M.
"Just fancy!" said Nekhludoff to the advocate. "Is this not dreadful? A woman whom they are keeping in solitary confinement for seven months turns out to be quite innocent, and only a word was needed to get her released."
"That's always so. Well, anyhow, you have succeeded in getting what you wanted."
"Yes, but this success grieves me. Just think what must be going on there. Why have they been keeping her?"
"Oh, it's best not to look too deeply into it. Well, then, I shall give you a lift, if I may," said the advocate, as they left the house, and a fine carriage that the advocate had hired drove up to the door. "It's Baron Vorobioff you are going to see?"
The advocate gave the driver his directions, and the two good horses quickly brought Nekhludoff to the house in which the Baron lived. The Baron was at home. A young official in uniform, with a long, thin neck, a much protruding Adam's apple, and an extremely light walk, and two ladies were in the first room.
"Your name, please?" the young man with the Adam's apple asked, stepping with extreme lightness and grace across from the ladies to Nekhludoff.
Nekhludoff gave his name.
"The Baron was just mentioning you," said the young man, the Baron's adjutant, and went out through an inner door. He returned, leading a weeping lady dressed in mourning. With her bony fingers the lady was trying to pull her tangled veil over her face in order to hide her tears.
"Come in, please," said the young man to Nekhludoff, lightly stepping up to the door of the study and holding it open. When Nekhludoff came in, he saw before him a thick-set man of medium height, with short hair, in a frock coat, who was sitting in an armchair opposite a large writing-table, and looking gaily in front of himself. The kindly, rosy red face, striking by its contrast with the white hair, moustaches, and beard, turned towards Nekhludoff with a friendly smile.
"Very glad to see you. Your mother and I were old acquaintances and friends. I have seen you as a boy, and later on as an officer. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you. Yes, yes," he said, shaking his cropped white head, while Nekhludoff was telling him Theodosia's story. "Go on, go on. I quite understand. It is certainly very touching. And have you handed in the petition?"
"I have got the petition ready," Nekhludoff said, getting it out of his pocket; "but I thought of speaking to you first in hopes that the case would then get special attention paid to it."
"You have done very well. I shall certainly report it myself," said the Baron, unsuccessfully trying to put an expression of pity on his merry face. "Very touching! It is clear she was but a child; the husband treated her roughly, this repelled her, but as time went on they fell in love with each other. Yes I will report the case."
"Count Ivan Michaelovitch was also going to speak about it."
Nekhludoff had hardly got these words out when the Baron's face changed.
"You had better hand in the petition into the office, after all, and I shall do what I can," he said.
At this moment the young official again entered the room, evidently showing off his elegant manner of walking.
"That lady is asking if she may say a few words more."
"Well, ask her in. Ah, mon cher, how many tears we have to see shed! If only we could dry them all. One does all that lies within one's power."
The lady entered.
"I forgot to ask you that he should not be allowed to give up the daughter, because he is ready . . ."
"But I have already told you that I should do all I can."
"Baron, for the love of God! You will save the mother?"
She seized his hand, and began kissing it.
"Everything shall be done."
When the lady went out Nekhludoff also began to take leave.
"We shall do what we can. I shall speak about it at the Ministry of Justice, and when we get their answer we shall do what we can."
Nekhludoff left the study, and went into the office again. Just as in the Senate office, he saw, in a splendid apartment, a number of very elegant officials, clean, polite, severely correct and distinguished in dress and in speech.
"How many there are of them; how very many and how well fed they all look! And what clean shirts and hands they all have, and how well all their boots are polished! Who does it for them? How comfortable they all are, as compared not only with the prisoners, but even with the peasants!" These thoughts again involuntarily came to Nekhludoff's mind.
CHAPTER XIX.
AN OLD GENERAL OF REPUTE.
The man on whom depended the easing of the fate of the Petersburg prisoners was an old General of repute--a baron of German descent, who, as it was said of him, had outlived his wits. He had received a profusion of orders, but only wore one of them, the Order of the White Cross. He had received this order, which he greatly valued, while serving in the Caucasus, because a number of Russian peasants, with their hair cropped, and dressed in uniform and armed with guns and bayonets, had killed at his command more than a thousand men who were defending their liberty, their homes, and their families. Later on he served in Poland, and there also made Russian peasants commit many different crimes, and got more orders and decorations for his uniform. Then he served somewhere else, and now that he was a weak, old man he had this position, which insured him a good house, an income and respect. He strictly observed all the regulations which were prescribed "from above," and was very zealous in the fulfilment of these regulations, to which he ascribed a special importance, considering that everything else in the world might be changed except the regulations prescribed "from above." His duty was to keep political prisoners, men and women, in solitary confinement in such a way that half of them perished in 10 years' time, some going out of their minds, some dying of consumption, some committing suicide by starving themselves to death, cutting their veins with bits of glass, hanging, or burning themselves to death.
