The girl with the prominent eyes--Nekhludoff could not help watching her--was standing opposite the sobbing mother, and was saying something to her in a soothing tone. The old man with the blue spectacles stood holding his daughter's hand and nodding in answer to what she said. The young lovers rose, and, holding each other's hands, looked silently into one another's eyes.
"These are the only two who are merry," said a young man with a short coat who stood by Nekhludoff's side, also looking at those who were about to part, and pointed to the lovers. Feeling Nekhludoff's and the young man's eyes fixed on them, the lovers-- the young man with the rubber coat and the pretty girl--stretched out their arms, and with their hands clasped in each other's, danced round and round again. "To-night they are going to be married here in prison, and she will follow him to Siberia," said the young man.
"What is he?"
"A convict, condemned to penal servitude. Let those two at least have a little joy, or else it is too painful," the young man added, listening to the sobs of the consumptive lad's mother.
"Now, my good people! Please, please do not oblige me to have recourse to severe measures," the inspector said, repeating the same words several times over. "Do, please," he went on in a weak, hesitating manner. "It is high time. What do you mean by it? This sort of thing is quite impossible. I am now asking you for the last time," he repeated wearily, now putting out his cigarette and then lighting another.
It was evident that, artful, old, and common as were the devices enabling men to do evil to others without feeling responsible for it, the inspector could not but feel conscious that he was one of those who were guilty of causing the sorrow which manifested itself in this room. And it was apparent that this troubled him sorely. At length the prisoners and their visitors began to go--the first out of the inner, the latter out of the outer door. The man with the rubber jacket passed out among them, and the consumptive youth and the dishevelled man. Mary Pavlovna went out with the boy born in prison.
The visitors went out too. The old man with the blue spectacles, stepping heavily, went out, followed by Nekhludoff.
"Yes, a strange state of things this," said the talkative young man, as if continuing an interrupted conversation, as he descended the stairs side by side with Nekhludoff. "Yet we have reason to be grateful to the inspector who does not keep strictly to the rules, kind-hearted fellow. If they can get a talk it does relieve their hearts a bit, after all!"
While talking to the young man, who introduced himself as Medinzeff, Nekhludoff reached the hall. There the inspector came up to them with weary step.
"If you wish to see Maslova," he said, apparently desiring to be polite to Nekhludoff, "please come tomorrow."
"Very well," answered Nekhludoff, and hurried away, experiencing more than ever that sensation of moral nausea which he always felt on entering the prison.
The sufferings of the evidently innocent Menshoff seemed terrible, and not so much his physical suffering as the perplexity, the distrust in the good and in God which he must feel, seeing the cruelty of the people who tormented him without any reason.
Terrible were the disgrace and sufferings cast on these hundreds of guiltless people simply because something was not written on paper as it should have been. Terrible were the brutalised jailers, whose occupation is to torment their brothers, and who were certain that they were fulfilling an important and useful duty; but most terrible of all seemed this sickly, elderly, kind-hearted inspector, who was obliged to part mother and son, father and daughter, who were just the same sort of people as he and his own children.
"What is it all for?" Nekhludoff asked himself, and could not find an answer.
CHAPTER LVII.
THE VICE-GOVERNOR'S "AT-HOME".
The next day Nekhludoff went to see the advocate, and spoke to him about the Menshoffs' case, begging him to undertake their defence. The advocate promised to look into the case, and if it turned out to be as Nekhludoff said he would in all probability undertake the defence free of charge. Then Nekhludoff told him of the 130 men who were kept in prison owing to a mistake. "On whom did it depend? Whose fault was it?"
The advocate was silent for a moment, evidently anxious to give a correct reply.
"Whose fault is it? No one's," he said, decidedly. "Ask the Procureur, he'll say it is the Governor's; ask the Governor, he'll say it is the Procureur's fault. No one is in fault."
"I am just going to see the Vice-Governor. I shall tell him."
