of a certain merchant Smelkoff, and in pursuance of Chapter 1,454 of the Code, was sentenced to etc., with hard labor, etc."

He stopped, evidently listening with pleasure to his own composition, although from constant use he knew the forms by heart.

"'This sentence is the result of grave errors,' he continued with emphasis, 'and ought to be reversed for the following reasons: First, the reading in the indictment of the description of the entrails of Smelkoff was interrupted by the justiciary at the very beginning.'—One."

"But the prosecutor demanded its reading," Nekhludoff said with surprise.

"That is immaterial; the defense could have demanded the same thing."

"But that was entirely unnecessary."

"No matter, it is a ground of appeal. Further: 'Second. Maslova's attorney,' he continued to read, 'was interrupted while addressing the jury, by the justiciary, when, desiring to depict the character of Maslova, he touched upon the inner causes of her fall. The ground for refusing to permit him to continue his address was stated to be irrelevancy to the question at issue. But as has often been pointed out by the Senate, the character and moral features generally of an accused are to be given the greatest weight in determining the question of intent.'—Two."

"But he spoke so badly that we could not understand him," said Nekhludoff with still greater surprise.

"He is a very foolish fellow and, of course, could say nothing sensible," Fanirin said, laughing. "However, it is a ground for appeal. 'Third. In his closing words the justiciary, contrary to the positive requirements of section 1, chapter 801 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, failed to explain to the jury of what legal elements the theory of guilt consisted; nor did he tell them that if they found that Maslova gave the poison to Smelkoff, but without intent to kill, they had the power to discharge her.' This is the principal point."

"We could have known that. That was our mistake."

"And finally: 'Fourth,'" continued the lawyer. "'The answer of the jury to the question of Maslova's guilt was made in a form which was obviously contradictory. Maslova was charged with intentional poisoning of Smelkoff, and with robbery as a motive, while the jury, in their answer, denied her guilt of the robbery, from which it was evident that they intended to acquit her of the intent to kill. Their failure to do so was due to the incomplete charge of the justiciary. Such an answer, therefore, demanded the application of chapters 816 and 808 of the Code. That is to say, it was the duty of the presiding justice to explain to the jury their mistake and refer the question of the guilt of the accused to them for further deliberation.'"

"Why, then, did he not do it?"

"That is just what I would like to know myself," said Fanirin, laughing.

"So the Senate will correct the mistake."

"That will depend on who will be sitting there when the case is heard."

"Well, and then we continue: 'Under these circumstances the court erred in imposing on Maslova punishment, and the application to her of section 3, chapter 771 of the Code was a serious violation of the basic principles of the criminal law. Wherefore applicant demands, etc., etc., be revised in accordance with chs. 909, 910, s. 2, 912 and 928 of the Code, etc., etc., and referring the case back for a new trial to a different part of the same court.' Well, now, everything that could be done was done. But I will be frank with you; the probabilities of success are slight. However, everything depends on who will be sitting in the Senate. If you know any one among them, bestir yourself."

"Yes, I know some."

"Then you must hasten, for they will soon be gone on their vacation, and won't return for three months. In case of failure, the only recourse will be to petition the Czar. I shall be at your service also in that contingency."

"I thank you. And now as to your honorarium?"

"My clerk will hand you the petition and also my bill."

"One more question I would like to ask you. The prosecutor gave me a pass for the prison, but I was told there that it was necessary to obtain the Governor's permission to visit the prison on other than visitors' days. Is it necessary?"

"I think so. But he is away, and the lieutenant is in his place."

"You mean Maslenikoff?"

"Yes."

"I know him," said Nekhludoff, rising to leave.

At that moment the lawyer's wife, an extremely ugly, pug-nosed and bony woman, rushed into the room. Not only was her attire unusually original—she was fairly loaded down with plush and silk things, bright yellow and green—but her oily hair was done up in curls, and she triumphantly rushed into the reception-room, accompanied by a tall, smiling man with an earth-colored face, in a cut-away coat with silk facings and a white tie. This was an author. He knew Nekhludoff by sight.

"Anatal," she said, opening the door, "come here. Semion Ivanovitch promised to read to us his poem, and you must read something from Garshin."

Nekhludoff was preparing to go, but the lawyer's wife whispered something to her husband and turned to him:

"I know you, Prince, and consider an introduction unnecessary. Won't you please attend our literary breakfast? It will be very interesting. Anatal is an excellent reader."

"You see what variety of duties I have," said Anatal, smiling and pointing at his wife, thereby expressing the impossibility of resisting that bewitching person.

With a sad and grave face and with the greatest politeness, Nekhludoff thanked the lawyer's wife for the invitation, pleaded other engagements and went into the reception-room.

"What faces he makes!" the lawyer's wife said of him, when he had left the room.

In the reception-room the clerk handed him the petition, and in answer to Nekhludoff's question about the honorarium, said that Anatal Semionovitch set his fee at a thousand rubles; that he really does not take such cases, but does it for Nekhludoff.

"And who is to sign the petition?" asked Nekhludoff.

"The prisoner may sign it herself, and if that be troublesome, she may empower Anatal Semionovitch."

"No, I will go to the prison and obtain her signature," said Nekhludoff, rejoicing at the opportunity of seeing Katiousha before the appointed day.

CHAPTER XLIV.

At the usual hour the jailers' whistles were heard in the corridors of the prison; with a rattling of irons the doors of the corridors and cells opened, and the patter of bare feet and the clatter of prison shoes resounded through the corridors; the men and women prisoners washed and dressed, and after going through the morning inspection, proceeded to brew their tea.

During the tea-drinking animated conversations were going on among the prisoners in the cells and corridors. Two prisoners were to be flogged that day. One of these was a fairly intelligent young clerk who, in a fit of jealousy, had killed his mistress. He was loved by his fellow-prisoners for his cheerfulness, liberality and firmness in dealing with the authorities. He knew the laws and demanded compliance with them. Three weeks ago the warden struck one of the chambermen for spilling some soup on his new uniform. The clerk, Vasilieff, took the chamberman's part, saying that there was no law permitting an official to beat prisoners. "I will show you the law," said the warden, reviling Vasilieff. The latter answered in kind. The warden was about to strike him, but Vasilieff caught hold of his hands and held him fast for about three minutes and then pushed him out of the door. The warden complained and the inspector ordered Vasilieff placed in solitary confinement.

These cells for solitary confinement were dark closets iron-bolted from the outside. In these cold, damp cells, devoid of bed, table or chair, the prisoners were obliged to sit or lie on the dirty floor. The rats, of which there was a large number, crawled all over them, and were so bold that they devoured the prisoner's bread and often attacked the prisoners themselves when they remained motionless. Vasilieff resisted, and with the aid of two other prisoners, tore himself loose from the jailers, but they were finally overcome and all three were thrust into cells. It was reported to the Governor that something like a mutiny occurred, and in answer came a document ordering that the two chief culprits, Vasilieff and the tramp Don'tremember (an application given to some tramps and jail birds who, to conceal the identity, with characteristic ingenuity and stupidity make that answer to all questions relating to their names), be given thirty lashes each.

The flogging was to take place in the women's reception-room.

This was known to all the inmates of the prison since the previous evening, and every one was talking of the coming flogging.

Korableva, Miss Dandy, Theodosia and Maslova, flushed and animated, for they had already partaken of vodka which Maslova now had in abundance, were sitting in their corner, talking of the same thing.

"Why, he has not misbehaved," Korableva said of Vasilieff, biting off a piece of sugar with her strong teeth. "He only sided with a comrade. Fighting, you know, is not allowed nowadays."

"They say he is a fine fellow," added Theodosia, who was sitting on a log on which stood a tea-pot.

"If you were to tell him, Michaelovna," the watch-woman said to Maslova, meaning Nekhludoff.

"I will. He will do anything for me," Maslova answered, smiling and shaking her head.

"It will be too late; they are going to fetch him now," said Theodosia. "It is awful," she added, sighing.

"I have seen once a peasant flogged in the town hall. My father-in-law had sent me to the Mayor of the borough, and when I came there I was surprised to see him——" The watch-woman began a long story.

Her story was interrupted by voices and steps on the upper corridor.

The women became silent, listening.

"They are bringing him, the fiends," said Miss Dandy. "Won't he get it now! The jailers are very angry, for he gave them no rest."

It became quiet in the upper corridor, and the watch-woman finished her story, how she was frightened when she saw the peasant flogged, and how it turned her stomach. Miss Dandy told how Schezloff was flogged with a lash while he never uttered a word. Theodosia then removed the pots and bowls; Korableva and the watch-woman took to their sewing, while Maslova, hugging her knees, became sad from ennui. She was about to lay down to sleep when the matron called her into the office, where a visitor was waiting for her.

"Don't fail to tell him about us," said the old Menshova, while Maslova was arranging her headgear before a looking-glass half void of mercury. "It was not me who set the fire, but he, the villain, himself did it, and the laborer saw it. He would not kill a man. Tell him to call Dmitry. Dmitry will explain to him everything. They locked us up here for nothing, while the villain is living with another man's wife and sits around in dram-shops."

"That's wrong!" affirmed Korableva.

"I will tell him—yes, I will," answered Maslova. "Suppose we have a drink, for courage?" she added, winking one eye.

Korableva poured out half a cup for her. Maslova drank it and wiped her mouth. Her spirits rose, and repeating the words "for courage," shaking her head and smiling, she followed the matron.

CHAPTER XLV.

Nekhludoff had been waiting for a long time in the vestibule.

Arriving at the prison he rang the front-door bell and handed his pass to the warden on duty.

"What do you want?"

"I wish to see the prisoner Maslova."

"Can't see her now; the inspector is busy."

"In the office?" asked Nekhludoff.

"No, here in the visitors' room," the warden answered, somewhat embarrassed, as it seemed to Nekhludoff.

"Why, are visitors admitted to-day?"

"No—special business," he answered.

"Where can I see him, then?"

"He will come out presently. Wait."

At that moment a sergeant-major in bright crown-laced uniform, his face radiant, and his mustache impregnated with smoke, appeared from a side door.

"Why did you admit him here? What is the office for?" he said sternly, turning to the warden.

"I was told that the inspector was here," said Nekhludoff, surprised at the embarrassment noticeable on the officer's face.

At that moment the inner door opened and Petroff, flushed and perspiring, came out.

"He will remember it," he said, turning to the sergeant-major.

The latter pointed with his eyes to Nekhludoff, and Petroff became silent, frowned and walked out through the rear door.

"Who will remember? What? Why are they all so embarrassed? Why did the sergeant make that sign?" thought Nekhludoff.

"You cannot wait here; please walk into the office," the sergeant-major turned to Nekhludoff, who was about to go out when the inspector came in through the inner door, more embarrassed even than his assistants. He was sighing incessantly. Seeing Nekhludoff, he turned to the warden:

"Fedotoff, call Maslova."

"Follow me, please," he said to Nekhludoff. They passed up a winding stairway leading into a small room with one window and containing a writing table and a few chairs. The inspector sat down.

"Mine are disagreeable duties," he said, turning to Nekhludoff and lighting a thick cigarette.

"You seem tired," said Nekhludoff.

"I am very tired of all this business; my duties are very onerous. I am trying my best to alleviate the condition of the prisoners and things are getting only worse. I am very anxious to get away from here; the duties are very, very unpleasant."

Nekhludoff could not understand what it was that made it so unpleasant for the inspector, but to-day he noticed on the inspector's face an expression of despondency and hopelessness which was pitiful to behold.

"Yes, I think they are very trying," he said. "But why do you not resign?"

"I have a family and am without means."

"But if it is difficult——"

"Well, you see, I manage to improve somewhat their lot after all. Another one in my place would hardly exert himself as I do. It is no easy matter to handle two thousand people. They are also human and one feels pity for them, and yet they can't be allowed to have all their own way."

And the inspector related the case of a recent fight among the prisoners which ended in murder.

His story was interrupted by the entrance of Maslova, who was preceded by the warden.

Nekhludoff got sight of her when she appeared on the threshold and before she saw the inspector. Her face was red, and she walked briskly behind the warden, smiling and shaking her head. Noticing the inspector she gazed at him with frightened face, but immediately recovered herself and boldly and cheerfully turned to Nekhludoff.

