Resurrection by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (i love reading .TXT) 📖

noise brought the woman warder

and a jailer. The fighting women were separated; and Korableva,

taking out the bits of torn hair from her head, and the

redhaired one, holding her torn chemise together over her yellow

breast, began loudly to complain.

 

“I know, it’s all the vodka. Wait a bit; I’ll tell the inspector

tomorrow. He’ll give it you. Can’t I smell it? Mind, get it all

out of the way, or it will be the worse for you,” said the

warder. “We’ve no time to settle your disputes. Get to your

places and be quiet.”

 

But quiet was not soon re-established. For a long time the women

went on disputing and explaining to one another whose fault it

all was. At last the warder and the jailer left the cell, the

women grew quieter and began going to bed, and the old woman went

to the icon and commenced praying.

 

“The two jailbirds have met,” the redhaired woman suddenly

called out in a hoarse voice from the other end of the shelf

beds, accompanying every word with frightfully vile abuse.

 

“Mind you don’t get it again,” Korableva replied, also adding

words of abuse, and both were quiet again.

 

“Had I not been stopped I’d have pulled your damned eyes out,”

again began the redhaired one, and an answer of the same kind

followed from Korableva. Then again a short interval and more

abuse. But the intervals became longer and longer, as when a

thunder-cloud is passing, and at last all was quiet.

 

All were in bed, some began to snore; and only the old woman, who

always prayed a long time, went on bowing before the icon and the

deacon’s daughter, who had got up after the warder left, was

pacing up and down the room again. Maslova kept thinking that she

was now a convict condemned to hard labour, and had twice been

reminded of this—once by Botchkova and once by the redhaired

woman—and she could not reconcile herself to the thought.

Korableva, who lay next to her, turned over in her bed.

 

“There now,” said Maslova in a low voice; “who would have thought

it? See what others do and get nothing for it.”

 

“Never mind, girl. People manage to live in Siberia. As for you,

you’ll not be lost there either,” Korableva said, trying to

comfort her.

 

“I know I’ll not be lost; still it is hard. It’s not such a fate

I want—I, who am used to a comfortable life.”

 

“Ah, one can’t go against God,” said Korableva, with a sigh.

“One can’t, my dear.”

 

“I know, granny. Still, it’s hard.”

 

They were silent for a while.

 

“Do you hear that baggage?” whispered Korableva, drawing

Maslova’s attention to a strange sound proceeding from the other

end of the room.

 

This sound was the smothered sobbing of the redhaired woman. The

redhaired woman was crying because she had been abused and had

not got any of the vodka she wanted so badly; also because she

remembered how all her life she had been abused, mocked at,

offended, beaten. Remembering this, she pitied herself, and,

thinking no one heard her, began crying as children cry, sniffing

with her nose and swallowing the salt tears.

 

“I’m sorry for her,” said Maslova.

 

“Of course one is sorry,” said Korableva, “but she shouldn’t come

bothering.”

 

CHAPTER XXXIII.

 

THE LEAVEN AT WORK—NEKHLUDOFF’S DOMESTIC CHANGES.

 

The next morning Nekhludoff awoke, conscious that something had

happened to him, and even before he had remembered what it was he

knew it to be something important and good.

 

“Katusha—the trial!” Yes, he must stop lying and tell the whole

truth.

 

By a strange coincidence on that very morning he received the

long-expected letter from Mary Vasilievna, the wife of the

Marechal de Noblesse, the very letter he particularly needed.

She gave him full freedom, and wished him happiness in his

intended marriage.

 

“Marriage!” he repeated with irony. “How far I am from all that

at present.”

 

And he remembered the plans he had formed the day before, to tell

the husband everything, to make a clean breast of it, and express

his readiness to give him any kind of satisfaction. But this

morning this did not seem so easy as the day before. And, then,

also, why make a man unhappy by telling him what he does not

know? Yes, if he came and asked, he would tell him all, but to go

purposely and tell—no! that was unnecessary.

 

And telling the whole truth to Missy seemed just as difficult

this morning. Again, he could not begin to speak without offence.

As in many worldly affairs, something had to remain unexpressed.

Only one thing he decided on, i.e., not to visit there, and to

tell the truth if asked.

 

But in connection with Katusha, nothing was to remain unspoken.

“I shall go to the prison and shall tell her every thing, and ask

her to forgive me. And if need be—yes, if need be, I shall marry

her,” he thought.

 

This idea, that he was ready to sacrifice all on moral grounds,

and marry her, again made him feel very tender towards himself.

Concerning money matters he resolved this morning to arrange them

in accord with his conviction, that the holding of landed

property was unlawful. Even if he should not be strong enough to

give up everything, he would still do what he could, not

deceiving himself or others.

 

It was long since he had met the coming day with so much energy.

