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

all gone to wash,” said the Vladímir woman. “I heard them say much has been given in alms today. Quite a lot has been brought.”

“Fináshka,” called out the watchman’s wife, “where’s the little imp gone to?”

She took a knitting needle, stuck it through both the ball and the stocking, and went out into the corridor.

At this moment the sound of women’s voices was heard from the corridor, and the inmates of the cell entered, with their prison shoes, but no stockings on their feet. Each was carrying a roll, some even two. Theodosia came at once up to Máslova.

“What’s the matter; is anything wrong?” Theodosia asked, looking lovingly at Máslova with her clear, blue eyes. “This is for our tea,” and she put the rolls on a shelf.

“Why, surely he has not changed his mind about marrying?” asked Korabléva.

“No, he has not, but I don’t wish to,” said Máslova, “and so I told him.”

“More fool you!” muttered Korabléva in her deep tones.

“If one’s not to live together, what’s the use of marrying?” said Theodosia.

“There’s your husband⁠—he’s going with you,” said the watchman’s wife.

“Well, of course, we’re married,” said Theodosia. “But why should he go through the ceremony if he is not to live with her?”

“Why, indeed! Don’t be a fool! You know if he marries her she’ll roll in wealth,” said Korabléva.

“He says, ‘Wherever they take you, I’ll follow,’ ” said Máslova. “If he does, it’s well; if he does not, well also. I am not going to ask him to. Now he is going to try and arrange the matter in Petersburg. He is related to all the Ministers there. But, all the same, I have no need of him,” she continued.

“Of course not,” suddenly agreed Korabléva, evidently thinking about something else as she sat examining her bag. “Well, shall we have a drop?”

“You have some,” replied Máslova. “I won’t.”

Book II I

It was possible for Máslova’s case to come before the Senate in a fortnight, at which time Nekhlúdoff meant to go to Petersburg, and, if need be, to appeal to the Emperor (as the advocate who had drawn up the petition advised) should the appeal be disregarded (and, according to the advocate, it was best to be prepared for that, since the causes for appeal were so slight). The party of convicts, among whom was Máslova, would very likely leave in the beginning of June. In order to be able to follow her to Siberia, as Nekhlúdoff was firmly resolved to do, he was now obliged to visit his estates, and settle matters there. Nekhlúdoff first went to the nearest, Kousmínski, a large estate that lay in the black earth district, and from which he derived the greatest part of his income.

He had lived on that estate in his childhood and youth, and had been there twice since, and once, at his mother’s request, he had taken a German steward there, and had with him verified the accounts. The state of things there and the peasants’ relations to the management, i.e., the landlord, had therefore been long known to him. The relations of the peasants to the administration were those of utter dependence on that management. Nekhlúdoff knew all this when still a university student, he had confessed and preached Henry Georgeism, and, on the basis of that teaching, had given the land inherited from his father to the peasants. It is true that after entering the army, when he got into the habit of spending 20,000 roubles a year, those former occupations ceased to be regarded as a duty, and were forgotten, and he not only left off asking himself where the money his mother allowed him came from, but even avoided thinking about it. But his mother’s death, the coming into the property, and the necessity of managing it, again raised the question as to what his position in reference to private property in land was. A month before Nekhlúdoff would have answered that he had not the strength to alter the existing order of things; that it was not he who was administering the estate; and would one way or another have eased his conscience, continuing to live far from his estates, and having the money sent him. But now he decided that he could not leave things to go on as they were, but would have to alter them in a way unprofitable to himself, even though he had all these complicated and difficult relations with the prison world which made money necessary, as well as a probable journey to Siberia before him. Therefore he decided not to farm the land, but to let it to the peasants at a low rent, to enable them to cultivate it without depending on a landlord. More than once, when comparing the position of a landowner with that of an owner of serfs, Nekhlúdoff had compared the renting of land to the peasants instead of cultivating it with hired labour, to the old system by which serf proprietors used to exact a money payment from their serfs in place of labour. It was not a solution of the problem, and yet a step towards the solution; it was a movement towards a less rude form of slavery. And it was in this way he meant to act.

Nekhlúdoff reached Kousmínski about noon. Trying to simplify his life in every way, he did not telegraph, but hired a cart and pair at the station. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen coat, with a belt below his long waist. He was glad to talk to the gentleman, especially because while they were talking his broken-winded white horse and the emaciated spavined one could go at a foot-pace, which they always liked to do.

The driver spoke about the steward at Kousmínski without knowing that he was driving “the master.” Nekhlúdoff had purposely not told him who he was.

“That ostentatious German,” said the driver (who had been to town and