"How do you do?" she said, drawlingly, smiling and vigorously shaking his hand, not as on the former occasion.

"Here I have brought you the petition to sign," said Nekhludoff, somewhat surprised at the forward manner in which she accosted him. "The lawyer wrote it. It must be signed and sent to St. Petersburg."

"Why, certainly. I will do anything," she said, winking one eye and smiling.

"May she sign it here?" Nekhludoff asked of the inspector.

"Come here and sit down," said the inspector. "Here is a pen for you. Can you write?"

"I could write once," she said, smiling, and, arranging her skirt and waist-sleeve, sat down, clumsily took the pen into her small, energetic hand, began to laugh and looked round at Nekhludoff.

He pointed out to her where to sign.

Diligently dipping and shaking the pen she signed her name.

"Do you wish anything else?" she asked, looking now at Nekhludoff, now at the inspector, and depositing the pen now on the ink-stand, now on the paper.

"I wish to tell you something," said Nekhludoff, taking the pen from her hand.

"Very well; go on," she uttered, and suddenly, as though meditating or growing sleepy, her face became grave.

The inspector rose and walked out, leaving Nekhludoff with her alone.

CHAPTER XLVI.

The warden who brought Maslova to the office seated himself on the window-sill, away from the table. This was a decisive moment for Nekhludoff. He had been constantly reproaching himself for not telling her at their first meeting of his intention to marry her, and was now determined to do so. She was sitting on one side of the table, and Nekhludoff seated himself on the other side, opposite her. The room was well lighted, and for the first time Nekhludoff clearly saw her face from a short distance, and noticed wrinkles around the eyes and lips and a slight swelling under her eyes, and he pitied her even more than before.

Resting his elbows on the table so that he should not be heard by the warden, whose face was of a Jewish type, with grayish side-whiskers, he said:

"If this petition fails we will appeal to His Majesty. Nothing will be left undone."

"If it had been done before—if I had had a good lawyer"—she interrupted him. "That lawyer of mine was such a little fool. He was only making me compliments," she said, and began to laugh. "If they had only known that I was your acquaintance, it would have been different. They think that everybody is a thief."

"How strange she is to-day," thought Nekhludoff, and was about to tell her what he had on his mind when she again began to speak.

"I wanted to tell you. There is an old woman here—we are even surprised—such a good little woman, but there she is—she and her son, both in prison, and everybody knows that they are innocent. They are accused of setting fire, so they are in prison. She learned, you know, that I am acquainted with you," said Maslova, turning her head and casting glances at him, "and she says to me: 'Tell him,' she says, 'to call my son; he will tell him the whole story.' Menshoff is his name. Well, will you do it? Such a good little woman. You can see for yourself that she is not guilty. You will help them, dear, won't you?" she said, glancing at him; then she lowered her eyes and smiled.

"Very well; I will do it," said Nekhludoff, his surprise at her easy manner growing, "but I would like to talk to you about my own affair. Do you remember what I told you that time?"

"You have spoken so much. What did you say that time?" she said, continuing to smile and turning her head now to one side, now to the other.

"I said that I came to ask your forgiveness," he said.

"Oh! Forgiveness, forgiveness! That is all nonsense. You had better——"

"That I wish to atone for my sin," continued Nekhludoff, "and to atone not by words but by deed. I have decided to marry you."

Her face suddenly showed fright. Her squinting eyes became fixed, and they looked and did not look at him.

"What is that for?" And she frowned maliciously.

"I feel that before God I must do it."

"What God, now, are you talking about? You are not talking to the point. God? What God? Why didn't you think of God then?" she said, and opening her mouth, stopped short.

Nekhludoff only now smelled a strong odor of liquor and understood the cause of her excitement.

"Be calm," he said.

"I have nothing to be calm about. You think I am drunk? Yes, I am drunk, but I know what I am talking about," she said quickly, and her face became purple. "I am a convict, while you are a lord, a prince, and needn't stay here to soil your hands. Go to your princesses——"

"You cannot be too cruel to me; you do not know how I feel," he said in a low voice, his whole body trembling. "You cannot imagine how strongly I feel my guilt before you!"

"Feel my guilt," she mocked him maliciously. "You did not feel it then, but thrust a hundred rubles in my hands. 'That's your price——'"

"I know, I know, but what am I to do now? I have decided not to leave you," he repeated; "and what I say I will do."

"And I say that you will not!" she said, and laughed aloud.

"Katinsha!" he began.

"Leave me. I am a convict, and you are a prince; and you have no business here," she shrieked, violently releasing her hand from his, her wrath knowing no limit.

"You wish to save yourself through me," she continued, hastening to pour out all that had accumulated in her soul. "You have made me the means of your enjoyment in life, and now you wish to make me the means of saving you after death! You disgust me, as do your eye-glasses and that fat, dirty face of yours. Go, go away!" she shrieked, energetically springing to her feet.

The warden approached them.

"Don't you make so much noise! You know whom——"

"Please desist," said Nekhludoff.

"She must not forget herself," said the warden.

"Please wait a while," said Nekhludoff.

The warden returned to his seat on the window-sill.

Maslova again seated herself, her eyes downcast and her little hands clutching each other.

Nekhludoff stood over her, not knowing what to do.

"You do not believe me," he said.

"That you wish to marry me? That will never happen. I will sooner hang myself."

"But I will serve you anyway."

"That is your business. Only I don't want anything from you. Now, that is certain," she said. "Oh, why did I not die then!" she added, and began to cry piteously.

Nekhludoff could not speak; her tears called forth tears in his own eyes.

She raised her eyes, looked at him, as if surprised, and with her 'kerchief began to wipe the tears streaming down her cheeks.

The warden again approached them and reminded them that it was time to part. Maslova rose.

"You are excited now. If possible I will call to-morrow. Meantime, think it over," said Nekhludoff.

She made no answer, and without looking at him left the room, preceded by the warden.

"Well, girl, good times are coming," said Korableva to Maslova when the latter returned to the cell. "He seems to be stuck on you, so make the most of it while he is calling. He will get you released. The rich can do anything."

"That's so," drawled the watch-woman. "The poor man will think ten times before he will marry, while the rich man can satisfy his every whim. Yes, my dear; there was a respectable man in our village, and he——"

"Have you spoken to him of my case?" asked the old woman.

But Maslova was silent. She lay down on her bunk, gazing with her squinting eyes into the corner, and remained in that position till evening. Her soul was in torment. That which Nekhludoff told her opened to her that world in which she had suffered and which she had left, hating without understanding it. She had now lost that forgetfulness in which she had lived, and to live with a clear recollection of the past was painful. In the evening she again bought wine, which she drank with her fellow-prisoners.

CHAPTER XLVII.

"So, that is how it is!" thought Nekhludoff as he made his way out of the prison, and he only now realized the extent of his guilt. Had he not attempted to efface and atone for his conduct, he should never have felt all the infamy of it, nor she all the wrong perpetrated against her. Only now it all came out in all its horror. He now for the first time perceived how her soul had been debased, and she finally understood it. At first Nekhludoff had played with his feelings and delighted in his own contrition; now he was simply horrified. He now felt that to abandon her was impossible. And yet he could not see the result of these relations.

At the prison gate some one handed Nekhludoff a note. He read it when on the street. The note was written in a bold hand, with pencil, and contained the following:

"Having learned that you are visiting the prison I thought it would be well to see you. You can see me by asking the authorities for an interview with me. I will tell you something very important to your protege as well as to the politicals. Thankfully, Vera Bogodukhovskaia"

"Bogodukhovskaia! Who is Bogodukhovskaia?" thought Nekhludoff, entirely absorbed in the impression of his meeting with Maslova, and failing at the first moment to recall either the name or the handwriting. "Oh, yes!" he suddenly recalled. "The deacon's daughter at the bear-hunt."

Vera Bogodukhovskaia was a teacher in the obscure district of Novgorod, whither Nekhludoff, on one occasion, went bear hunting with his friends. This teacher had asked Nekhludoff to give her some money to enable her to study. He gave it to her, and the incident dropped from his memory. And now it seemed that this lady was a political prisoner, had probably learned his history in prison, and was now offering her services. At that time everything was easy and simple; now everything was difficult and complex. Nekhludoff readily and joyfully recalled that time and his acquaintance with Bogodukhovskaia. It was on the eve of Shrovetide, in the wilds about sixty versts from the railroad. The hunt was successful; two bears were bagged, and they were dining before their journey home, when the woodsman, in whose hut they were stopping, came to tell them that the deacon's daughter had come and wished to see Prince Nekhludoff.

"Is she good looking?" some one asked.

"Come, come!" said Nekhludoff, rising, and wondering why the deacon's daughter should want him, assumed a grave expression and went to the woodsman's hut.

In the hut there was a girl in a felt hat and short fur coat, sinewy, and with an ugly and unpleasant face, relieved, however, by her pleasant eyes and raised eyebrows.

"This is the Prince, Vera Efremovna," said the old hostess. "I will leave you."

"What can I do for you?" asked Nekhludoff.

"I—I—You see, you are rich and throw away your money on trifles, on a chase. I know," began the girl, becoming confused, "but I wish but one thing; I wish to be useful to people, and can do nothing because I know nothing."

"What, then, can I do for you?"

"I am a teacher, and would like to enter college, but they don't let me. It is not exactly that they don't let me, but we have no means. Let me have some money; when I am through with my studies I shall return it to you."

Her eyes were truthful and kindly, and the expression of resolution and timidity on her face was so touching that Nekhludoff, as it was usual with him, suddenly mentally placed himself in her position, understood and pitied her.

"I think it is wrong for rich people to kill bears and get the peasants drunk. Why don't they make themselves useful? I only need eighty rubles. Oh, if you don't wish to, it is all the same to me," she said, angrily, interpreting the grave expression on Nekhludoff's face to her disadvantage.

"On the contrary, I am very thankful to you for the opportunity——"

When she understood that he consented her face turned a purple color and she became silent.

"I will fetch it immediately," said Nekhludoff.

He went into the entrance hall where he found an eavesdropping friend. Without taking notice of his comrade's jests, he took the money from his hand-bag and brought it to her.

"Please don't be thanking me. It is I who ought to be thankful to you."

It was pleasant to Nekhludoff to recall all that; it was pleasant to recall how he came near quarreling with the army officer who attempted to make a bad joke of it; how another comrade sided with him, which drew them more closely together; how merry and successful was the hunt, and how happy he felt that night returning to the railroad station. A long file of sleighs moved noiselessly in pairs at a gentle trot along the narrow fir-lined path of the forests, which were covered with a heavy layer of snowflakes. Some one struck a red light in the dark, and the pleasant aroma of a good cigarette was wafted toward him. Osip, the sleigh-tender, ran from sleigh to sleigh, knee-deep in snow, telling of the elks that were roaming in the deep snow, nibbling the bark of aspen trees, and of the bears emitting their warm breath through the airholes of their wild haunts.

Nekhludoff remembered all that, and above all the happy consciousness of his own health, strength and freedom from care. His lungs, straining his tight-fitting fur coat, inhaled the frosty air; the trees, grazed by the shaft, sent showers of white flakes into his face; his body was warm, his face ruddy; his soul was without a care or blemish, or fear or desire. How happy he was! But now? My God! How painful and unbearable it all was!

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Rising the next morning Nekhludoff recalled the events of the previous day and was seized with fear.

But, notwithstanding this fear, he was even more determined than before to carry out his plan already begun.

With this consciousness of the duty that lay upon him he drove to Maslenikoff for permission to visit in jail, besides Maslova, the old woman Menshova and her son, of whom Maslova had spoken to him. Besides, he also wished to see Bogodukhovskaia, who might be useful to Maslova.

Nekhludoff had known Maslenikoff since they together served in the army. Maslenikoff was the treasurer of the regiment. He was the most kind-hearted officer, and possessed executive ability. Nothing in society was of any interest to him, and he was entirely absorbed in the affairs of the regiment. Nekhludoff now found him an administrator in the civil government. He was married to a rich and energetic woman to whom was due his change of occupation.