When Agraphena Petrovna came in, he told her, with more firmness

than he thought himself capable of, that he no longer needed this

lodging nor her services. There had been a tacit understanding

that he was keeping up so large and expensive an establishment

because he was thinking of getting married. The giving up of the

house had, therefore, a special meaning. Agraphena Petrovna

looked at him in surprise.

 

“I thank you very much, Agraphena Petrovna, for all your care for

me, but I no longer require so large a house nor so many

servants. If you wish to help me, be so good as to settle about

the things, put them away as it used to be done during mamma’s

life, and when Natasha comes she will see to everything.” Natasha

was Nekhludoff’s sister.

 

Agraphena Petrovna shook her head. “See about the things? Why,

they’ll be required again,” she said.

 

“No, they won’t, Agraphena Petrovna; I assure you they won’t be

required,” said Nekhludoff, in answer to what the shaking of her

head had expressed. “Please tell Corney also that I shall pay him

two months’ wages, but shall have no further need of him.”

 

“It is a pity, Dmitri Ivanovitch, that you should think of doing

this,” she said. “Well, supposing you go abroad, still you’ll

require a place of residence again.”

 

“You are mistaken in your thoughts, Agraphena Petrovna; I am not

going abroad. If I go on a journey, it will be to quite a

different place.” He suddenly blushed very red. “Yes, I must tell

her,” he thought; “no hiding; everybody must be told.”

 

“A very strange and important thing happened to me yesterday. Do

you remember my Aunt Mary Ivanovna’s Katusha?”

 

“Oh, yes. Why, I taught her how to sew.”

 

“Well, this Katusha was tried in the Court and I was on the

jury.”

 

“Oh, Lord! What a pity!” cried Agraphena Petrovna. “What was she

being tried for?”

 

“Murder; and it is I have done it all.”

 

“Well, now this is very strange; how could you do it all?”

 

“Yes, I am the cause of it all; and it is this that has altered

all my plans.”

 

“What difference can it make to you?”

 

“This difference: that I, being the cause of her getting on to

that path, must do all I can to help her.”

 

“That is just according to your own good pleasure; you are not

particularly in fault there. It happens to every one, and if

one’s reasonable, it all gets smoothed over and forgotten,” she

said, seriously and severely. “Why should you place it to your

account? There’s no need. I had already heard before that she had

strayed from the right path. Well, whose fault is it?”

 

“Mine! that’s why I want to put it right.”

 

“It is hard to put right.”

 

“That is my business. But if you are thinking about yourself,

then I will tell you that, as mamma expressed the wish—”

 

“I am not thinking about myself. I have been so bountifully

treated by the dear defunct, that I desire nothing. Lisenka” (her

married niece) “has been inviting me, and I shall go to her when

I am not wanted any longer. Only it is a pity you should take

this so to heart; it happens to everybody.”

 

“Well, I do not think so. And I still beg that you will help me

let this lodging and put away the things. And please do not be

angry with me. I am very, very grateful to you for all you have

done.”

 

And, strangely, from the moment Nekhludoff realised that it was

he who was so bad and disgusting to himself, others were no

longer disgusting to him; on the contrary, he felt a kindly

respect for Agraphena Petrovna, and for Corney.

 

He would have liked to go and confess to Corney also, but

Corney’s manner was so insinuatingly deferential that he had not

the resolution to do it.

 

On the way to the Law Courts, passing along the same streets with

the same isvostchik as the day before, he was surprised what a

different being he felt himself to be. The marriage with Missy,

which only yesterday seemed so probable, appeared quite

impossible now. The day before he felt it was for him to choose,

and had no doubts that she would be happy to marry him; to-day he

felt himself unworthy not only of marrying, but even of being

intimate with her. “If she only knew what I am, nothing would

induce her to receive me. And only yesterday I was finding fault

with her because she flirted with N–. Anyhow, even if she

consented to marry me, could I be, I won’t say happy, but at

peace, knowing that the other was here in prison, and would

to-day or tomorrow he taken to Siberia with a gang of other

prisoners, while I accepted congratulations and made calls with

my young wife; or while I count the votes at the meetings, for

and against the motion brought forward by the rural inspection,

etc., together with the Marechal de Noblesse, whom I abominably

deceive, and afterwards make appointments with his wife (how

abominable!) or while I continue to work at my picture, which

will certainly never get finished? Besides, I have no business to

waste time on such things. I can do nothing of the kind now,” he

continued to himself, rejoicing at the change he felt within

himself. “The first thing now is to see the advocate and find out

his decision, and then … then go and see her and tell her

everything.”

 

And when he pictured to himself how he would see her, and tell

her all, confess his sin to her, and tell her that he would do

all in his power to atone for his sin, he was touched at his own

goodness, and the tears came to his eyes.

 

CHAPTER XXXIV.

 

THE ABSURDITY OF LAW—REFLECTIONS OF A JURYMAN.

 

On coming into the Law Courts Nekhludoff met the usher of

yesterday, who to-day seemed to him much to be pitied, in the

corridor, and asked him where