by Leo Tolstoy
Nekhludoff could no longer keep up relations with these people without reproving himself. And yet the habits of his past life, the ties of friendship and kinship, and especially his one great aim of helping Maslova and the other unfortunates, drew him into that sphere against his will; and he was compelled to ask the aid and services of people whom he had not only ceased to respect but who called forth his indignation and contempt.
Arriving at St. Petersburg, and stopping at his aunt's, the wife of an ex-Minister of State, he found himself in the very heart of the aristocratic circle. It was unpleasant to him, but he could do no different. Not to stop at his aunt's was to offend her. Besides, through her connections she could be of great service to him in those affairs for the sake of which he came to St. Petersburg.
"What wonders I hear about you!" said Countess Catherine Ivanovna Charskaia, while Nekhludoff was drinking the coffee brought him immediately after his arrival. "Vous posez pour un Howard. You are helping the convicts; making the rounds of the prisons; reforming them."
"You are mistaken; I never had such intentions."
"Why, that is not bad. Only, I understand, there is some love affair--come, tell me."
Nekhludoff related the story of Maslova, exactly as it happened.
"Yes, yes, I remember. Poor Hellen told me at the time you lived at the old maids' house that, I believe, they wished you to marry their ward." Countess Catherine Ivanovna always hated Nekhludoff's aunts on his father's side. "So, that is she? Elle est encore jolie?"
Aunt Catherine Ivanovna was a sixty-year-old, healthy, jolly, energetic, talkative woman. She was tall, very stout, with a black, downy mustache on her upper lip. Nekhludoff loved her, and since childhood had been accustomed to get infected with her energy and cheerfulness.
"No, ma tante, all that belongs to the past. I only wish to help her, because she is innocent, and it is my fault that she was condemned, her whole wrecked life is upon my conscience. I feel it to be my duty to do for her what I can."
"But how is it? I was told that you wish to marry her."
"I do wish it, it is true; but she doesn't."
Catherine Ivanovna raised her eyebrows and silently looked at Nekhludoff in surprise. Suddenly her face changed and assumed a pleased expression.
"Well, she is wiser than you are. Ah! what a fool you are! And you would marry her?"
"Certainly."
"After what she has been?"
"The more so--is it not all my fault?"
"Well, you are simply a crank," said the aunt, suppressing a smile. "You are an awful crank, but I love you for the very reason that you are such an awful crank," she repeated, the word evidently well describing, according to her view, the mental and moral condition of her nephew. "And how opportune. You know, Aline has organized a wonderful asylum for Magdalens. I visited it once. How disgusting they are! I afterward washed myself from head to foot. But Aline is corps et ame in this affair. So we will send her, your Magdalen, to her. If any one will reform her, it is Aline."
"But she was sentenced to penal servitude. I came here for the express purpose of obtaining a reversal of her sentence. That is my first business to you."
"Is that so? Where is the case now?"
"In the Senate."
"In the Senate? Why, my dear cousin Levoushka is in the Senate. However, he is in the Heraldry Department. Let me see. No, of the real ones I do not know any. Heaven knows what a mixture they are: either Germans, such as Ge, Fe, De--tout l'alphabet--or all sorts of Ivanvas, Semenovs, Nikitins, or Ivaneukos, Semeneukos, Nikitenkas pour varier. Des gens de l'autre monde. However, I will tell my husband. He knows all sorts of people. I will tell him. You explain it to him, for he never understands me. No matter what I may say, he always says that he cannot understand me. C'est un parti pris. Everybody understands, only he does not understand."
At that moment a servant in knee-breeches entered with a letter on a silver tray.
"Ah, that is from Aline. Now you will have an opportunity to hear Kisiweather."
"Who is that Kisiweather?"
"Kisiweather? Come around to-day and you will find out who he is. He speaks so that the most hardened criminals fall on their knees and weep, and repent."
Countess Catherine Ivanovna, however strange it might be, and how so little it agreed with her character, was a follower of that teaching which held that essence of Christianity consisted in a belief in redemption. She visited the meetings where sermons were delivered on this teaching then in vogue, and invited the adherents to her own house. Although this teaching rejected all rites, images and even the sacraments, the Princess had images hanging in all her rooms, even over her bedstead, and she complied with all the ritual requirements of the church, seeing nothing contradictory in that.
"Your Magdalen ought to hear him; she would become converted," said the Countess. "Don't fail to come to-night. You will hear him then. He is a remarkable man."
"It is not interesting to me, ma tante."
"I tell you it is interesting. You must come to-night. Now, what else do you want me to do? Videz votre sac."
"There is the man in the fortress."
"In the fortress? Well, I can give you a note to Baron Kriegmuth. C'est un très-brave homme. But you know him yourself. He was your father's comrade. Il donne dans le spiritisme. But that is nothing. He is a kind man. What do you want there?"
"It is necessary to obtain permission for a mother to visit her son who is incarcerated there. But I was told that Cherviansky and not Kriegmuth is the person to be applied to."