"Oh, that's quite useless," said the advocate, with a smile. "He is such a--he is not a relation or friend of yours?--such a blockhead, if I may say so, and yet a crafty animal at the same time."
Nekhludoff remembered what Maslennikoff had said about the advocate, and did not answer, but took leave and went on to Maslennikoff's. He had to ask Maslennikoff two things: about Maslova's removal to the prison hospital, and about the 130 passportless men innocently imprisoned. Though it was very hard to petition a man whom he did not respect, and by whose orders men were flogged, yet it was the only means of gaining his end, and he had to go through with it.
As he drove up to Maslennikoff's house Nekhludoff saw a number of different carriages by the front door, and remembered that it was Maslennikoff's wife's "at-home" day, to which he had been invited. At the moment Nekhludoff drove up there was a carriage in front of the door, and a footman in livery, with a cockade in his hat, was helping a lady down the doorstep. She was holding up her train, and showing her thin ankles, black stockings, and slippered feet. Among the carriages was a closed landau, which he knew to be the Korchagins'.
The grey-haired, red-checked coachman took off his hat and bowed in a respectful yet friendly manner to Nekhludoff, as to a gentleman he knew well. Nekhludoff had not had time to inquire for Maslennikoff, when the latter appeared on the carpeted stairs, accompanying a very important guest not only to the first landing but to the bottom of the stairs. This very important visitor, a military man, was speaking in French about a lottery for the benefit of children's homes that were to be founded in the city, and expressed the opinion that this was a good occupation for the ladies. "It amuses them, and the money comes."
"Qu'elles s'amusent et que le bon dieu les benisse. M. Nekhludoff! How d'you do? How is it one never sees you?" he greeted Nekhludoff. "Allez presenter vos devoirs a Madame. And the Korchagins are here et Nadine Bukshevden. Toutes les jolies femmes de la ville," said the important guest, slightly raising his uniformed shoulders as he presented them to his own richly liveried servant to have his military overcoat put on. "Au revoir, mon cher." And he pressed Maslennikoff's hand.
"Now, come up; I am so glad," said Maslennikoff, grasping Nekhludoff's hand. In spite of his corpulency Maslennikoff hurried quickly up the stairs. He was in particularly good spirits, owing to the attention paid him by the important personage. Every such attention gave him the same sense of delight as is felt by an affectionate dog when its master pats it, strokes it, or scratches its ears. It wags its tail, cringes, jumps about, presses its ears down, and madly rushes about in a circle. Maslennikoff was ready to do the same. He did not notice the serious expression on Nekhludoff's face, paid no heed to his words, but pulled him irresistibly towards the drawing-room, so that it was impossible for Nekhludoff not to follow. "Business after wards. I shall do whatever you want," said Meslennikoff, as he drew Nekhludoff through the dancing hall. "Announce Prince Nekhludoff," he said to a footman, without stopping on his way. The footman started off at a trot and passed them.
"Vous n'avez qu' a ordonner. But you must see my wife. As it is, I got it for letting you go without seeing her last time."
By the time they reached the drawing-room the footman had already announced Nekhludoff, and from between the bonnets and heads that surrounded it the smiling face of Anna Ignatievna, the Vice-Governor's wife, beamed on Nekhludoff. At the other end of the drawing-room several ladies were seated round the tea-table, and some military men and some civilians stood near them. The clatter of male
and female voices went on unceasingly.
"Enfin! you seem to have quite forgotten us. How have we offended?" With these words, intended to convey an idea of intimacy which had never existed between herself and Nekhludoff, Anna Ignatievna greeted the newcomer.
"You are acquainted?--Madam Tilyaevsky, M. Chernoff. Sit down a bit nearer. Missy vene donc a notre table on vous apportera votre the . . . And you," she said, having evidently forgotten his name, to an officer who was talking to Missy, "do come here. A cup of tea, Prince?"