She laughed at him and patted him as she would a tamed animal. Nekhludoff had visited them once the previous winter, but the couple seemed so uninteresting to him that he never called again.

Maslenikoff's face became radiant when he saw Nekhludoff. His face was as fat and red, his dress as excellent as when he served in the army. As an army officer he was always neat, dressed in a tight uniform made according to the latest style; now his dress fitted his well-fed body as perfectly. He wore a uniform. Notwithstanding the difference in their age—Maslenikoff was about forty—they familiarly "thoued" each other.

"Very glad you remembered me. Come to my wife. I have just ten minutes to spare, and then I must to the session. My chief, you know, is away. I am directing the affairs of the district," he said, with joy which he could not conceal.

"I came to you on business."

"What's that?" Maslenikoff said in a frightened and somewhat stern voice, suddenly pricking his ears.

"There is a person in jail in whom I am very much interested;" at the word "jail" Maslenikoff's face became even more stern, "and I would like to have the right of interview in the office instead of the common reception room, and oftener than on the appointed days. I was told that it depended on you."

"Of course, mon cher, I am always ready to do anything for you," Maslenikoff said, touching his knees with both hands, as if desiring to soften his own greatness. "I can do it, but you know I am caliph only for an hour."

"So you can give me a pass that will enable me to see her?"

"It is a woman?"

"Yes."

"What is the charge against her?"

"Poisoning. But she was irregularly convicted."

"Yes, there is justice for you! Ils n'en font point d'autres," he said, for some reason in French. "I know that you do not agree with me, but c'est mon opinion bien arretee," he added, repeating the opinion that had been reiterated during the past year by a retrograde, conservative newspaper. "I know you are a liberal."

"I don't know whether I am a liberal or something else," smilingly said Nekhludoff, who always wondered at being joined to some party, or called a liberal only because he held that a man must not be judged without being heard; that all are equal before the law; that it is wrong to torture and beat people generally, especially those that are not convicted. "I don't know whether I am a liberal or not, but I do know that our present courts, bad as they are, are nevertheless better than those that preceded them."

"And what lawyer have you retained?"

"I have retained Fanarin."

"Ah, Fanarin!" Maslenikoff said, frowning as he recalled how Fanarin, examining him as a witness the year before, in the most polite manner made him the butt of ridicule.

"I would not advise you to have anything to do with him. Fanarin est un homme tare."

"I have another request to make of you," Nekhludoff said, without answering him. "A long time ago I made the acquaintance of a girl teacher, a very wretched creature. She is now in jail and desires to see me. Can you give me a pass to her?"

Maslenikoff leaned his head to one side and began to reflect.

"She is a political."

"Yes, I was told so."

"You know politicals can only be seen by their relatives, but I will give you a general pass. Je sais que vous n'abuserez pas——"

"What is the name of this your protege? Bogodukhovskaia? Elle est jolie?"

"Hideuse."

Maslenikoff disapprovingly shook his head, went to the table and on a sheet of paper with a printed letter-head wrote in a bold hand: "The bearer, Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhludoff, is hereby permitted to visit the prisoners, Maslova and Bogodukhovskaia, now detained in the prison," and signed his name to it with a broad flourish.

"You will see now what order there is in prison. And to keep order there is very difficult, because it is overcrowded, especially by those to be transported. But I watch over them, and like the occupation. You will see there are very many there, but they are content, and are faring well. It is necessary to know how to deal with them. Some unpleasantness occurred there a few days ago—disobedience. Another man in my place would have treated it as a riot and made many people miserable, but we arranged it all pleasantly. What is necessary is solicitude on the one hand, and prompt and vigorous dealing on the other," he said, clenching his soft, white fist projecting from under a white, starched cuff and adorned with a turquoise ring—"solicitude and vigorous dealing."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Nekhludoff. "I was there twice, and I was very much distressed by the sight."

"You know what I will tell you? You ought to get acquainted with Princess Passek," continued Maslenikoff, who had become talkative; "she has entirely devoted herself to this cause. Elle fait beaucoup de bien. Thanks to her and, without false modesty, to myself, everything has been changed, and changed so that none of the old horrors can be found there, and they are decidedly well off there. You will see it. There is Fanarin. I am not personally acquainted with him; besides, our roads do not meet because of my position in society, but he is decidedly a bad man, and allows himself to state in court such things, such things!"

"Well, thank you," said Nekhludoff, taking the document, and took leave of his old comrade.

"Would you not like to see my wife?"

"No, thank you; I have no time now."

"Well, now, she will never forgive me," said Maslenikoff, conducting his old comrade to the first landing, as he did with people of secondary importance, among whom he reckoned Nekhludoff. "Do come but for a moment."

But Nekhludoff was firm, and while the footman and porter sprang toward him, handing him his overcoat and cane, and opening the door, before which a policeman stood, he excused himself, pleading want of time.

"Well, then, Thursday, please. That is her reception day. I will tell her!" Maslenikoff shouted from the top of the stairs.

CHAPTER XLIX.

From Maslenikoff, Nekhludoff went directly to the prison and approached the familiar apartments of the inspector. The sounds of a tuneless piano again assailed his ears, but this time it was not a rhapsody that was played, but a study by Clementi, and, as before, with unusual force, precision and rapidity. The servant with a handkerchief around one eye said that the captain was in, and showed Nekhludoff into the small reception-room, in which was a lounge, a table and a lamp, one side of the rose-colored shade of which was scorched, standing on a knitted woolen napkin. The inspector appeared with an expression of sadness and torment on his face.

"Glad to see you. What can I do for you?" he said, buttoning up the middle button of his uniform.

"I went to the vice-governor, and here is my pass," said Nekhludoff, handing him the document. "I would like to see Maslova."

"Markova?" asked the inspector, who could not hear him on account of the music.

"Maslova."

"O, yes! O, yes!"

The inspector rose and approached the door through which Clementi's roulade was heard.

"Marusia; if you would only stop for a little while," he said in a voice which showed that this music was the cross of his life; "I cannot hear anything."

The music ceased; discontented steps were heard, and some one looked through the door.

The inspector, as if relieved by the cessation of the music, lit a thick cigarette of light tobacco and offered one to Nekhludoff, which he refused.

"Can Maslova——"

"It is not convenient to see Maslova to-day," said the inspector.

"Why?"

"It is your own fault," slightly smiling, said the inspector. "Prince, you must not give her any money. If you wish to give her money, leave it with me; I will keep it for her. You see, you must have given her money yesterday, for she bought wine—it is hard to eradicate that evil—and is intoxicated to-day. In fact, she became unruly."

"Is it possible?"

"Why, I even had to employ strict measures, had her transferred to another cell. She is very tractable, but, please do not give her money. That is their failing."

Nekhludoff quickly recalled the incident of yesterday, and he was seized with fear.

"And may I see Bogodukhovskaia, the political?" Nekhludoff asked, after some silence.

"Well, yes," said the inspector. "What are you doing here?" he turned to a five-year-old girl who came into the room, walking toward her father, her eyes riveted on Nekhludoff. "Look out, or you will fall," he said, smiling, as the little girl, walking with her head turned toward Nekhludoff, tripped on the carpet and ran to her father.

"If she may be seen, I would go now."

"Oh yes; she may be seen, of course," said the inspector, embracing the little girl, who was still looking at Nekhludoff. "All right——"

The inspector rose and gently turning the girl aside, walked into the vestibule.

He had scarcely donned the overcoat handed him by the girl with the bandaged eye and crossed the threshold when the distinct sounds of Clementi's roulade broke out.

"She was at the Conservatory, but there is disorder in that institution. But she is very gifted," said the inspector, walking down the stairs. "She intends to appear at concerts."

The inspector and Nekhludoff neared the prison. The wicket immediately opened at the approach of the inspector. The wardens standing to attention followed him with their eyes. Four men with heads half shaved, carrying large vessels, met him in the vestibule, and as they spied him slunk back. One of them, in a particularly gloomy way, knit his brow, his black eyes flashing fire.

"Of course, her talent must be perfected; it cannot be neglected. But in a small apartment it is hard, you know," the inspector continued the conversation without paying any attention to the prisoners, and dragging his tired legs passed into the meeting-room, followed by Nekhludoff.

"Whom do you wish to see?" asked the inspector.

"Bogodukhovskaia."

"That is from the tower. You will have to wait a little," he turned to Nekhludoff.

"Couldn't you let me see, meantime, the prisoners Menshov—mother and son—who are charged with incendiarism?"

"That is from cell 21. Why, yes; they may be called out."

"Would you allow me to see the son in his cell?"

"It is quieter in the meeting-room."

"But it is interesting to see him there."

"Interesting!"

At that moment a dashing officer, the inspector's assistant, appeared at a side door.

"Conduct the Prince to Menshov's cell—No. 21," said the inspector to his assistant. "Then show him to the office. And I will call—what is her name?"

"Vera Bogodukhovskaia," said Nekhludoff.

The inspector's assistant was a light-haired young officer with dyed mustache, who spread around him the odor of perfume.

"Follow me, please." He turned to Nekhludoff with a pleasant smile. "Does our institution interest you?"

"Yes. And I am also interested in that man who, I was told, is innocent." The assistant shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, that may be," he said calmly, courteously admitting the guest into the ill-smelling corridor. "But they also lie often. Walk in, please."

The doors of the cells were open, and some prisoners stood in the corridor. Slightly nodding to the wardens and looking askance at the prisoners, who either pressed against the walls, entered their cells, or, stopping at the doors, stood erect like soldiers, the assistant escorted Nekhludoff through one corridor into another, on the left, which was iron-bolted.

This corridor was darker and more ill-smelling than the first. There was a row of cells on each side, the doors of which were locked. There was a hole in each door—eyelet, so called—of about an inch in diameter. There was no one in this corridor except an old warden with a wrinkled, sad face.

"Where is Menshov's cell?" asked the assistant.

"The eighth one on the left."

"Are these occupied?" asked Nekhludoff.

"All but one."

CHAPTER L.

"May I look in?" asked Nekhludoff.

"If you please," the assistant said with a pleasant smile, and began to make inquiries of the warden. Nekhludoff looked through one of the openings. A tall young man with a small black beard, clad only in his linen, walked rapidly up and down the floor of his cell. Hearing a rustle at the door, he looked up, frowned, and continued to walk.

Nekhludoff looked into the second opening. His eye met another large, frightened eye. He hastily moved away. Looking into the third, he saw a small-sized man sleeping curled up on a cot, his head covered with his prison coat. In the fourth cell a broad-faced, pale-looking man sat with lowered head, his elbows resting on his knees. Hearing steps, this man raised his head and looked up. In his face and eyes was an expression of hopeless anguish. He was apparently unconcerned about who it was that looked into his cell. Whoever it might be, he evidently hoped for no good from any one. Nekhludoff was seized with fear, and he hastened to Number 21—Menshov's cell. The warden unlocked and opened the door. A young, muscular man with a long neck, kindly, round eyes and small beard, stood beside his cot, hastily donning his prison coat and, with frightened face, looking at the two men who had entered. Nekhludoff was particularly struck by the kindly, round eyes whose wondering and startled look ran from him to the warden and back.

"This gentleman wishes to ask you about your case."

"Thank you."

"Yes, I was told about your case," said Nekhludoff, going into the depth of the cell and stopping at the barred, dirty window, "and would like to hear it from yourself."

Menshov also drew near the window and immediately began to relate the particulars of his case—at first timidly, from time to time glancing at the warden, then growing bolder and bolder. And when the warden had left the cell to give some orders, his timidity left him entirely. Judging by his speech and manner, his was a story of a simple, honest peasant, and it seemed very strange to Nekhludoff to hear it from the lips of a prisoner in the garb of disgrace and in prison. While listening to him, Nekhludoff examined the low cot, with its straw mattress, the window, with its thick iron bars, the damp, plastered walls, the pitiful face and the figure of the unfortunate, mutilated peasant in bast shoes and prison coat, and he became sad; he would not believe that what this kind-hearted man told him was true. And it was still harder to think that this truthful story should be false, and that kindly face should deceive him. His story, in short, was that soon after his wedding a tapster enticed away his wife. He had recourse to the law everywhere, and the tapster was everywhere acquitted. Once he took her away by force, but she ran away the following day. He went to the seducer, demanding his wife. The tapster told him that she was not there, although he saw her when coming in, and ordered him to depart. He would not go. Then the tapster and another workman beat him until he bled, and the following day the tapster's house took fire. He and his mother were charged with incendiarism, although at the time the fire broke out he was visiting a friend.

