"What's that for?" he thought, his mind involuntarily connecting the subject of the picture with liberation and not with imprisonment.
He went on, slowly letting the hurrying visitors pass before, and experiencing a mingled feeling of horror at the evil-doers locked up in this building, compassion for those who, like Katusha and the boy they tried the day before, must be here though guiltless, and shyness and tender emotion at the thought of the interview before him. The warder at the other end of the meeting-room said something as they passed, but Nekhludoff, absorbed by his own thoughts, paid no attention to him, and continued to follow the majority of the visitors, and so got into the men's part of the prison instead of the women's.
Letting the hurrying visitors pass before him, he was the last to get into the interviewing-room. As soon as Nekhludoff opened the door of this room, he was struck by the deafening roar of a hundred voices shouting at once, the reason of which he did not at once understand. But when he came nearer to the people, he saw that they were all pressing against a net that divided the room in two, like flies settling on sugar, and he understood what it meant. The two halves of the room, the windows of which were opposite the door he had come in by, were separated, not by one, but by two nets reaching from the floor to the ceiling. The wire nets were stretched 7 feet apart, and soldiers were walking up and down the space between them. On the further side of the nets were the prisoners, on the nearer, the visitors. Between them was a double row of nets and a space of 7 feet wide, so that they could not hand anything to one another, and any one whose sight was not very good could not even distinguish the face on the other side. It was also difficult to talk; one had to scream in order to be heard.
On both sides were faces pressed close to the nets, faces of wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, children, trying to see each other's features and to say what was necessary in such a way as to be understood.
But as each one tried to be heard by the one he was talking to, and his neighbour tried to do the same, they did their best to drown each other's voices' and that was the cause of the din and shouting which struck Nekhludoff when he first came in. It was impossible to understand what was being said and what were the relations between the different people. Next Nekhludoff an old woman with a kerchief on her head stood trembling, her chin pressed close to the net, and shouting something to a young fellow, half of whose head was shaved, who listened attentively with raised brows. By the side of the old woman was a young man in a peasant's coat, who listened, shaking his head, to a boy very like himself. Next stood a man in rags, who shouted, waving his arm and laughing. Next to him a woman, with a good woollen shawl on her shoulders, sat on the floor holding a baby in her lap and crying bitterly. This was apparently the first time she saw the greyheaded man on the other side in prison clothes, and with his head shaved. Beyond her was the doorkeeper, who had spoken to Nekhludoff outside; he was shouting with all his might to a greyhaired convict on the other side.
When Nekhludoff found that he would have to speak in similar conditions, a feeling of indignation against those who were able to make and enforce these conditions arose in him; he was surprised that, placed in such a dreadful position, no one seemed offended at this outrage on human feelings. The soldiers, the inspector, the prisoners themselves, acted as if acknowledging all this to be necessary.
Nekhludoff remained in this room for about five minutes, feeling strangely depressed, conscious of how powerless he was, and at variance with all the world. He was seized with a curious moral sensation like seasickness.
CHAPTER XLII.
VISITING DAY--THE WOMEN'S WARD.
"Well, but I must do what I came here for," he said, trying to pick up courage. "What is to be done now?" He looked round for an official, and seeing a thin little man in the uniform of an officer going up and down behind the people, he approached him.
"Can you tell me, sir," he said, with exceedingly strained politeness of manner, "where the women are kept, and where one is allowed to interview them?"
"Is it the women's ward you want to go to?"
"Yes, I should like to see one of the women prisoners,"
Nekhludoff said, with the same strained politeness.
"You should have said so when you were in the hall. Who is it, then, that you want to see?"
"I want to see a prisoner called Katerina Maslova."
"Is she a political one?"
"No, she is simply . . ."
"What! Is she sentenced?"
"Yes; the day before yesterday she was sentenced," meekly answered Nekhludoff, fearing to spoil the inspector's good humour, which seemed to incline in his favour.
"If you want to go to the women's ward please to step this way," said the officer, having decided from Nekhludoff's appearance that he was worthy of attention. "Sideroff, conduct the gentleman to the women's ward," he said, turning to a moustached corporal with medals on his breast.
"Yes, sir."
At this moment heart-rending sobs were heard coming from some one near the net.
Everything here seemed strange to Nekhludoff; but strangest of all was that he should have to thank and feel obligation towards the inspector and the chief warders, the very men who were performing the cruel deeds that were done in this house.
The corporal showed Nekhludoff through the corridor, out of the men's into the women's interviewing-room.
This room, like that of the men, was divided by two wire nets; but it was much smaller, and there were fewer visitors and fewer prisoners, so that there was less shouting than in the men's room. Yet the same thing was going on here, only, between the nets instead of soldiers there was a woman warder, dressed in a blue-edged uniform jacket, with gold cords on the sleeves, and a blue belt. Here also, as in the men's room, the people were pressing close to the wire netting on both sides; on the nearer side, the townspeople in varied attire; on the further side, the prisoners, some in white prison clothes, others in their own coloured dresses. The whole length of the net was taken up by the people standing close to it. Some rose on tiptoe to be heard across the heads of others; some sat talking on the floor.