"I shall never, never agree with you. It's quite simple; she did not love," a woman's voice was heard saying.
"But she loved tarts."
"Oh, your eternal silly jokes!" put in, laughingly, another lady resplendent in silks, gold, and jewels.
"C'est excellent these little biscuits, and so light. I think
I'll take another."
"Well, are you moving soon?"
"Yes, this is our last day. That's why we have come. Yes, it must be lovely in the country; we are having a delightful spring."
Missy, with her hat on, in a dark-striped dress of some kind that fitted her like a skin, was looking very handsome. She blushed when she saw Nekhludoff.
"And I thought you had left," she said to him.
"I am on the point of leaving. Business is keeping me in town, and it is on business I have come here."
"Won't you come to see mamma? She would like to see you," she said, and knowing that she was saying what was not true, and that he knew it also, she blushed still more.
"I fear I shall scarcely have time," Nekhludoff said gloomily, trying to appear as if he had not noticed her blush. Missy frowned angrily, shrugged her shoulders, and turned towards an elegant officer, who grasped the empty cup she was holding, and knocking his sword against the chairs, manfully carried the cup across to another table.
"You must contribute towards the Home fund."
"I am not refusing, but only wish to keep my bounty fresh for the lottery. There I shall let it appear in all its glory."
"Well, look out for yourself," said a voice, followed by an evidently feigned laugh.
Anna Ignatievna was in raptures; her "at-home" had turned out a brilliant success. "Micky tells me you are busying yourself with prison work. I can understand you so well," she said to Nekhludoff. "Micky (she meant her fat husband, Maslennikoff) may have other defects, but you know how kind-hearted he is. All these miserable prisoners are his children. He does not regard them in any other light. Il est d'une bonte---" and she stopped, finding no words to do justice to this bonte of his, and quickly turned to a shrivelled old woman with bows of lilac ribbon all over, who came in just then.
Having said as much as was absolutely necessary, and with as little meaning as conventionality required, Nekhludoff rose and went up to Meslennikoff. "Can you give me a few minutes' hearing, please?"
"Oh, yes. Well, what is it?"
"Let us come in here."
They entered a small Japanese sitting-room, and sat down by the window.
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE VICE-GOVERNOR SUSPICIOUS.
"Well? Je suis a vous. Will you smoke? But wait a bit; we must be careful and not make a mess here," said Maslennikoff, and brought an ashpan. "Well?"
"There are two matters I wish to ask you about."
"Dear me!"
An expression of gloom and dejection came over Maslennikoff's countenance, and every trace of the excitement, like that of the dog's whom its master has scratched behind the cars, vanished completely. The sound of voices reached them from the drawing-room. A woman's voice was heard, saying, "Jamais je ne croirais," and a man's voice from the other side relating something in which the names of la Comtesse Voronzoff and Victor Apraksine kept recurring. A hum of voices, mixed with laughter, came from another side. Maslennikoff tried to listen to what was going on in the drawing-room and to what Nekhludoff was saying at the same time.
"I am again come about that same woman," said Nekhludoff.
"Oh, yes; I know. The one innocently condemned."
"I would like to ask that she should be appointed to serve in the prison hospital. I have been told that this could be arranged."
Maslennikoff compressed his lips and meditated. "That will be scarcely possible," he said. "However, I shall see what can be done, and shall wire you an answer tomorrow."
"I have been told that there were many sick, and help was needed."
"All right, all right. I shall let you know in any case."
"Please do," said Nekhludoff.
The sound of a general and even a natural laugh came from the drawing-room.
"That's all that Victor. He is wonderfully sharp when he is in the right vein," said Maslennikoff.
"The next thing I wanted to tell you," said Nekhludoff, "is that 130 persons are imprisoned only because their passports are overdue. They have been kept here a month."
And he related the circumstances of the case.
"How have you come to know of this?" said Maslennikoff, looking uneasy and dissatisfied.