The old General was not ignorant of this; it all happened within his knowledge; but these cases no more touched his conscience than accidents brought on by thunderstorms, floods, etc. These cases occurred as a consequence of the fulfilment of regulations prescribed "from above" by His Imperial Majesty. These regulations had to be carried out without fail, and therefore it was absolutely useless to think of the consequences of their fulfilment. The old General did not even allow himself to think of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a soldier not to think of them for fear of getting weak in the carrying out of these, according to his opinion, very important obligations. Once a week the old General made the round of the cells, one of the duties of his position, and asked the prisoners if they had any requests to make. The prisoners had all sorts of requests. He listened to them quietly, in impenetrable silence, and never fulfilled any of their requests, because they were all in disaccord with the regulations. Just as Nekhludoff drove up to the old General's house, the high notes of the bells on the belfry clock chimed "Great is the Lord," and then struck two. The sound of these chimes brought back to Nekhludoff's mind what he had read in the notes of the Decembrists [the Decembrists were a group who attempted, but failed, to put an end to absolutism in Russia at the time of the accession of Nicholas the First] about the way this sweet music repeated every hour re-echoes in the hearts of those imprisoned for life.
Meanwhile the old General was sitting in his darkened drawing-room at an inlaid table, turning a saucer on a piece of paper with the aid of a young artist, the brother of one of his subordinates. The thin, weak, moist fingers of the artist were pressed against the wrinkled and stiff-jointed fingers of the old General, and the hands joined in this manner were moving together with the saucer over a paper that had all the letters of the alphabet written on it. The saucer was answering the questions put by the General as to how souls will recognise each other after death.
When Nekhludoff sent in his card by an orderly acting as footman, the soul of Joan of Arc was speaking by the aid of the saucer. The soul of Joan of Arc had already spelt letter by letter the words: "They well
knew each other," and these words had been written down. When the orderly came in the saucer had stopped first on b, then on y, and began jerking hither and thither. This jerking was caused by the General's opinion that the next letter should be b, i.e., Joan of Arc ought to say that the souls will know each other by being cleansed of all that is earthly, or something of the kind, clashing with the opinion of the artist, who thought the next letter should be l, i.e., that the souls should know each other by light emanating from their astral bodies. The General, with his bushy grey eyebrows gravely contracted, sat gazing at the hands on the saucer, and, imagining that it was moving of its own accord, kept pulling the saucer towards b. The pale-faced young artist, with his thin hair combed back behind his cars, was looking with his lifeless blue eyes into a dark corner of the drawing-room, nervously moving his lips and pulling the saucer towards l.
The General made a wry face at the interruption, but after a moment's pause he took the card, put on his pince-nez, and, uttering a groan, rose, in spite of the pain in his back, to his full height, rubbing his numb fingers.
"Ask him into the study."
"With your excellency's permission I will finish it alone," said the artist, rising. "I feel the presence."
"All right, finish alone," the General said, severely and decidedly, and stepped quickly, with big, firm and measured strides, into his study.
"Very pleased to see you," said the General to Nekhludoff, uttering the friendly words in a gruff tone, and pointing to an armchair by the side of the writing-table. "Have you been in Petersburg long?"
Nekhludoff replied that he had only lately arrived.
"Is the Princess, your mother, well?"
"My mother is dead."
"Forgive me; I am very sorry. My son told me he had met you."
The General's son was making the same kind of career for himself that the father had done, and, having passed the Military Academy, was now serving in the Inquiry Office, and was very proud of his duties there. His occupation was the management of Government spies.
"Why, I served with your father. We were friends--comrades. And you; are you also in the Service?"
"No, I am not."
The General bent his head disapprovingly.
"I have a request to make, General."
"Very pleased. In what way can I be of service to you?"
"If my request is out of place pray pardon me. But I am obliged to make it."
"What is it?"
"There is a certain Gourkevitch imprisoned in the fortress; his mother asks for an interview with him, or at least to be allowed to send him some books."
The General expressed neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction at Nekhludoff's request, but bending his head on one side he closed his eyes as if considering. In reality he was not considering anything, and was not even interested in Nekhludoff's questions, well knowing that he would answer them according to the law. He was simply resting mentally and not thinking at all.
"You see," he said at last, "this does not depend on me. There is a regulation, confirmed by His Majesty, concerning interviews; and as to books, we have a library, and they may have what is permitted."
"Yes, but he wants scientific books; he wishes to study."
"Don't you believe it," growled the General. "It's not study he wants; it is just only restlessness."
"But what is to be done? They must occupy their time somehow in their hard condition," said Nekhludoff.
"They are always complaining," said the General. "We know them."
He spoke of them in a general way, as if they were all a specially bad race of men. "They have conveniences here which can be found in few places of confinement," said the General, and he began to enumerate the comforts the prisoners enjoyed, as if the aim of the institution was to give the people imprisoned there a comfortable home.
"It is true it used to be rather rough, but now they are very well kept here," he continued. "They have three courses for dinner--and one of them meat--cutlets, or rissoles; and on Sundays they get a fourth--a sweet dish. God grant every Russian may eat as well as they do."
Like all old people, the General, having once got on to a familiar topic, enumerated the various proofs he had often given before of the prisoners being exacting and ungrateful.