"And you really did not set the fire?"

"I never even thought of such a thing, master. The villain must have done it himself. They say that he had just insured his house. And he said that I and my mother came and threatened him. It is true, I abused him at that time—couldn't help it—but I did not set the fire, and was not even in the neighborhood when the fire started. He set the fire purposely on the day I was there with my mother. He did it for the insurance money, and threw it on us."

"Is it possible?"

"As true as there is a living God, master. Do help us!" He was about to bow to the ground, but Nekhludoff forcibly prevented him. "Release me. I am suffering here innocently," he continued. His face suddenly began to twitch; tears welled up in his eyes, and, rolling up the sleeve of his coat, he began to wipe his eyes with the dirty sleeve of his shirt.

"Have you finished?" asked the warden.

"Yes. Cheer up; I will do what I can for you," Nekhludoff said, and walked out. Menshov stood in the door, so that when the warden closed it he pushed him in. While the warden was locking the door, Menshov looked through the hole.

CHAPTER LI.

It was dinner time when Nekhludoff retraced his steps through the wide corridor, and the cells were open. The prisoners, in light yellow coats, short, wide trousers and prison shoes, eyed him greedily. Nekhludoff experienced strange feelings and commiseration for the prisoners, and, for some reason, shame that he should so calmly view it.

In one of the corridors a man, clattering with his prison shoes, ran into one of the cells, and immediately a crowd of people came out, placed themselves in his way, and bowed.

"Your Excellency—I don't know what to call you—please order that our case be decided."

"I am not the commander. I do not know anything."

"No matter. Tell them, the authorities, or somebody," said an indignant voice, "to look into our case. We are guilty of no offense, and have been in prison the second month now."

"How so? Why?" asked Nekhludoff.

"We don't know ourselves why, but we have been here the second month."

"That is true," said the assistant inspector. "They were taken because they had no passports, and they were to be transported to their district, but the prison had burned down there, and the authorities asked us to keep them here. Those belonging to other districts were transported, but these we keep here."

"Is that the only reason?" asked Nekhludoff, stopping in the doorway.

The crowd, consisting of about forty men, all in prison garb, surrounded Nekhludoff and the assistant. Several voices began talking at once. The assistant stopped them.

"Let one of you speak."

A tall old man of good mien came forward. He told Nekhludoff that they were all imprisoned on the ground that they had no passports, but that, as a matter of fact, they had passports which had expired and were not renewed for about two weeks. It happened every year, but they were never even fined. And now they were imprisoned like criminals.

"We are all masons and belong to the same association. They say that the prison has burned down, but that isn't our fault. For God's sake, help us!"

Nekhludoff listened, but scarcely understood what the old man was saying.

"How is that? Can it be possible that they are kept in prison for that sole reason?" said Nekhludoff, turning to the assistant.

"Yes, they ought to be sent to their homes," said the assistant.

At that moment a small-sized man, also in prison attire, pushed his way through the crowd and began to complain excitedly that they were being tortured without any cause.

"Worse than dogs——" he began.

"Tut, tut! do not talk too much, or else you know——"

"Know what?" said the little man desperately. "Are we guilty of anything?"

"Silence!" shouted the assistant, and the little man subsided.

"What a peculiar state of things!" Nekhludoff said to himself as he ran the gauntlet, as it were, of a hundred eyes that followed him through the corridor.

"Is it possible that innocent people are held in durance here?" Nekhludoff said, when they emerged from the corridor.

"What can we do? However, many of them are lying. If you ask them, they all claim to be innocent," said the assistant inspector; "although some are there really without any cause whatever."

"But these masons don't seem to be guilty of any offense."

"That is true so far as the masons are concerned. But those people are spoiled. Some measure of severity is necessary. They are not all as innocent as they look. Only yesterday we were obliged to punish two of them."

"Punish, how?" asked Nekhludoff.

"By flogging. It was ordered——"

"But corporal punishment has been abolished."

"Not for those that have been deprived of civil rights."

Nekhludoff recalled what he had seen the other day while waiting in the vestibule, and understood that the punishment had then been taking place, and with peculiar force came upon him that mingled feeling of curiosity, sadness, doubt, and moral, almost passing over into physical, nausea which he had felt before, but never with such force.

Without listening to the assistant or looking around him, he hastily passed through the corridor and ascended to the office. The inspector was in the corridor, and, busying himself with some affair, had forgot to send for Bogodukhovskaia. He only called it to mind when Nekhludoff entered the office.

"I will send for her immediately. Take a seat," he said.

CHAPTER LII.

The office consisted of two rooms. In the first room, which had two dirty windows and the plastering on the walls peeled off, a black measuring rod, for determining the height of prisoners, stood in one corner, while in another hung a picture of Christ. A few wardens stood around in this room. In the second room, in groups and pairs, about twenty men and women were sitting along the walls, talking in low voices. A writing table stood near one of the windows.

The inspector seated himself at the writing table and offered Nekhludoff a chair standing near by. Nekhludoff seated himself and began to examine the people in the room.

His attention was first of all attracted by a young man with a pleasant face, wearing a short jacket, who was standing before a man prisoner and a girl, gesticulating and talking to them in a heated manner. Beside them sat an old man in blue eye-glasses, immovably holding the hand of a woman in prison garb and listening to her. A boy in high-school uniform, with an expression of fright on his face, stood gazing on the old man. Not far from them, in the corner, a pair of lovers were sitting. She was a very young, pretty, stylishly-dressed girl with short-cropped, flaxen hair and an energetic face; he was a fine-featured, handsome youth, with wavy hair, and in a prison coat. They occupied the corner, whispering to each other, apparently wrapped in their love. Nearest of all to the table was a gray-haired woman in black, evidently the mother of a consumptive young man in a rubber jacket, who stood before her. Her eyes were fixed on him, and her tears prevented her speaking, which she several times attempted to do, but was forced to desist. The young man held a piece of paper in his hand, and, evidently not knowing what to do, with an angry expression on his face was folding and crumpling it. Sitting beside the weeping mother, and patting her on the shoulder, was a stout, pretty girl with red cheeks, in a gray dress and cape. Everything in this girl was beautiful—the white hands, the wavy, short hair, the strong nose and lips; but the principal charm of her face were her hazel, kindly, truthful, sheep eyes. Her beautiful eyes turned on Nekhludoff at the moment he entered, and met his. But she immediately turned them again on her mother, and whispered to her something. Not far from the lovers a dark man with gloomy face sat talking angrily to a clean-shaven visitor resembling a Skopetz (a sect of castrates). At the very door stood a young man in a rubber jacket, evidently more concerned about the impression he was making on the visitors than what he was saying. Nekhludoff sat down beside the inspector and looked around him with intense curiosity. He was amused by a short-haired boy coming near him and asking him in a shrill voice:

"And whom are you waiting for?"

The question surprised Nekhludoff, but, seeing the boy's serious, intelligent face, with bright, attentive eyes, gravely answered that he was awaiting a woman acquaintance.

"Well, is she your sister?" asked the boy.

"No, she is not my sister," Nekhludoff answered with surprise. "And with whom are you?"

"I am with mamma. She is a political," said the boy.

"Maria Pavlovna, take away Kolia!" said the inspector, evidently finding Nekhludoff's conversation with the boy contrary to the law.

Maria Pavlovna, the same beautiful woman who had attracted Nekhludoff's attention, rose and with heavy, long strides approached him.

"What is he asking you? Who you are?" she asked, slightly smiling with her beautifully curved lips, and confidingly looking at him with her prominent, kindly eyes, as though expecting Nekhludoff to know that her relations to everybody always have been, are and ought to be simple, affable, and brotherly. "He must know everything," she said, and smiled into the face of the boy with such a kindly, charming smile that both the boy and Nekhludoff involuntarily also smiled.

"Yes, he asked me whom I came to see."

"Maria Pavlovna, you know that it is not permitted to speak to strangers," said the inspector.

"All right," she said, and, taking the little hand of the boy into her own white hand, she returned to the consumptive's mother.

"Whose boy is that?" Nekhludoff asked the inspector.

"He is the son of a political prisoner, and was born in prison."

"Is it possible?"

"Yes, and now he is following his mother to Siberia."

"And that girl?"

"I cannot answer it," said the inspector, shrugging his shoulders. "Ah, there is Bogodukhovskaia."

CHAPTER LIII.

The short-haired, lean, yellow-faced Vera Efremovna, with her large, kindly eyes, entered timidly through the rear door.

"Well, I thank you for coming here," she said, pressing Nekhludoff's hand. "You remember me? Let us sit down."

"I did not expect to find you here."

"Oh, I am doing excellently—so well, indeed, that I desire nothing better," said Vera Efremovna, looking frightened, as usual, with her kindly, round eyes at Nekhludoff, and turning her very thin, sinewy neck, which projected from under the crumpled, dirty collar of her waist.

Nekhludoff asked her how she came to be in prison. She related her case to him with great animation. Her discourse was interspersed with foreign scientific terms about propaganda, disorganization, groups, sections and sub-sections, which, she was perfectly certain, everybody knew, but of which Nekhludoff had never even heard.

She was evidently sure that it was both interesting and pleasant to him to know all that she was relating. Nekhludoff, however, looked at her pitiful neck, her thin, tangled hair, and wondered why she was telling him all that. He pitied her, but not as he pitied the peasant Menshov with his hands and face white as potato sprouts, and innocently languishing in an ill-smelling prison. He pitied her on account of the evident confusion that reigned in her head. She seemed to consider herself a heroine, and showed off before him. And this made her particularly pitiful. This trait Nekhludoff noticed in other people then in the room. His arrival attracted their attention, and he felt that they changed their demeanor because of his presence. This trait was also present in the young man in the rubber jacket, in the woman in prison clothes, and even in the actions of the two lovers. The only people who did not possess this trait were the consumptive young man, the beautiful girl with sheep eyes, and the dark-featured man who was talking to the beardless man who resembled a Skopetz.

The affair of which Vera Efremovna wished to speak to Nekhludoff consisted of the following: A chum of hers, Shustova, who did not even belong to her sub-section, was arrested because in her dwelling were found books and papers which had been left with her for safe keeping. Vera Efremovna thought that it was partly her fault that Shustova was imprisoned, and implored Nekhludoff, who was well connected, to do everything in his power to effect her release.

Of herself, she related that, after having graduated as midwife, she joined some party. At first everything went on smoothly, but afterward one of the party was caught, the papers were seized, and then all were taken in a police drag-net.

"They also took me, and now I am going to be transported," she wound up her story. "But that is nothing. I feel excellently," and she smiled piteously.

Nekhludoff asked her about the girl with the sheep eyes, and Vera Efremovna told him that she was the daughter of a general, that she had assumed the guilt of another person, and was now going to serve at hard labor in Siberia.

"An altruistic, honest person," said Vera Efremovna.

The other case of which Vera Efremovna wished to speak concerned Maslova. As the history of every prisoner was known to everyone in prison, she knew Maslova's history, and advised him to procure her removal to the ward for politicals, or, at least, to the hospital, which was just now crowded, requiring a larger staff of nurses.

Nekhludoff said that he could hardly do anything, but promised to make an attempt when he reached St. Petersburg.

CHAPTER LIV.

Their conversation was interrupted by the inspector, who announced that it was time to depart. Nekhludoff rose, took leave of Vera Efremovna, and strode to the door, where he stopped to observe what was taking place before him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the time is up," said the inspector as he was going out. But neither visitors nor prisoners stirred.