"I went to see a prisoner, and these men came and surrounded me in the corridor, and asked . . ."
"What prisoner did you go to see?"
"A peasant who is kept in prison, though innocent. I have put his case into the hands of a lawyer. But that is not the point."
"Is it possible that people who have done no wrong are imprisoned only because their passports are overdue? And . . ."
"That's the Procureur's business," Maslennikoff interrupted, angrily. "There, now, you see what it is you call a prompt and just form of trial. It is the business of the Public Prosecutor to visit the prison and to find out if the prisoners are kept there lawfully. But that set play cards; that's all they do."
"Am I to understand that you can do nothing?" Nekhludoff said, despondently, remembering that the advocate had foretold that the Governor would put the blame on the Procureur.
"Oh, yes, I can. I shall see about it at once."
"So much the worse for her. C'est un souffre douleur," came the voice of a woman, evidently indifferent to what she was saying, from the drawing-room.
"So much the better. I shall take it also," a man's voice was heard to say from the other side, followed by the playful laughter of a woman, who was apparently trying to prevent the man from taking something away from her.
"No, no; not on any account," the woman's voice said.
"All right, then. I shall do all this," Maslennikoff repeated, and put out the cigarette he held in his white, turquoise-ringed hand. "And now let us join the ladies."
"Wait a moment," Nekhludoff said, stopping at the door of the drawing-room. "I was told that some men had received corporal punishment in the prison yesterday. Is this true?"
Maslennikoff blushed.
"Oh, that's what you are after? No, mon cher, decidedly it won't do to let you in there; you want to get at everything. Come, come; Anna is calling us," he said, catching Nekhludoff by the arm, and again becoming as excited as after the attention paid him by the important person, only now his excitement was not joyful, but anxious.
Nekhludoff pulled his arm away, and without taking leave of any one and without saying a word, he passed through the drawing-room with a dejected look, went down into the hall, past the footman, who sprang towards him, and out at the street door.
"What is the matter with him? What have you done to him?" asked
Anna of her husband.
"This is a la Francaise," remarked some one.
"A la Francaise, indeed--it is a la Zoulou."
"Oh, but he's always been like that."
Some one rose, some one came in, and the clatter went on its course. The company used this episode with Nekhludoff as a convenient topic of conversation for the rest of the "at-home."
On the day following his visit to Maslennikoff, Nekhludoff received a letter from him, written in a fine, firm hand, on thick, glazed paper, with a coat-of-arms, and sealed with sealing-wax. Maslennikoff s
aid that he had written to the doctor concerning Maslova's removal to the hospital, and hoped Nekhludoff's wish would receive attention. The letter was signed, "Your affectionate elder comrade," and the signature ended with a large, firm, and artistic flourish. "Fool!" Nekhludoff could not refrain from saying, especially because in the word "comrade" he felt Maslennikoff's condescension towards him, i.e., while Maslennikoff was filling this position, morally most dirty and shameful, he still thought himself a very important man, and wished, if not exactly to flatter Nekhludoff, at least to show that he was not too proud to call him comrade.
CHAPTER LIX.
NEKHLUDOFF'S THIRD INTERVIEW WITH MASLOVA IN PRISON.
One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like that. We may say of a man that he is more often kind than cruel, oftener wise than stupid, oftener energetic than apathetic, or the reverse; but it would be false to say of one man that he is kind and wise, of another that he is wicked and foolish. And yet we always classify mankind in this way. And this is untrue. Men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man, In some people these changes are very rapid, and Nekhludoff was such a man. These changes in him were due to physical and to spiritual causes. At this time he experienced such a change.
That feeling of triumph and joy at the renewal of life which he had experienced after the trial and after the first interview with Katusha, vanished completely, and after the last interview fear and revulsion took the place of that joy. He was determined not to leave her, and not to change his decision of marrying her, if she wished it; but it seemed very hard, and made him suffer.