"They get books on spiritual subjects and old journals. We have a library. Only they rarely read. At first they seem interested, later on the new books remain uncut, and the old ones with their leaves unturned. We tried them," said the old General, with the dim likeness of a smile. "We put bits of paper in on purpose, which remained just as they had been placed. Writing is also not forbidden," he continued. "A slate is provided, and a slate pencil, so that they can write as a pastime. They can wipe the slate and write again. But they don't write, either. Oh, they very soon get quite tranquil. At first they seem restless, but later on they even grow fat and become very quiet." Thus spoke the General, never suspecting the terrible meaning of his words.
Nekhludoff listened to the hoarse old voice, looked at the stiff limbs, the swollen eyelids under the grey brows, at the old, clean-shaved, flabby jaw, supported by the collar of the military uniform, at the white cross that this man was so proud of, chiefly because he had gained it by exceptionally cruel and extensive slaughter, and knew that it was useless to reply to the old man or to explain the meaning of his own words to him.
He made another effort, and asked about the prisoner Shoustova, for whose release, as he had been informed that morning, orders were given.
"Shoustova--Shoustova? I cannot remember all their names, there are so many of them," he said, as if reproaching them because there were so many. He rang, and ordered the secretary to be called. While waiting for the latter, he began persuading Nekhludoff to serve, saying that "honest noblemen," counting himself among the number, "were particularly needed by the Tsar and--the country," he added, evidently only to round off his sentence. "I am old, yet I am serving still, as well as my strength allows."
The secretary, a dry, emaciated man, with restless, intelligent eyes, came in and reported that Shoustova was imprisoned in some queer, fortified place, and that he had received no orders concerning her.
"When we get the order we shall let her out the same day. We do not keep them; we do not value their visits much," said the General, with another attempt at a playful smile, which only distorted his old face.
Nekhludoff rose, trying to keep from expressing the mixed feelings of repugnance and pity which he felt towards this terrible old man. The old man on his part considered that he should not be too severe on the thoughtless and evidently misguided son of his old comrade, and should not leave him without advice.
"Good-bye, my dear fellow; do not take it amiss. It is my affection that makes me say it. Do not keep company with such people as we have at our place here. There are no innocent ones among them. All these people are most immoral. We know them," he said, in a tone that admitted no possibility of doubt. And he did not doubt, not because the thing was so, but because if it was not so, he would have to admit himself to be not a noble hero living out the last days of a good life, but a scoundrel, who sold, and still continued in his old age to sell, his conscience.
"Best of all, go and serve," he continued; "the Tsar needs honest men--and the country," he added. "Well, supposing I and the others refused to serve, as you are doing? Who would be left? Here we are, finding fault with the order of things, and yet not wishing to help the Government."
With a deep sigh Nekhludoff made a low bow, shook the large, bony hand condescendingly stretched out to him and left the room.
The General shook his head reprovingly, and rubbing his back, he again went into the drawing-room where the artist was waiting for him. He had already written down the answer given by the soul of Joan of Arc. The General put on his pince-nez and read, "Will know one another by light emanating from their astral bodies."
"Ah," said the General, with approval, and closed his eyes. "But how is one to know if the l
ight of all is alike?" he asked, and again crossed fingers with the artist on the saucer.
The isvostchik drove Nekhludoff out of the gate.
It is dull here, sir, he said, turning to Nekhludoff. "I almost wished to drive off without waiting for you."
Nekhludoff agreed. "Yes, it is dull," and he took a deep breath, and looked up with a sense of relief at the grey clouds that were floating in the sky, and at the glistening ripples made by the boats and steamers on the Neva.
CHAPTER XX.
MASLOVA'S APPEAL.
The next day Maslova's case was to be examined at the Senate, and Nekhludoff and the advocate met at the majestic portal of the building, where several carriages were waiting. Ascending the magnificent and imposing staircase to the first floor, the advocate, who knew all the ins and outs of the place, turned to the left and entered through a door which had the date of the introduction of the Code of Laws above it.
After taking off his overcoat in the first narrow room, he found out from the attendant that the Senators had all arrived, and that the last had just come in. Fanarin, in his swallow-tail coat, a white tie above the white shirt-front, and a self-confident smile on his lips, passed into the next room. In this room there were to the right a large cupboard and a table, and to the left a winding staircase, which an elegant official in uniform was descending with a portfolio under his arm. In this room an old man with long, white hair and a patriarchal appearance attracted every one's attention. He wore a short coat and grey trousers. Two attendants stood respectfully beside him. The old man with white hair entered the cupboard and shut himself in.
Fanarin noticed a fellow-advocate dressed in the same way as himself, with a white tie and dress coat, and at once entered into an animated conversation with him.
Nekhludoff was meanwhile examining the people in the room. The public consisted of about 15 persons, of whom two were ladies--a young one with a pince-nez, and an old, grey-haired one.
A case of libel was to be heard that day, and therefore the public were more numerous than usual--chiefly persons belonging to the journalistic world.