The inspector's demand only called forth greater animation, but no one thought of departing. Some got up and talked standing; some continued to talk sitting; others began to cry and take leave. The young man continued to crumple the bit of paper, and he made such a good effort to remain calm that his face seemed to bear an angry expression. His mother, hearing that the visit was over, fell on his shoulder and began to sob. The girl with the sheep eyes—Nekhludoff involuntarily followed her movements—stood before the sobbing mother, pouring words of consolation into her ear. The old man with the blue eye-glasses held his daughter by the hand and nodded affirmatively to her words. The young lovers rose, holding each other's hands and silently looking into each other's eyes.

"Those are the only happy people here," said the young man in the rubber jacket who stood near Nekhludoff, pointing to the young lovers.

Seeing the glances of Nekhludoff and the young man, the lovers—the convict and the flaxen-haired girl—stretched their clasping hands, threw back their heads, and began to dance in a circle.

"They will be married this evening in the prison, and she will go with him to Siberia," said the young man.

"Who is he, then?"

"He is a penal convict. Although they are making merry, it is very painful to listen," added the young man, listening to the sobbing of the old man with the blue eye-glasses.

"Please, please don't compel me to take severe measures," said the inspector, several times repeating the same thing. "Please, please," he said, weakly and irresolutely. "Well, now, this cannot go on. Please, now come. For the last time I repeat it," he said, in a sad voice, seating himself and rising again; lighting and then extinguishing his cigarette.

Finally the prisoners and visitors began to depart—the former passing through the inner, the latter through the outer, door. First the man in the rubber coat passed out; then the consumptive and the dark-featured convict; next Vera Efremovna and Maria Pavlovna, and the boy who was born in the prison.

The visitors also filed out. The old man with the blue eye-glasses started with a heavy gait, and after him came Nekhludoff.

"What a peculiar state of things!" said the talkative young man to Nekhludoff on the stairs, as though continuing the interrupted conversation. "It is fortunate that the captain is a kind-hearted man, and does not enforce the rules. But for him it would be tantalizing. As it is, they talk together and relieve their feelings."

When Nekhludoff, talking to this man, who gave his name as Medyntzev, reached the entrance-hall, the inspector, with weary countenance, approached him.

"So, if you wish to see Maslova, then please call to-morrow," he said, evidently desiring to be pleasant.

"Very well," said Nekhludoff, and hastened away. As on the former occasion, besides pity he was seized with a feeling of doubt and a sort of moral nausea.

"What is all that for?" he asked himself, but found no answer.

CHAPTER LV.

On the following day Nekhludoff drove to the lawyer and told him of the Menshovs' case, asking him to take up their defense. The lawyer listened to him attentively, and said that if the facts were really as told to Nekhludoff, he would undertake their defense without compensation. Nekhludoff also told him of the hundred and thirty men kept in prison through some misunderstanding, and asked him whose fault he thought it was. The lawyer was silent for a short while, evidently desiring to give an accurate answer.

"Whose fault it is? No one's," he said decisively. "If you ask the prosecutor, he will tell you that it is Maslenikoff's fault, and if you ask Maslenikoff, he will tell you that it is the prosecutor's fault. It is no one's fault."

"I will go to Maslenikoff and tell him."

"That is useless," the lawyer retorted, smiling. "He is—he is not your friend or relative, is he? He is such a blockhead, and, saving your presence, at the same time such a sly beast!"

Nekhludoff recalled what Maslenikoff had said about the lawyer, made no answer, and, taking leave, directed his steps toward Maslenikoff's residence.

Two things Nekhludoff wanted of Maslenikoff. First, to obtain Maslova's transfer to the hospital, and to help, if possible, the hundred and thirty unfortunates. Although it was hard for him to be dealing with this man, and especially to ask favors of him, yet it was the only way of gaining his end, and he had to go through it.

As Nekhludoff approached Maslenikoff's house, he saw a number of carriages, cabs and traps standing in front of it, and he recalled that this was the reception day to which he had been invited. While Nekhludoff was approaching the house a carriage was standing near the curb, opposite the door, and a lackey in a cockaded silk hat and cape, was seating a lady, who, raising the long train of her skirt, displayed the sharp joints of her toes through the thin slippers. Among the carriages he recognized the covered landau of the Korchagins. The gray-haired, rosy-cheeked driver deferentially raised his hat. Nekhludoff had scarcely asked the porter where Michael Ivanovich (Maslenikoff) was, when the latter appeared on the carpeted stairway, escorting a very important guest, such as he usually escorted not to the upper landing, but to the vestibule. This very important military guest, while descending the stairs, was conversing in French about a lottery for the benefit of orphan asylums, giving his opinion that it was a good occupation for ladies. "They enjoy themselves while they are raising money."

"Qu'elles s'amusent et que le bon Dieu les bénisse. Ah, Nekhludoff, how do you do? You haven't shown yourself for a long time," he greeted Nekhludoff. "Allez présenter vos devoirs à madame. The Korchagins are here, too. Toutes les jolies femmes de la ville," he said, holding out and somewhat raising his military shoulders for his overcoat, which was being placed on him by his own magnificent lackey in gold-braided uniform. "Au revoir, mon cher." Then he shook Maslenikoff's hand.

"Well, now let us go upstairs. How glad I am," Maslenikoff began excitedly, seizing Nekhludoff by the arm, and, notwithstanding his corpulence, nimbly leading him up the stairs. Maslenikoff was in a particularly happy mood, which Nekhludoff could not help ascribing to the attention shown him by the important person. Every attention shown him by an important person put him into such an ecstasy as may be observed in a fawning little dog when its master pats it, strokes it, and scratches under its ears. It wags its tail, shrinks, wriggles, and, straightening its ears, madly runs in a circle. Maslenikoff was ready to do the same thing. He did not notice the grave expression on Nekhludoff's face, nor hear what he was saying, but irresistibly dragged him into the reception-room. Nekhludoff involuntarily followed.

"Business afterward. I will do anything you wish," said Maslenikoff, leading him through the parlor. "Announce Prince Nekhludoff to Her Excellency," he said on the way to a lackey. The lackey, in an ambling gait, ran ahead of them. "Vous n'avez qu'à ordonner. But you must see my wife without fail. She would not forgive my failure to present you last time you were here."

The lackey had already announced him when they entered, and Anna Ignatievna, the vice-governess—Mrs. General, as she called herself—sat on a couch surrounded by ladies. As Nekhludoff approached she was already leaning forward with a radiant smile on her face. At the other end of the reception-room women sat around a table, while men in military uniforms and civil attire stood over them. An incessant cackle came from that direction.

"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.

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.

"Well, and as to the hospital," she said suddenly, casting on him her squinting glance, "if you wish me to go, I will go; and I will stop wine drinking, too."

Nekhludoff silently looked in her eyes. They were smiling.

"That is very good," was all he could say.

"Yes, yes; she is an entirely different person," thought Nekhludoff, for the first time experiencing, after his former doubts, the to him entirely new feeling of confidence in the invincibility of love.

Returning to her ill-smelling cell, Maslova removed her coat and sat down on her cot, her hands resting on her knees. In the cell were only the consumptive with her babe, the old woman, Menshova, and the watch-woman with her two children. The deacon's daughter had been removed to the hospital; the others were washing. The old woman lay on the cot sleeping; the children were in the corridor, the door to which was open. The consumptive with the child in her arms and the watch-woman, who did not cease knitting a stocking with her nimble fingers, approached Maslova.

"Well, have you seen him?" they asked.

Maslova dangled her feet, which did not reach the floor, and made no answer.

"What are you whimpering about?" said the watch-woman. "Above all, keep up your spirits. Oh, Katiousha! Well?" she said, rapidly moving her fingers.

Maslova made no answer.

"The women went washing. They say that to-day's alms were larger. Many things have been brought, they say," said the consumptive.

"Finashka!" shouted the watch-woman. "Where are you, you little rogue?" She drew out one of the knitting needles, stuck it into the ball of thread and stocking, and went out into the corridor.

At this moment the inmates of the cell, with bare feet in their prison shoes, entered, each bearing a loaf of twisted bread, some even two. Theodosia immediately approached Maslova.

"Why, anything wrong?" she asked, lovingly, looking with her bright, blue eyes at Maslova. "And here is something for our tea," and she placed the leaves on the shelf.

"Well, has he changed his mind about marrying you?" asked Korableva.

"No, he has not, but I do not wish to," answered Maslova, "and I told him so."

"What a fool!" said Korableva, in her basso voice.

"What is the good of marrying if they cannot live together?" asked Theodosia.

"Is not your husband going with you?" answered the watch-woman.

"We are legally married," said Theodosia. "But why should he marry her legally if he cannot live with her?"

"What a fool! Why, if he marries her he will make her rich!"

"He said: 'Wherever you may be, I will be with you,'" said Maslova.

"He may go if he likes; he needn't if he don't. I will not ask him. He is now going to St. Petersburg to try to get me out. All the ministers there are his relatives," she continued, "but I don't care for them."

"Sure enough," Korableva suddenly assented, reaching down into her bag, and evidently thinking of something else. "What do you say—shall we have some wine?"

"Not I," answered Maslova. "Drink yourselves."

PART SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

The Senate could hear the case in two weeks, and by that time Nekhludoff intended to be in St. Petersburg, and, in case of an adverse decision, to petition the Emperor, as the lawyer had advised. In case the appeal failed, for which, his lawyer had told him, he must be prepared, as the grounds of appeal were very weak, the party of convicts to which Maslova belonged would be transported in May. It was therefore necessary, in order to be prepared to follow Maslova to Siberia, upon which Nekhludoff was firmly resolved, to go to the villages and arrange his affairs there.

First of all, he went to the Kusminskoie estate, the nearest, largest black-earth estate, which brought the greatest income. He had lived on the estate in his childhood and youth, and had also twice visited it in his manhood, once when, upon the request of his mother, he brought a German manager with whom he went over the affairs of the estate. So that he knew its condition and the relations the peasants sustained toward the office, i. e., the landowner. Their relations toward the office were such that they have always been in absolute dependence upon it. Nekhludoff had already known it when as a student he professed and preached the doctrines of Henry George, and in carrying out which he had distributed his father's estate among the peasants. True, after his military career, when he was spending twenty thousand rubles a year, those doctrines ceased to be necessary to the life he was leading, were forgotten, and not only did he not ask himself where the money came from, but tried not to think of it. But the death of his mother, the inheritance, and the necessity of taking care of his property, i. e., his lands, again raised the question in his mind of his relation to private ownership of land. A month before Nekhludoff would have argued that he was powerless to change the existing order of things; that he was not managing the estate, and living and receiving his income far away from the estate, would feel more or less at ease. But now he resolved that, although there was before him a trip to Siberia and complex and difficult relations to the prison world, for which social standing, and especially money, were necessary, he could not, nevertheless, leave his affairs in their former condition, but must, to his own detriment, change them. For this purpose he had decided not to work the land himself, but, by renting it at a low price to the peasants, to make it possible for them to live independent of the landlord. Often, while comparing the position of the landlord with that of the owner of serfs, Nekhludoff found a parallel in the renting of the land to the peasants, instead of working it by hired labor, to what the slave-owners did when they substituted tenancy for serfdom. That did not solve the question, but it was a step toward its solution; it was a transition from a grosser to a less gross form of ownership of man. He also intended to act thus.

Nekhludoff arrived at Kusminskoie about noon. In everything simplifying his life, he did not wire from the station of his arrival, but hired a two-horse country coach. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen regulation coat, belted below the waist, sitting sidewise on the box. He was the more willing to carry on a conversation because the broken-down, lame, emaciated, foaming shaft-horse could then walk, which these horses always preferred.

The driver spoke about the manager of the Kusminskoie estate, not knowing that he was carrying its master, Nekhludoff purposely refrained from enlightening him.

"A dandy German," he said, turning half around, cracking his long whip now over the heads, now under the horses. "There is nothing here to compare with his fine team of three bay horses. You ought to see him driving out with his wife! I took some guests to his house last Christmas—he had a fine tree. You couldn't find the like of it in the whole district! He robbed everybody, right and left. But what does he care? He is bossing everybody. They say he bought a fine estate."