The most remarkable of the prisoners, both by her piercing screams and her appearance, was a thin, dishevelled gipsy. Her kerchief had slipped off her curly hair, and she stood near a post in the middle of the prisoner's division, shouting something, accompanied by quick gestures, to a gipsy man in a blue coat, girdled tightly below the waist. Next the gipsy man, a soldier sat on the ground talking to prisoner; next the soldier, leaning close to the net, stood a young peasant, with a fair beard and a flushed face, keeping back his tears with difficulty. A pretty, fair-haired prisoner, with bright blue eyes, was speaking to him. These two were Theodosia and her husband. Next to them was a tramp, talking to a broad-faced woman; then two women, then a man, then again a woman, and in front of each a prisoner. Maslova was not among them. But some one stood by the window behind the prisoners, and Nekhludoff knew it was she. His heart began to beat faster, and his breath stopped. The decisive moment was approaching. He went up to the part of the net where he could see the prisoner, and recognised her at once. She stood behind the blue-eyed Theodosia, and smiled, listening to what Theodosia was saying. She did not wear the prison cloak now, but a white dress, tightly drawn in at the waist by a belt, and very full in the bosom. From under her kerchief appeared the black ringlets of her fringe, just the same as in the court.
"Now, in a moment it will be decided," he thought.
"How shall I call her? Or will she come herself?"
She was expecting Bertha; that this man had come to see her never entered her head.
"Whom do you want?" said the warder who was walking between the nets, coming up to Nekhludoff.
"Katerina Maslova," Nekhludoff uttered, with difficulty.
"Katerina Maslova, some one to see you," cried the warder.
CHAPTER XLIII.
NEKHLUDOFF VISITS MASLOVA.
Maslova looked round, and with head thrown back a
nd expanded chest, came up to the net with that expression of readiness which he well knew, pushed in between two prisoners, and gazed at Nekhludoff with a surprised and questioning look. But, concluding from his clothing he was a rich man, she smiled.
"Is it me you want?" she asked, bringing her smiling face, with the slightly squinting eyes, nearer the net.
"I, I--I wished to see--" Nekhludoff did not know how to address her. "I wished to see you--I--" He was not speaking louder than usual.
"No; nonsense, I tell you!" shouted the tramp who stood next to him. "Have you taken it or not?"
"Dying, I tell you; what more do you want?" some one else was screaming at his other side. Maslova could not hear what Nekhludoff was saying, but the expression of his face as he was speaking reminded her of him. She did not believe her own eyes; still the smile vanished from her face and a deep line of suffering appeared on her brow.
"I cannot hear what you are saying," she called out, wrinkling her brow and frowning more and more.
"I have come," said Nekhludoff. "Yes, I am doing my duty--I am confessing," thought Nekhludoff; and at this thought the tears came in his eyes, and he felt a choking sensation in his throat, and holding on with both hands to the net, he made efforts to keep from bursting into tears.
"I say, why do you shove yourself in where you're not wanted?" some one shouted at one side of him.
"God is my witness; I know nothing," screamed a prisoner from the other side.
Noticing his excitement, Maslova recognised him.
"You're like . . . but no; I don't know you," she shouted, without looking at him, and blushing, while her face grew still more stern.
"I have come to ask you to forgive me," he said, in a loud but monotonous voice, like a lesson learnt by heart. Having said these words he became confused; but immediately came the thought that, if he felt ashamed, it was all the better; he had to bear this shame, and he continued in a loud voice:
"Forgive me; I have wronged you terribly."
She stood motionless and without taking her squinting eyes off him.
He could not continue to speak, and stepping away from the net he tried to suppress the sobs that were choking him.
The inspector, the same officer who had directed Nekhludoff to the women's ward, and whose interest he seemed to have aroused, came into the room, and, seeing Nekhludoff not at the net, asked him why he was not talking to her whom he wanted to see. Nekhludoff blew his nose, gave himself a shake, and, trying to appear calm, said:
"It's so inconvenient through these nets; nothing can be heard."
Again the inspector considered for a moment.
"Ah, well, she can be brought out here for awhile. Mary
Karlovna," turning to the warder, "lead Maslova out."
A minute later Maslova came out of the side door. Stepping softly, she came up close to Nekhludoff, stopped, and looked up at him from under her brows. Her black hair was arranged in ringlets over her forehead in the same way as it had been two days ago; her face, though unhealthy and puffy, was attractive, and looked perfectly calm, only the glittering black eyes glanced strangely from under the swollen lids.
"You may talk here," said the inspector, and shrugging his shoulders he stepped aside with a look of surprise. Nekhludoff moved towards a seat by the wall.
Maslova cast a questioning look at the inspector, and then, shrugging her shoulders in surprise, followed Nekhludoff to the bench, and having arranged her skirt, sat down beside him.
"I know it is hard for you to forgive me," he began, but stopped. His tears were choking him. "But though I can't undo the past, I shall now do what is in my power. Tell me--"
"How have you managed to find me?" she said, without answering his question, neither looking away from him nor quite at him, with her squinting eyes.
