The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents) (164 page)

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."