Nekhludoff thought that he was indifferent to the manner of the German's management, and to the way he was profiting by it. But the story of the driver with the long waist was unpleasant to him. He was enchanted with the fine weather; the darkening clouds, sometimes obscuring the sun; the fields over which the larks soared; the woods, just covering up the top and bottom with green; the meadows on which the flocks and horses browsed, and the fields on which plowmen were already seen—but a feeling of dissatisfaction crept over him. And when he asked himself the reason for it, he recalled the driver's account of the German's management.

But by the time he was busying himself with the affairs of Kusminskoie he had forgotten it.

After an examination of the books and his conversation with the clerk, who artlessly set forth the advantages of the peasants having small holdings and the fact that they were hemmed in by the master's land, Nekhludoff grew only more determined to put an end to his ownership, and give the land to the peasants. From the books and his conversations with the clerk he learned that, as before, two-thirds of the best arable land was cultivated by his own men, and the rest by peasants who were paid five rubles per acre—that is to say, for five rubles the peasant undertook to plow, harrow and sow an acre of land three times, then mow it, bind or press it, and carry it to the barn. In other words, he was paid five rubles for what hired, cheap labor would cost at least ten rubles. Again, the prices paid by the peasants to the office for necessaries were enormous. They worked for meadow, for wood, for potatoe seed, and they were almost all in debt to the office. Thus, the rent charged the peasants for lands beyond the fields was four times as great as it could bring on a five per cent. basis.

Nekhludoff knew all that before, but he was now learning it as something new, and only wondered why he and all those who stood in a similar position could fail to see the enormity of such relations. The arguments of the clerk that not one-fourth of the value of the stock could be realized on a sale, that the peasants would permit the land to run to waste, only strengthened his determination and confirmed him in his belief that he was doing a good deed by giving the land to the peasants, and depriving himself of the greater part of his income. Desiring to dispose of the land forthwith, he asked the manager to call together the peasants of the three villages surrounded by his lands the very next day, for the purpose of declaring to them his intention and agreeing with them as to the price.

With a joyful consciousness of his firmness, in spite of the arguments of the manager, and his readiness to make sacrifices for the peasants, Nekhludoff left the office, and, reflecting on the coming arrangement, he strolled around the house, through the flower-garden, which lay opposite the manager's house, and was neglected this year; over the lawn-tennis ground, overgrown with chicory, and through the alleys lined with lindens, where it had been his wont to smoke his cigar, and where, three years before, the pretty visitor, Kirimova, flirted with him. Having made an outline of a speech, which he was to deliver to the peasants the following day, Nekhludoff went to the manager's house, and after further deliberating upon the proper disposition of the stock, he calmly and contentedly retired to a room prepared for him in the large building.

In this clean room, the walls of which were covered with views of Venice, and with a mirror hung between two windows, there was placed a clean spring bedstead and a small table with water and matches. On a large table near the mirror lay his open traveling-bag with toilet articles and books which he brought with him; one Russian book on criminology, one in German, and a third in English treating of the same subject. He intended to read them in spare moments while traveling through the villages, but as he looked on them now he felt that his mind was far from these subjects. Something entirely different occupied him.

In one corner of the room there stood an ancient arm-chair with incrustations, and the sight of this chair standing in his mother's bed-room suddenly raised in his soul an unexpected feeling. He suddenly felt sorry for the house that would decay, the gardens which would be neglected, the woods which would be cut down, and all the cattle-houses, courts, stables, sheds, machinery, horses, cows which had been accumulated with such effort, although not by him. At first it seemed to him easy to abandon all that, but now he was loth to part with it, as well as the land and one-half of the income which would be so useful now. And immediately serviceable arguments come to his aid, by which it appeared that it was not wise to give the land to the peasants and destroy his estate.

"I have no right to own the land. And if I do not own the land, I cannot keep the property intact. Besides, I will now go to Siberia, and for that reason I need neither the house nor the estate," whispered one voice. "All that is true," whispered another voice, "but you will not pass all your life in Siberia. If you should marry, you may have children. And you must hand over the estate to them in the same condition in which you found it. There are duties toward the land. It is easy to give away the land, to destroy everything; but it is very hard to accumulate it. Above all, you must mark out a plan of your life, and dispose of your property accordingly. And, then, are you acting as you do in order to satisfy conscientious scruples, or for the praise you expect of people?" Nekhludoff asked himself, and could not help acknowledging that the talk that it would occasion influenced his decision. And the more he thought the more questions raised themselves, and the more perplexing they appeared. To rid himself of these thoughts he lay down on the fresh-made bed, intending to go over them again the next day with a clearer mind. But he could not fall asleep for a long time. Along with the fresh air, through the open window, came the croaking of frogs, interrupted by the whistling of nightingales, one of which was in a lilac bush under the window. Listening to the nightingales and the frogs, Nekhludoff recalled the music of the inspector's daughter; and, thinking of that music, he recalled Maslova—how, like the croaking of a frog, her lips trembled when she said, "You must drop that." Then the German manager descended to the frogs. He should have been held back, but not only did he come down, but he was transformed into Maslova and started to taunt him: "I am a convict, and you are a Prince." "No, I shall not yield," thought Nekhludoff, and came to. "Am I acting properly or improperly?" he asked himself. "I don't know; I will know to-morrow." And he began to descend to where the manager and Maslova were. And there everything ended.

CHAPTER II.

With a feeling of timidity and shame Nekhludoff the following morning, walked out to meet the peasants who had gathered at a small square in front of the house. As he approached them the peasants removed their caps, and for a long time Nekhludoff could not say anything. Although he was going to do something for the peasants which they never dared even to think of, his conscience was troubled. The peasants stood in a fine, drizzling rain, waiting to hear what their master had to say, and Nekhludoff was so confused that he could not open his mouth. The calm, self-confident German came to his relief. This strong, overfed man, like Nekhludoff himself, made a striking contrast to the emaciated, wrinkled faces of the peasants, and the bare shoulder-bones sticking out from under their caftans.

"The Prince came to befriend you—to give you the land, but you are not worthy of it," said the German.

"Why not worthy, Vasily Karlych? Have we not labored for you? We are much satisfied with our late mistress—may she enjoy eternal life!—and we are grateful to the young Prince for thinking of us," began a red-haired peasant with a gift of gab.

"We are not complaining of our masters," said a broad-faced peasant with a long beard. "Only we are too crowded here."

"That is what I called you here for—to give you the land, if you wish it," said Nekhludoff.

The peasants were silent, as if misunderstanding him, or incredulous.

"In what sense do you mean to give us the land?" asked a middle-aged peasant in a caftan.

"To rent it to you, that you might use it at a low price."

"That is the loveliest thing," said an old man.

"If the payment is not above our means," said another.

"Of course we will take the land."

"It is our business—we get our sustenance from the land."

"So much the better for you. All you have to do is to take the money. And what sins you will spare yourself——"

"The sin is on you," said the German. "If you would only work and keep things in order——"

"We cannot, Vasily Karlych," said a lean old man with a pointed nose. "You ask, Who let the horse feed in the field? But who did it? Day in and day out—and every day is as long as a year—I worked with the scythe, and as I fell asleep the horse went among the oats. And now you are fleecing me."

"You should keep order."

"It is easy for you to say keep order. But we have no strength," retorted a middle-aged peasant, all covered with hair.

"I told you to fence it in."

"You give us the timber," said an unsightly little peasant. "When I cut a joist last summer, intending to make a fence, you locked me up for three months in the castle to feed the insects. There was a fence for you!"

"Is that true?" asked Nekhludoff of the manager.

"Der erste dich im dorfe," said the manager in German. "He was caught every year in the woods. You must learn to respect other people's property."

"Do we not respect you?" said an old man. "We cannot help respecting you, because you have us in your hands, and you are twisting us into rope."

"If you would only abstain from doing wrong," said the manager. "It is pretty hard to wrong you."

"And who battered my face last summer? Of course, there is no use going to law with a rich man."

"You only keep within bounds of the law."

This was evidently a wordy tourney of which the participants hardly knew the purpose. Nekhludoff tried to get back to business.

"Well, what do you say? Do you wish the land, and what price do you set on it?"

"It is your goods; you name the price."

Nekhludoff set the price, and though much lower than the prevailing price, the peasants began to bargain, finding it high. He expected that his offer would be accepted with pleasure, but there was no sign of satisfaction. Only when the question was raised whether the whole community would take the land, or have individual arrangements did he know that it was profitable for them. For there resulted fierce quarrels between those who wished to exclude the weak ones and bad payers from participating in the land, and those whom it was sought to exclude. But the German finally arranged the price and time of payment, and the peasants, noisily talking, returned to the village.

The price was about thirty per cent. lower than the one prevailing in the district, and Nekhludoff's income was reduced to almost one-half, but, with money realized from the sale of the timber and yet to be realized from the sale of the stock, it was amply sufficient for him. Everything seemed to be satisfactory, and yet Nekhludoff felt sad and lonesome, but, above all, his conscience troubled him. He saw that although the peasants spoke words of thanks, they were not satisfied and expected something more. The result was that while he deprived himself of much, he failed to do that which the peasants expected.

On the following day, after the contract was signed, Nekhludoff, with an unpleasant feeling of having left something undone, seated himself in the "dandy" three-horse team and took leave of the peasants, who were shaking their heads in doubt and dissatisfaction. Nekhludoff was dissatisfied with himself—he could not tell why, but he felt sad, and was ashamed of something.

CHAPTER III.

From Kusminskoie Nekhludoff went to Panovo, the estate left him by his aunts, and where he had first seen Katiousha. He intended to dispose of this land in the same manner as he disposed of the other, and also desired to learn all there was known about Katiousha, and to find out if it was true that their child had died.

As he sat at the window observing the familiar scenery of the now somewhat neglected estate, he not only recalled, but felt himself as he was fourteen years ago; fresh, pure and filled with the hope of endless possibilities. But as it happens in a dream, he knew that that was gone, and he became very sad.

Before breakfast he made his way to the hut of Matrena Kharina, Katiousha's aunt, who was selling liquor surreptitiously, for information about the child, but all he could learn from her was that the child had died on the way to a Moskow asylum; in proof of which the midwife had brought a certificate.

On his way back he entered the huts of some peasants, and inquired about their mode of living. The same complaints of the paucity of land, hunger and degradation he heard everywhere. He saw the same pinched faces, threadbare homespuns, bare feet and bent shoulders.

In front of a particularly dilapidated hut stood a number of women with children in their arms, and among them he noticed a lean, pale-faced woman, easily holding a bloodless child in a short garment made of pieces of stuff. This child was incessantly smiling. Nekhludoff knew that it was the smile of suffering. He asked who that woman was.

It transpired that the woman's husband had been in prison for the past six months—"feeding the insects"—as they termed it, for cutting down two lindens.

Nekhludoff turned to the woman, Anisia.

"How do you fare?" he asked. "What do you live on?"

"How do I live? I sometimes get some food," and she began to sob.

The grave face of the child, however, spread into a broad smile, and its thin legs began to wriggle.

Nekhludoff produced his pocketbook and gave the woman ten rubles. He had scarcely made ten steps when he was overtaken by another woman with a child; then an old woman, and again another woman. They all spoke of their poverty and implored his help. Nekhludoff distributed the sixty rubles that were in his pocketbook and returned home, i. e., to the wing inhabited by the clerk. The clerk, smiling, met Nekhludoff with the information that the peasants would gather in the evening, as he had ordered. Nekhludoff thanked him and strolled about the garden, meditating on what he had seen. "The people are dying in large numbers, and are used to it; they have acquired modes of living natural to a people who are becoming extinct—the death of children, exhausting toil for women, insufficiency of food for all, especially for the aged—all comes and is received naturally. They were reduced to this condition gradually, so that they cannot see the horror of it, and bear it uncomplainingly. Afterward, we, too, come to consider this condition natural; that it ought to be so."

All this was so clear to him now that he could not cease wondering how it was that people could not see it; that he himself could not see that which is so patent. It was perfectly clear that children and old people were dying for want of milk, and they had no milk because they had not land enough to feed the cattle and also raise bread and hay. And he devised a scheme by which he was to give the land to the people, and they were to pay an annual rent which was to go to the community, to be used for common utilities and taxes. This was not the single-tax, but it was the nearest approach to it under present conditions. The important part consisted in that he renounced his right to own land.

