Resurrection Leo Tolstoy (ebook reader for pc .txt) 📖

Nekhlúdoff knew this convict, and was surprised by his action. When in Ekáterinburg the convict had asked Nekhlúdoff to get a permission for his wife to follow him. The convict was a man of medium size and of the most ordinary peasant type, about thirty years old. He was condemned to hard labour for an attempt to murder and rob. His name was Makár Dévkin. His crime was a very curious one. In the account he gave of it to Nekhlúdoff, he said it was not his but his devil’s doing. He said that a traveller had come to his father’s house and hired his sledge to drive him to a village thirty miles off for two roubles. Makár’s father told him to drive the stranger. Makár harnessed the horse, dressed, and sat down to drink tea with the stranger. The stranger related at the tea-table that he was going to be married and had 500 roubles, which he had earned in Moscow, with him. When he had heard this, Makár went out into the yard and put an axe into the sledge under the straw. “And I did not myself know why I was taking the axe,” he said. “ ‘Take the axe,’ says he, and I took it. We got in and started. We drove along all right; I even forgot about the axe. Well, we were getting near the village; only about four miles more to go. The way from the crossroad to the high road was up hill, and I got out. I walked behind the sledge and he whispers to me, ‘What are you thinking about? When you get to the top of the hill you will meet people along the highway, and then there will be the village. He will carry the money away. If you mean to do it, now’s the time.’ I stooped over the sledge as if to arrange the straw, and the axe seemed to jump into my hand of itself. The man turned round. ‘What are you doing?’ I lifted the axe and tried to knock him down, but he was quick, jumped out, and took hold of my hands. ‘What are you doing, you villain?’ He threw me down into the snow, and I did not even struggle, but gave in at once. He bound my arms with his girdle, and threw me into the sledge, and took me straight to the police station. I was imprisoned and tried. The commune gave me a good character, said that I was a good man, and that nothing wrong had been noticed about me. The masters for whom I worked also spoke well of me, but we had no money to engage a lawyer, and so I was condemned to four years’ hard labour.”

It was this man who, wishing to save a fellow-villager, knowing that he was risking his life thereby, told Nekhlúdoff the prisoner’s secret, for doing which (if found out) he should certainly be throttled.

The political prisoners were kept in two small rooms, the doors of which opened into a part of the passage partitioned off from the rest. The first person Nekhlúdoff saw on entering into this part of the passage was Símonson in his rubber jacket and with a log of pine wood in his hands, crouching in front of a stove, the door of which trembled, drawn in by the heat inside.

When he saw Nekhlúdoff he looked up at him from under his protruding brow, and gave him his hand without rising.

“I am glad you have come; I want to speak to you,” he said, looking Nekhlúdoff straight in the eyes with an expression of importance.

“Yes; what is it?” Nekhlúdoff asked.

“It will do later on; I am busy just now,” and Símonson turned again towards the stove, which he was heating according to a theory of his own, so as to lose as little heat energy as possible.

Nekhlúdoff was going to enter in at the first door, when Máslova, stooping and pushing a large heap of rubbish and dust towards the stove with a handleless birch broom, came out of the other. She had a white jacket on, her skirt was tucked up, and a kerchief, drawn down to her eyebrows, protected her hair from the dust. When she saw Nekhlúdoff, she drew herself up, flushing and animated, put down the broom, wiped her hands on her skirt, and stopped right in front of him. “You are tidying up the apartments, I see,” said Nekhlúdoff, shaking hands.

“Yes; my old occupation,” and she smiled. “But the dirt! You can’t imagine what it is. We have been cleaning and cleaning. Well, is the plaid dry?” she asked, turning to Símonson.

“Almost,” Símonson answered, giving her a strange look, which struck Nekhlúdoff.

“All right, I’ll come for it, and will bring the cloaks to dry. Our people are all in here,” she said to Nekhlúdoff, pointing to the first door as she went out of the second.

Nekhlúdoff opened the door and entered a small room dimly lit by a little metal lamp, which was standing low down on the shelf bedstead. It was cold in the room, and there was a smell of the dust, which had not had time to settle, damp and tobacco smoke.

Only those who were close to the lamp were clearly visible, the bedsteads were in the shade and wavering shadows glided over the walls. Two men, appointed as caterers, who had gone to fetch boiling water and provisions, were away; most of the political prisoners were gathered together in the small room. There was Nekhlúdoff’s old acquaintance, Véra Doúkhova, with her large, frightened eyes, and the swollen vein on her forehead, in a grey jacket with short hair, and thinner and yellower than ever. She had a newspaper spread out in front of her, and sat rolling cigarettes with a jerky movement of her hands.

Emily Rántzeva, whom Nekhlúdoff considered to be the pleasantest of