"O God, help me! Teach me what to do," Nekhludoff thought, looking at her changed face. "I was on the jury the day before yesterday," he said. "You did not recognise me?"
"No, I did not; there was not time for recognitions. I did not even look," she said.
"There was a child, was there not?" he asked.
"Thank God! he died at once," she answered, abruptly and viciously.
"What do you mean? Why?"
"I was so ill myself, I nearly died," she said, in the same quiet voice, which Nekhludoff had not expected and could not understand.
"How could my aunts have let you go?"
"Who keeps a servant that has a baby? They sent me off as soon as they noticed. But why speak of this? I remember nothing. That's all finished."
"No, it is not finished; I wish to redeem my sin."
"There's nothing to redeem. What's been has been and is passed," she said; and, what he never expected, she looked at him and smiled in an unpleasantly luring, yet piteous, manner.
Maslova never expected to see him again, and certainly not here and not now; therefore, when she first recognised him, she could not keep back the memories which she never wished to revive. In the first moment she remembered dimly that new, wonderful world of feeling and of thought which had been opened to her by the charming young man who loved her and whom she loved, and then his incomprehensible cruelty and the whole string of humiliations and suffering which flowed from and followed that magic joy. This gave her pain, and, unable to understand it, she did what she was always in the habit of doing, she got rid of these memories by enveloping them in the mist of a depraved life. In the first moment, she associated the man now sitting beside her with the lad she had loved; but feeling that this gave her pain, she dissociated them again. Now, this well-dressed, carefully-got-up gentleman with perfumed beard was no longer the Nekhludoff whom she had loved but only one of the people who made use of creatures like herself when they needed them, and whom creatures like herself had to make use of in their turn as profitably as they could; and that is why she looked at him with a luring smile and considered silently how she could best make use of him.
"That's all at an end," she said. "Now I'm condemned to Siberia," and her lip trembled as she was saying this dreadful word.
"I knew; I was certain you were not guilty," said Nekhludoff.
"Guilty! of course not; as if I could be a thief or a robber." She stopped, considering in what way she could best get something out of him.
"They say here that all depends on the advocate," she began. "A petition should be handed in, only they say it's expensive."
"Yes, most certainly," said Nekhludoff. "I have already spoken to an advocate."
"No money ought to be spared; it should be a good one," she said.
"I shall do all that is possible."
They were silent, and then she smiled again in the same way.
"And I should like to ask you . . . a little money if you can . . . not much; ten roubles, I do not want more," she said, suddenly.
"Yes, yes," Nekhludoff said, with a sense of confusion, and felt for his purse.
She looked rapidly at the inspector, who was walking up and down the room. "Don't give it in front of him; he'd take it away."
Nekhludoff took out his purse as soon as the inspector had turned his back; but had no time to hand her the note before the inspector faced them again, so he crushed it up in his hand.
"This woman is dead," Nekhludoff thought, looking at this once sweet, and now defiled, puffy face, lit up by an evil glitter in the black, squinting eyes which were now glancing at the hand in which he held the note, then following the inspector's movements, and for a moment he hesitated. The tempter that had been speaking to him in the night again raised its voice, trying to lead him out of the realm of his inner into the realm of his outer life, away from the question of what he should do to the question of what the consequences would be, and what would be practical.
"You can do nothing with this woman," said the voice; "you will only tie a stone round your neck, which will help to drown you and hinder you from being useful to others.
"Is it not better to give her all the mon
ey that is here, say good-bye, and finish with her forever?" whispered the voice.
But here he felt that now, at this very moment, something most important was taking place in his soul--that his inner life was, as it were, wavering in the balance, so that the slightest effort would make it sink to this side or the other. And he made this effort by calling to his assistance that God whom he had felt in his soul the day before, and that God instantly responded. He resolved to tell her everything now--at once.
"Katusha, I have come to ask you to forgive me, and you have given me no answer. Have you forgiven me? Will you ever forgive me?" he asked.
She did not listen to him, but looked at his hand and at the inspector, and when the latter turned she hastily stretched out her hand, grasped the note, and hid it under her belt.
"That's odd, what you are saying there," she said, with a smile of contempt, as it seemed to him.
Nekhludoff felt that there was in her soul one who was his enemy and who was protecting her, such as she was now, and preventing him from getting at her heart. But, strange to say, this did not repel him, but drew him nearer to her by some fresh, peculiar power. He knew that he must waken her soul, that this was terribly difficult, but the very difficulty attracted him. He now felt towards her as he had never felt towards her or any one else before. There was nothing personal in this feeling: he wanted nothing from her for himself, but only wished that she might not remain as she now was, that she might awaken and become again what she had been.
"Katusha, why do you speak like that? I know you; I remember you--and the old days in Papovo."
"What's the use of recalling what's past?" she remarked, drily.
"I am recalling it in order to put it right, to atone for my sin, Katusha," and he was going to say that he would marry her, but, meeting her eyes, he read in them something so dreadful, so coarse, so repellent, that he could not go on.
At this moment the visitors began to go. The inspector came up to
Nekhludoff and said that the time was up.