When he returned to the house, the clerk, with a particularly happy smile on his face, offered him dinner, expressing his fear that it might spoil.

The table was covered with a gloomy cloth, an embroidered towel serving as a napkin, and on the table, in vieux-saxe, stood a soup-bowl with a broken handle, filled with potato soup and containing the same rooster that he had seen carried into the house on his arrival. After the soup came the same rooster, fried with feathers, and cakes made of cheese-curds, bountifully covered with butter and sugar. Although the taste of it all was poor, Nekhludoff kept on eating, being absorbed in the thoughts which relieved him of the sadness that oppressed him on his return from the village.

After dinner Nekhludoff with difficulty seated the superserviceable clerk, and in order to make sure of himself and at the same time to confide to some one the thoughts uppermost in his mind, told him of his project and asked his opinion. The clerk smiled, as though he had been thinking of the same thing, and was very glad to hear it, but in reality did not understand it, not because Nekhludoff did not express himself plainly enough, but because, according to this project, Nekhludoff deprived himself of advantages for the benefit of others, whereas the truth that every man strives to obtain advantages at the expense of others, was so firmly rooted in the clerk's mind, that he thought that he misunderstood Nekhludoff when the latter said that the entire income of the land was to go into the community's treasury.

"I understand. So you will draw the interest on the capital?" he said, becoming radiant.

"No, no. I transfer the land to them entirely."

"In that case you will get no income?" asked the clerk and he ceased to smile.

"I relinquish that."

The clerk sighed deeply, then began to smile again. Now he understood. He understood that Nekhludoff's mind was not entirely sound, and he immediately tried to find a way of profiting by Nekhludoff's project, and endeavored to so construe it that he might turn it to his own advantage.

When, however, he understood that there was no such opportunity, he ceased to take interest in the projects, and continued to smile only to please his master. Seeing that the clerk could not understand him, Nekhludoff dismissed him from his presence, seated himself at the ink-stained table and proceeded to commit his project to paper.

The sun was already descending behind the unfolding lindens, and the mosquitos filled the room, stinging him. While he was finishing his notes, Nekhludoff heard the lowing of cattle in the village, the creaking of the opening gates and the voices of the peasants who were coming to meet their master. Nekhludoff told the clerk not to call them before the office, that he would go and meet them at any place in the village, and gulping down a glass of tea offered him by the clerk, he went to the village.

CHAPTER IV.

The crowd stood talking in front of the house of the bailiff, and as Nekhludoff approached, the conversation ceased and the peasants, like those of Kusminskoie, removed their caps. It was a coarser crowd than the peasants of Kusminskoie, and almost all the peasants wore bast shoes and homespun shirts and caftans. Some of them were bare-footed and only in their shirts.

With some effort Nekhludoff began his speech by declaring that he intended to surrender the land to them. The peasants were silent, and there was no change in the expression of their faces.

"Because I consider," said Nekhludoff, blushing, "that every man ought to have the right to use the land."

"Why, certainly." "That is quite right," voices of peasants were heard.

Nekhludoff continued, saying that the income from the land should be distributed among all, and he therefore proposed that they take the land and pay into the common treasury such rent as they may decide upon, such money to be used for their own benefit. Exclamations of consent and approbation continued to be heard, but the faces of the peasants became more and more grave, and the eyes that at first were fixed on the master were lowered, as if desiring not to shame him with the fact that his cunning was understood by all, and that he could not fool anybody.

Nekhludoff spoke very clearly, and the peasants were sensible folks; but he was not understood, and could not be understood by them for the same reason which prevented the clerk from understanding him for a long time. They were convinced that it was natural for every man to look out for his own interest. And as to the land owners, the experience of several generations had taught them long ago that these were always serving their own interests.

"Well, what rate do you intend to assess," asked Nekhludoff.

"Why assess? We cannot do that? The land is yours; it is for you to say," some in the crowd said.

"But understand that you are to use the money for the common wants."

"We cannot do it. The community is one thing, and this is another thing."

"You must understand," said the smiling clerk, wishing to explain the offer, "that the Prince is giving you the land for money which is to go into the community's treasury."

"We understand it very well," said a toothless old man without raising his eyes. "Something like a bank, only we must pay in time. We cannot do it; it is hard enough as it is. That will ruin us entirely."

"That is to no purpose. We would rather continue as before," said several dissatisfied and even rough voices.

The resistance was particularly hot when Nekhludoff mentioned that he would draw a contract which he himself and they would have to sign.

"What is the good of a contract? We will keep on working as we did before. We don't care for it. We are ignorant people."

"We cannot consent, because that is an uncustomary thing. Let it be as it was before. If you would only do away with the seed," several voices were heard.

"Doing away with the seed" meant that under the present regime the sowing-seed was chargeable to the peasants, and they asked that it be furnished by the master.

"So you refuse to take the land?" asked Nekhludoff, turning to a middle-aged, bare-footed peasant in tattered caftan and with a radiant face who held his cap straight in front of him, like a soldier hearing "Hats off!"

"Yes, sir," said this peasant.

"Then you have enough land?" asked Nekhludoff.

"No, sir," said the ex-soldier, with artificial cheerfulness, holding his torn cap before him, as though offering it to anyone deserving to take it.

"Think it over at your leisure," said the surprised Nekhludoff, again repeating his offer.

"There is nothing to think over; as we said, so it will be," the toothless, gloomy old man said angrily.

"I will stay here all day to-morrow. If you alter your decision, let me know."

The peasants made no answer.

On their return to the office the clerk explained to Nekhludoff that it was not a want of good sense that prevented their acceptance of the offer; that when gathered in assembly they always acted in that stubborn manner.

Nekhludoff then asked him to summon for the following day several of the most intelligent peasants to whom he would explain his project at greater length.

Immediately after the departure of the smiling clerk, Nekhludoff heard angry women's voices interrupted by the voice of the clerk. He listened.

"I have no more strength. You want the cross on my breast," said an exasperated voice.

"She only ran in," said another voice. "Give her up, I say. Why do you torture the beast, and keep the milk from the children?"

Nekhludoff walked around the house where he saw two disheveled women, one of whom was evidently pregnant, standing near the staircase. On the stairs, with his hands in the pockets of his crash overcoat, stood the clerk. Seeing their master, the women became silent and began to arrange their 'kerchiefs, which had fallen from their heads, while the clerk took his hands out of his pockets and began to smile.

The clerk explained that the peasants purposely permitted their calves, and even cows, to roam over the master's meadows. That two cows belonging to these women had been caught on the meadow and driven into an inclosure. The clerk demanded from the women thirty copecks per cow, or two days' work.

"Time and again I told them," said the smiling clerk, looking around at Nekhludoff, as if calling him to witness, "to look out for cows when driving them to feed."

"I just went to see to the child, and they walked away."

"Don't leave them when you undertake to look after them."

"And who would feed my child?"

"If they had only grazed, at least, they would have no pains in their stomachs. But they only walked in."

"All the meadows are spoiled," the clerk turned to Nekhludoff. "If they are not made to pay there will be no hay left."

"Don't be sinning," cried the pregnant woman. "My cow was never caught."

"But now that she was caught, pay for her, or work."

"Well, then, I will work. But return me the cow; don't torture her," she cried angrily. "It is bad enough as it is; I get no rest, either day or night. Mother-in-law is sick; my husband is drunk. Single-handed I have to do all the work, and I have no strength. May you choke yourself!" she shouted and began to weep.

Nekhludoff asked the clerk to release the cows and returned to the house, wondering why people do not see what is so plain.

CHAPTER V.

Whether it was because there were fewer peasants present, or because he was not occupied with himself, but with the matter in hand, Nekhludoff felt no agitation when the seven peasants chosen from the villagers responded to the summons.

He first of all expressed his views on private ownership of land.

"As I look upon it," he said, "land ought not to be the subject of purchase and sale, for if land can be sold, then those who have money will buy it all in and charge the landless what they please for the use of it. People will then be compelled to pay for the right to stand on the earth," he added, quoting Spencer's argument.

"There remains to put on wings and fly," said an old man with smiling eyes and gray beard.

"That's so," said a long-nosed peasant in a deep basso.

"Yes, sir," said the ex-soldier.

"The old woman took some grass for the cow. They caught her, and to jail she went," said a good-natured, lame peasant.

"There is land for five miles around, but the rent is higher than the land can produce," said the toothless, angry old man.

"I am of the same opinion as you," said Nekhludoff, "and that is the reason I want to give you the land."

"Well, that would be a kind deed," said a broad-shouldered old peasant with a curly, grayish beard like that of Michael Angelo's Moses, evidently thinking that Nekhludoff intended to rent out the land.

"That is why I came here. I do not wish to own the land any longer, but it is necessary to consider how to dispose of it."

"You give it to the peasants—that's all," said the toothless, angry peasant.

For a moment Nekhludoff was confused, seeing in these words doubt of the sincerity of his purpose. But he shook it off, and took advantage of the remark to say what he intended.

"I would be only too glad to give it," he said, "but to whom and how shall I give it? Why should I give it to your community rather than to the Deminsky community?" Deminsky was a neighboring village with very little land.

They were all silent. Only the ex-soldier said, "Yes, sir."

"And now tell me how would you distribute the land?"

"How? We would give each an equal share," said an oven-builder, rapidly raising and lowering his eyebrows.

"How else? Of course divide it equally," said a good-natured, lame peasant, whose feet, instead of socks, were wound in a white strip of linen.

This decision was acquiesced in by all as being satisfactory.

"But how?" asked Nekhludoff, "are the domestics also to receive equal shares?"

"No, sir," said the ex-soldier, assuming a cheerful mood. But the sober-minded tall peasant disagreed with him.

"If it is to be divided, everybody is to get an equal share," after considering awhile, he said in a deep basso.

"That is impossible," said Nekhludoff, who was already prepared with his objection. "If everyone was to get an equal share, then those who do not themselves work would sell their shares to the rich. Thus the land would again get into the hands of the rich. Again, the people that worked their own shares would multiply, and the landlords would again get the landless into their power."

"Yes, sir," the ex-soldier hastily assented.

"The selling of land should be prohibited; only those that cultivate it themselves should be allowed to own it," said the oven-builder, angrily interrupting the soldier.

To this Nekhludoff answered that it would be difficult to determine whether one cultivated the land for himself or for others.

Then the sober-minded old man suggested that the land should be given to them as an association, and that only those that took part in cultivating it should get their share.

Nekhludoff was ready with arguments against this communistic scheme, and he retorted that in such case it would be necessary that all should have plows, that each should have the same number of horses, and that none should lag behind, or that everything should belong to society, for which the consent of every one was necessary.

"Our people will never agree," said the angry old man.

"There will be incessant fighting among them," said the white-bearded peasant with the shining eyes. "The women will scratch each other's eyes out."

"The next important question is," said Nekhludoff, "how to divide the land according to quality. You cannot give black soil to some and clay and sand to others."

"Let each have a part of both," said the oven-builder.

To this Nekhludoff answered that it was not a question of dividing the land in one community, but of the division of land generally among all the communities. If the land is to be given gratis to the peasants, then why should some get good land, and others poor land? There would be a rush for the good land.

"Yes, sir," said the ex-soldier.

The others were silent.

"You see, it is not as simple as it appears at first sight," said Nekhludoff. "We are not the only ones, there are other people thinking of the same thing. And now, there is an American, named George, who devised the following scheme, and I agree with him."

"What is that to you? You are the master; you distribute the land, and there is an end to it," said the angry peasant.

This interruption somewhat confused Nekhludoff, but he was glad to see that others were also dissatisfied with this interruption.

"Hold on, Uncle Semen; let him finish," said the old man in an impressive basso.

This encouraged Nekhludoff, and he proceeded to explain the single-tax theory of Henry George.

"The land belongs to no one—it belongs to the Creator."

"That's so!"

"Yes, sir."

"The land belongs to all in common. Every one has an equal right to it. But there is good land, and there is poor land. And the question is, how to divide the land equally. The answer to this is, that those who own the better land should pay to those who own the poorer the value of the better land. But as it is difficult to determine how much anyone should pay, and to whom, and as society needs money for common utilities, let every land owner pay to society the full value of his land—less, if it is poorer; more, if it is better. And those who do not wish to own land will have their taxes paid by the land owners."

