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

the sledge cover. All this came back to Nekhludoff’s

mind; but, above all, the joyous sense of health, strength, and

freedom from care: the lungs breathing in the frosty air so

deeply that the fur cloak is drawn tightly on his chest, the fine

snow drops off the low branches on to his face, his body is warm,

his face feels fresh, and his soul is free from care,

self-reproach, fear, or desire. How beautiful it was. And now, O

God! what torment, what trouble!

 

Evidently Vera Doukhova was a revolutionist and imprisoned as

such. He must see her, especially as she promised to advise him

how to lighten Maslova’s lot.

 

CHAPTER L.

 

THE VICE-GOVERNOR OF THE PRISON.

 

Awaking early the next morning, Nekhludoff remembered what he had

done the day before, and was seized with fear.

 

But in spite of this fear, he was more determined than ever to

continue what he had begun.

 

Conscious of a sense of duty, he left the house and went to see

Maslennikoff in order to obtain from him a permission to visit

Maslova in prison, and also the Menshoffs—mother and son—about

whom Maslova had spoken to him. Nekhludoff had known this

Maslennikoff a long time; they had been in the regiment together.

At that time Maslennikoff was treasurer to the regiment.

 

He was a kind-hearted and zealous officer, knowing and wishing to

know nothing beyond the regiment and the Imperial family. Now

Nekhludoff saw him as an administrator, who had exchanged the

regiment for an administrative office in the government where he

lived. He was married to a rich and energetic woman, who had

forced him to exchange military for civil service. She laughed at

him, and caressed him, as if he were her own pet animal.

Nekhludoff had been to see them once during the winter, but the

couple were so uninteresting to him that he had not gone again.

 

At the sight of Nekhludoff Maslennikoff’s face beamed all over.

He had the same fat red face, and was as corpulent and as well

dressed as in his military days. Then, he used to be always

dressed in a well-brushed uniform, made according to the latest

fashion, tightly fitting his chest and shoulders; now, it was a

civil service uniform he wore, and that, too, tightly fitted his

well-fed body and showed off his broad chest, and was cut

according to the latest fashion. In spite of the difference in

age (Maslennikoff was 40), the two men were very familiar with

one another.

 

“Halloo, old fellow! How good of you to come! Let us go and see

my wife. I have just ten minutes to spare before the meeting. My

chief is away, you know. I am at the head of the Government

administration,” he said, unable to disguise his satisfaction.

 

“I have come on business.”

 

“What is it?” said Maslennikoff, in an anxious and severe tone,

putting himself at once on his guard.

 

“There is a person, whom I am very much interested in, in prison”

(at the word “prison” Maslennikoff’s face grew stern); “and I

should like to have an interview in the office, and not in the

common visiting-room. I have been told it depended on you.”

 

“Certainly, mon cher,” said Maslennikoff, putting both hands on

Nekhludoff’s knees, as if to tone down his grandeur; “but

remember, I am monarch only for an hour.”

 

“Then will you give me an order that will enable me to see her?”

 

“It’s a woman?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What is she there for?”

 

“Poisoning, but she has been unjustly condemned.”

 

“Yes, there you have it, your justice administered by jury, ils

n’en font point d’autres,” he said, for some unknown reason, in

French. “I know you do not agree with me, but it can’t be helped,

c’est mon opinion bien arretee,” he added, giving utterance to an

opinion he had for the last twelve months been reading in the

retrograde Conservative paper. “I know you are a Liberal.”

 

“I don’t know whether I am a Liberal or something else,”

Nekhludoff said, smiling; it always surprised him to find himself

ranked with a political party and called a Liberal, when he

maintained that a man should be heard before he was judged, that

before being tried all men were equal, that nobody at all ought

to be ill-treated and beaten, but especially those who had not

yet been condemned by law. “I don’t know whether I am a Liberal

or not; but I do know that however had the present way of

conducting a trial is, it is better than the old.”

 

“And whom have you for an advocate?”

 

“I have spoken to Fanarin.”

 

“Dear me, Fanarin!” said Meslennikoff, with a grimace,

recollecting how this Fanarin had examined him as a witness at a

trial the year before and had, in the politest manner, held him

up to ridicule for half an hour.

 

“I should not advise you to have anything to do with him.

Fanarin est un homme tare.”

 

“I have one more request to make,” said Nekhludoff, without

answering him. “There’s a girl whom I knew long ago, a teacher;

she is a very pitiable little thing, and is now also imprisoned,

and would like to see me. Could you give me a permission to visit

her?”

 

Meslennikoff bent his head on one side and considered.

 

“She’s a political one?”

 

“Yes, I have been told so.”

 

“Well, you see, only relatives get permission to visit political

prisoners. Still, I’ll give you an open order. _Je sais que vous

n’abuserez pas_. What’s the name of your protegee? Doukhova? _Elle

est jolie?_”

 

“Hideuse.”

 

Maslennikoff shook his head disapprovingly, went up to the table,

and wrote on a sheet of paper, with a printed heading: “The

bearer, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff, is to be allowed to

interview in the prison office the meschanka Maslova, and also

the medical assistant, Doukhova,” and he finished with an

elaborate flourish.