"That's correct," said the oven-builder. "Let the owner of the better land pay more."

"What a head that Jhorga had on him!" said the portly old peasant with the curls.

"If only the payments were reasonable," said the tall peasant, evidently understanding what it was leading to.

"The payments should be such that it would be neither too cheap nor too dear. If too dear, it would be unprofitable; if too cheap, people would begin to deal in land. This is the arrangement I would like you to make."

Voices of approval showed that the peasants understood him perfectly.

"What a head!" repeated the broad-shouldered peasant with the curls, meaning "Jhorga."

"And what if I should choose to take land?" said the clerk, smiling.

"If there is an unoccupied section, take and cultivate it," said Nekhludoff.

"What do you want land for? You are not hungering without land," said the old man with the smiling eyes.

Here the conference ended.

Nekhludoff repeated his offer, telling the peasants to consult the wish of the community, before giving their answer.

The peasants said that they would do so, took leave of Nekhludoff and departed in a state of excitement. For a long time their loud voices were heard, and finally died away about midnight.

The peasants did not work the following day, but discussed their master's proposition. The community was divided into two factions. One declared the proposition profitable and safe; the other saw in the proposition a plot which it feared the more because it could not understand it. On the third day, however, the proposition was accepted, the fears of the peasants having been allayed by an old woman who explained the master's action by the suggestion that he began to think of saving his soul. This explanation was confirmed by the large amount of money Nekhludoff had distributed while he remained in Panov. These money gifts were called forth by the fact that here, for the first time, he learned to what poverty the peasants had been reduced and though he knew that it was unwise, he could not help distributing such money as he had, which was considerable.

As soon as it became known that the master was distributing money, large crowds of people from the entire surrounding country came to him asking to be helped. He had no means of determining the respective needs of the individuals, and yet he could not help giving these evidently poor people money. Again, to distribute money indiscriminately was absurd. His only way out of the difficulty was to depart, which he hastened to do.

On the third day of his visit to Panov, Nekhludoff, while looking over the things in the house, in one of the drawers of his aunt's chiffonnier, found a picture representing a group of Sophia Ivanovna, Catherine Ivanovna, himself, as student, and Katiousha—neat, fresh, beautiful and full of life. Of all the things in the house Nekhludoff removed this picture and the letters. The rest he sold to the miller for a tenth part of its value.

Recalling now the feeling of pity over the loss of his property which he had experienced in Kusminskoie, Nekhludoff wondered how he could have done so. Now he experienced the gladness of release and the feeling of novelty akin to that experienced by an explorer who discovers new lands.

CHAPTER VI.

It was evening when Nekhludoff arrived in the city, and as he drove through the gas-lit streets to his house, it looked to him like a new city. The odor of camphor still hung in the air through all the rooms, and Agrippina, Petrovna and Kornei seemed tired out and dissatisfied, and even quarreled about the packing of the things, the use of which seemed to consist chiefly in being hung out, dried and packed away again. His room was not occupied, but was not arranged for his coming, and the trunks blocked all the passages, so that his coming interfered with those affairs which, by some strange inertia, were taking place in this house. This evident foolishness, to which he had once been a party, seemed so unpleasant to Nekhludoff, after the impressions he had gained of the want in the villages, that he decided to move to a hotel the very next day, leaving the packing to Agrippina until the arrival of his sister.

He left the house in the morning, hired two modest and not over-clean furnished rooms near the prison, and went to his lawyer.

After the storms and rains came those cold, piercing winds that usually occur in the fall. Protected only by a light overcoat, Nekhludoff was chilled to the bone. He walked quickly in order to warm himself.

The village scenes came to his mind—the women, children and old men, whose poverty and exhaustion he had noticed as if for the first time, especially that oldish child which twisted its little calfless legs—and he involuntarily compared them with the city folks. Passing by the butcher, fish and clothing shops, he was struck, as if it was the first time he looked upon them—by the physical evidences of the well-being of such a large number of clean, well-fed shopkeepers which was not to be seen anywhere in the villages. Equally well fed were the drivers in quilted coats and buttons on their backs, porters, servant girls, etc. In all these people he now involuntarily saw those same village folks whom privation had driven to the city. Some of them were able to take advantage of the conditions in the city and became happy proprietors themselves; others were reduced to even greater straits and became even more wretched. Such wretchedness Nekhludoff saw in a number of shoemakers that he saw working near the window of a basement; in the lean, pale, disheveled washerwomen ironing with bare hands before open windows from which soap-laden steam poured out; in two painters, aproned and bare-footed, who were covered with paint from temple to heel. In their sunburnt, sinewy, weak hands, bared above the elbows, they carried a bucket of paint and incessantly cursed each other. Their faces were wearied and angry. The same expression of weariness and anger he saw in the dusty faces of the truck drivers; on the swollen and tattered men, women and children who stood begging on the street corners. Similar faces were seen in the windows of the tea-houses which Nekhludoff passed. Around the dirty tables, loaded with bottles and tea services, perspiring men with red, stupefied faces sat shouting and singing, and white-aproned servants flitted to and fro.

"Why have they all gathered here?" thought Nekhludoff, involuntarily inhaling, together with the dust, the odor of rancid oil spread by the fresh paint.

On one of the streets he suddenly heard his name called above the rattling of the trucks. It was Shenbok, with curled and stiffened mustache and radiant face. Nekhludoff had lost sight of him long ago, but heard that on leaving his regiment and joining the cavalry, notwithstanding his debts he managed to hold his own in rich society.

"I am glad I met you. There is not a soul in the city. How old you have grown, my boy! I only recognized you by your walk. Well, shall we have dinner together? Where can we get a good meal here?"

"I hardly think I will have the time," answered Nekhludoff, who wished to get rid of his friend without offending him. "What brings you here?" he asked.

"Business, my boy. Guardianship affairs. I am a guardian, you know. I have charge of Samanoff's business—the rich Samanoff, you know. He is a spendthrift, and there are fifty-four thousand acres of land!" he said with particular pride, as if he had himself made all these acres. "The affairs were fearfully neglected. The land was rented to the peasants, who did not pay anything and were eighty thousand rubles in arrears. In one year I changed everything, and realized seventy per cent. more for the estate. Eh?" he asked, with pride.

Nekhludoff recalled a rumor that for the very reason that Shenbok squandered his own wealth and was inextricably in debt, he was appointed guardian over a rich old spendthrift, and was now evidently obtaining an income from the guardianship.

Nekhludoff refused to take dinner with Shenbok, or accompany him to the horse races, to which the latter invited him, and after an exchange of commonplaces the two parted.

"Is it possible that I was like him?" thought Nekhludoff. "Not exactly, but I sought to be like him, and thought that I would thus pass my life."

The lawyer received him immediately on his arrival, although it was not his turn. The lawyer expressed himself strongly on the detention of the Menshovs, declaring that there was not a particle of evidence against them on record.

"If the case is tried here, and not in the district, I will stake anything on their discharge. And the petition in behalf of Theodosia Brinkova is ready. You had better take it with you to St. Petersburg and present it there. Otherwise there will begin an inquiry which will have no end. Try to reach some people who have influence with the commission on petitions. Well, that's all, isn't it?"

"No. Here they write me——"

"You seem to be the funnel into which all the prison complaints are poured. I fear you will not hold them all."

"But this case is simply shocking," said Nekhludoff, and related the substance of it.

"What is it that surprises you?"

"Everything. I can understand the orderly who acted under orders, but the assistant prosecutor who drew the indictment is an educated man——"

"That is the mistake. We are used to think that the prosecuting officers—the court officers generally—are a kind of new, liberal men. And so they were at one time, but not now. The only thing that concerns these officers is to draw their salaries on the 20th of every month. Their principles begin and end with their desire to get more. They will arrest, try and convict anybody——. I am always telling these court officers that I never look upon them without gratitude," continued the lawyer, "because it is due to their kindness that I, you and all of us are not in jail. To deprive any one of us of all civil rights and send him to Siberia is the easiest thing imaginable."

"But if everything depends on the pleasure of the prosecutor, who can enforce the law or not, then what is the use of the courts?"

The lawyer laughed merrily.

"That is the question you are raising. Well, my dear sir, that is philosophy. However, we can discuss that. Come to my house next Saturday. You will find there scholars, litterateurs, artists. We will have a talk on social questions," said the lawyer, pronouncing the words "social questions" with ironical pathos. "Are you acquainted with my wife? Call on Saturday."

"I will try," answered Nekhludoff, feeling that he was saying an untruth; that if there was anything he would try hard to do it was not to be present at the lawyer's amid the scholars, litterateurs and artists.

The laughter with which the lawyer met Nekhludoff's remark concerning the uselessness of courts if the prosecutors can do what they please, and the intonation with which he pronounced the words "philosophy" and "social questions," showed how utterly unlike himself were the lawyer and the people of his circle, both in character and in views of life.

CHAPTER VII.

It was late and the distance to the prison was long, so Nekhludoff hired a trap. On one of the streets the driver, who was a middle-aged man with an intelligent and good-natured face, turned to Nekhludoff and pointed to an immense building going up.

"What a huge building there is going up!" he said with pride, as if he had a part in the building of it.

It was really a huge structure, built in a complex, unusual style. A scaffolding of heavy pine logs surrounded the structure, which was fenced in by deal boards. It was as busy a scene as an ant hill.

Nekhludoff wondered that these people, while their wives were killing themselves with work at home, and their children starving, should think it necessary to build that foolish and unnecessary house for some foolish and unnecessary man.

"Yes, a foolish building," he spoke his thought aloud.

"How foolish?" retorted the offended driver. "Thanks to them, the people get work. It is not foolish."

"But the work is unnecessary."

"It must be necessary if they are building it," said the driver. "It gives the people food."

Nekhludoff became silent, the more so because it was too noisy to be heard. When they had reached the macadamized road near the prison the driver again turned to Nekhludoff.

"And what a lot of people are coming to the city—awful," he said, turning around on the box and pointing to a party of laborers with saws, axes, coats and sacks thrown over their shoulders, and coming from the opposite direction.

"More than in former years?" asked Nekhludoff.

"No comparison. The masters are kicking them about like shavings. The market places are glutted with them."

"What is the reason?"

"They have multiplied. They have no homes."

"And what if they have multiplied! Why do they not remain in the villages?"

"There is nothing to do there. There is no land."

Nekhludoff experienced that which happens with a sore place—it is struck oftener than any other part of the body. But it only seems so because it is more noticeable.

"Can it be possible that it is everywhere the same?" he thought, and asked the driver how much land there was in his village; how much he himself owned, and why he lived in the city.

"There is but an acre to every person. We are renting three acres. There is my father and brother. Another brother is in the army. They are managing it. But there is really nothing to manage, and my brother intended to go to Moskow."

"Is there no land for rent?"

"Where could one get land nowadays? The masters' children have squandered theirs. The merchants have it all in their hands. One cannot rent it from them; they cultivate it themselves. Our lands are held by a Frenchman who bought them of the former landlord. He won't rent any of it, and that is all."

"What Frenchman?"

"Dufar, the Frenchman—you may have heard. He is making wigs for the actors. He is now our master, and does what he pleases with us. He is a good man himself, but his wife is Russian—and what a cur! She is robbing the people—simply awful! But here is the prison. Shall I drive up to the front? I think they don't admit through the front."

CHAPTER VIII.

With a faint heart and with horror at the thought that he might find Maslova in an inebriate condition and persistently antagonistic, and at the mystery which she was to him, Nekhludoff rang the bell and inquired of the inspector about Maslova. She was in the hospital.

A young physician, impregnated with carbolic acid, came out into the corridor and sternly asked Nekhludoff what he wanted. The physician indulged the prisoners' shortcomings and often relaxed the rules in their favor, for which he often ran afoul of the prison officials and even the head physician. Fearing that Nekhludoff might ask something not permitted by the rules, and, moreover, desiring to show that he made no exceptions in favor of anybody, he feigned anger.

"There are no women here; this is the children's ward," he said.

"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 white 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."