 

“Now you’ll be able to see what order we have got there. And it

is very difficult to keep order, it is so crowded, especially

with people condemned to exile; but I watch strictly, and love

the work. You will see they are very comfortable and contented.

But one must know how to deal with them. Only a few days ago we

had a little trouble—insubordination; another would have called

it mutiny, and would have made many miserable, but with us it all

passed quietly. We must have solicitude on one hand, firmness and

power on the other,” and he clenched the fat, white,

turquoise-ringed fist, which issued out of the starched cuff of

his shirt sleeve, fastened with a gold stud. “Solicitude and firm

power.”

 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Nekhludoff. “I went there

twice, and felt very much depressed.”

 

“Do you know, you ought to get acquainted with the Countess

Passek,” continued Maslennikoff, growing talkative. “She has

given herself up entirely to this sort of work. Elle fait

beaucoup de bien. Thanks to her—and, perhaps I may add without

false modesty, to me—everything has been changed, changed in

such a way that the former horrors no longer exist, and they are

really quite comfortable there. Well, you’ll see. There’s

Fanarin. I do not know him personally; besides, my social

position keeps our ways apart; but he is positively a bad man,

and besides, he takes the liberty of saying such things in the

court—such things!”

 

“Well, thank you,” Nekhludoff said, taking the paper, and without

listening further he bade good-day to his former comrade.

 

“And won’t you go in to see my wife?”

 

“No, pray excuse me; I have no time now.”

 

“Dear me, why she will never forgive me,” said Maslennikoff,

accompanying his old acquaintance down to the first landing, as

he was in the habit of doing to persons of not the greatest, but

the second greatest importance, with whom he classed Nekhludoff;

“now do go in, if only for a moment.”

 

But Nekhludoff remained firm; and while the footman and the

doorkeeper rushed to give him his stick and overcoat, and opened

the door, outside of which there stood a policeman, Nekhludoff

repeated that he really could not come in.

 

“Well, then; on Thursday, please. It is her ‘at-home.’ I will

tell her you will come,” shouted Maslennikoff from the stairs.

 

CHAPTER LI.

 

THE CELLS.

 

Nekhludoff drove that day straight from Maslennikoff’s to the

prison, and went to the inspector’s lodging, which he now knew.

He was again struck by the sounds of the same piano of inferior

quality; but this time it was not a rhapsody that was being

played, but exercises by Clementi, again with the same vigour,

distinctness, and quickness. The servant with the bandaged eye

said the inspector was in, and showed Nekhludoff to a small

drawing-room, in which there stood a sofa and, in front of it, a

table, with a large lamp, which stood on a piece of crochet work,

and the paper shade of which was burnt on one side. The chief

inspector entered, with his usual sad and weary look.

 

“Take a seat, please. What is it you want?” he said, buttoning up

the middle button of his uniform.

 

“I have just been to the vice-governor’s, and got this order from

him. I should like to see the prisoner Maslova.”

 

“Markova?” asked the inspector, unable to bear distinctly because

of the music.

 

“Maslova!”

 

“Well, yes.” The inspector got up and went to the door whence

proceeded Clementi’s roulades.

 

“Mary, can’t you stop just a minute?” he said, in a voice that

showed that this music was the bane of his life. “One can’t hear

a word.”

 

The piano was silent, but one could hear the sound of reluctant

steps, and some one looked in at the door.

 

The inspector seemed to feel eased by the interval of silence,

lit a thick cigarette of weak tobacco, and offered one to

Nekhludoff.

 

Nekhludoff refused.

 

“What I want is to see Maslova.”

 

“Oh, yes, that can be managed. Now, then, what do you want?” he

said, addressing a little girl of five or six, who came into the

room and walked up to her father with her head turned towards

Nekhludoff, and her eyes fixed on him.

 

“There, now, you’ll fall down,” said the inspector, smiling, as

the little girl ran up to him, and, not looking where she was

going, caught her foot in a little rug.

 

“Well, then, if I may, I shall go.”

 

“It’s not very convenient to see Maslova to-day,” said the

inspector.

 

“How’s that?”

 

“Well, you know, it’s all your own fault,” said the inspector,

with a slight smile. “Prince, give her no money into her hands.

If you like, give it me. I will keep it for her. You see, you

gave her some money yesterday; she got some spirits (it’s an evil

we cannot manage to root out), and to-day she is quite tipsy,

even violent.”

 

“Can this be true?”

 

“Oh, yes, it is. I have even been obliged to have recourse to

severe measures, and to put her into a separate cell. She is a

quiet woman in an ordinary way. But please do not give her any

money. These people are so—” What had happened the day before

came vividly back to Nekhludoff’s mind, and again he was seized

with fear.

 

“And Doukhova, a political prisoner; might I see her?”

 

“Yes, if you like,” said the inspector. He embraced the little

girl, who was still looking at Nekhludoff, got up, and, tenderly

motioning her aside, went into the anteroom. Hardly had he got

into