"I do not like Cherviansky, but he is Mariette's husband. I will ask her; she will do it for me. Elle est très gentille."
"There is another woman I wish you would speak to her about. She has been in prison for several months, and no one knows for what."
"Oh, no; she herself surely knows for what. They know very well. And it serves them right, those short-haired ones."
"I do not know whether it serves them right or not. But they are suffering. You are a Christian, and believe in the Gospel, and yet are so pitiless."
"That has nothing to do with it. The Gospel is one thing; what I dislike is another thing. It would be worse if I pretended to like the Nihilists, especially the female Nihilists, when as a matter of fact I hate them."
"Why do you hate them?"
"Why do they meddle in other people's affairs? It is not a woman's business."
"But you have nothing against Mariette occupying herself with business," said Nekhludoff.
"Mariette? Mariette is Mariette, but who is she? A conceited ignoramus who wants to teach everybody."
"They do not wish to teach; they only wish to help the people."
"We know without them who should and who should not be helped."
"But the people are impoverished. I have just been in the country. Is it proper that peasants should overwork themselves without getting enough to eat, while we are living in such wasteful luxury?"
"What do you wish me to do? You would like to see me work and not eat anything?"
"No, I do not wish you not to eat," smiling involuntarily, answered Nekhludoff. "I only wish that we should all work, and all have enough to eat."
The aunt again raised her eyebrows and gazed at him with curiosity.
"Mon cher, vous finirez mal," she said.
At that moment a tall, broad-shouldered general entered the room. It was Countess Charskaia's husband, a retired Minister of State.
"Ah, Dmitri, how do you do?" he said, putting out his clean-shaven cheek. "When did you get here?"
He silently kissed his wife on the forehead.
"Non, il est impayable." Countess Catherine Ivanovna turned to her husband. "He wants me to do washing on the river and feast on potatoes. He is an awful fool, but, nevertheless, do for him what he asks. An awful crank," she corrected herself. "By the way, they say that Kamenskaia is in a desperate condition; her life is despaired of," she turned to her husband. "You ought to visit her."
"Go, now, and have a talk together; I must write some letters."
Nekhludoff had just reached the room next to the reception-room when she shouted after him:
"Shall I write then to Mariette?"
"If you please, ma tante."
"I will learn that which you want to say about the short-haired en blanc, and she will have her husband attend to it. Don't think that I am angry. They are hateful, your protegees, but--je ne leur veux pas de mal. But God forgive them. Now, go, and don't forget to come in the evening; you will hear Kisiweather. We will also pray. And if you do not resist, ca vous fera beaucoup de bien. I know that Hellen and all of you are very backward in that respect. Now, au revoir."
CHAPTER X.
The man in whose power it was to lighten the condition of the prisoners in St. Petersburg had earned a great number of medals, which, except for a white cross in his button-hole, he did not wear, however. The old general was of the German barons, and, as it was said of him, had become childish. He had served in the Caucasus, where he had received this cross; then in Poland and in some other place, and now he held the office which gave him good quarters, maintenance and honor. He always strictly carried out the orders of his superiors, and considered their execution of great importance and significance, so much so that while everything in the world could be changed, these orders, according to him, were above the possibility of any alteration.
As Nekhludoff was approaching the old general's house the tower clock struck two. The general was at the time sitting with a young artist in the darkened reception-room, at a table, the top of which was of inlaid work, both of them turning a saucer on a sheet of paper. Holding each others fingers over the saucer, placed face downward, they pulled in different directions over the paper on which were printed all the letters of the alphabet. The saucer was answering the general's question. How would souls recognize each other after death?
At the moment one of the servants entered with Nekhludoff's card, the soul of Jeanne D'Arc was speaking through the saucer. The soul had already said, "They will recognize each other," which was duly entered on a sheet of paper. When the servant entered, the saucer, stopping first on the letter p, then on the letter o, reached the letter s and began to jerk one way and another. That was because, as the general thought, the next letter was to be l, that is to say, Jeanne D'Arc, according to his idea, intended to say that souls would recognize each other only after they had been purged of everything mundane, or something to that effect, and that therefore the next letter ought to be l (_posl, i. e._, after); the artist, on the other hand, thought that the next letter would be v; that the soul intended to say that souls would recognize each other by the light--posv (_ietu_) that would issue from the ethereal body of the souls. The general, gloomily knitting his brow, gazed fixedly on the hands, and imagining that the saucer moved itself, pulled it toward the letter l. The young, anaemic artist, with his oily hair brushed behind his ears, looked into the dark corner of the room, with his blue, dull eyes, and nervously twitching his lips, pulled toward the letter v. The general frowned at the interruption, and, after a moment's silence, took the card, put on his pince-nez and, groaning from pain in his loins, rose to his full height, rubbing his benumbed fingers.
"Show him into the cabinet."
"Permit me, Your Excellency, to finish it myself," said the artist, rising. "I feel a presence."
"Very well; finish it," said the general with austerity, and went, with firm, long strides, into the cabinet.
"Glad to see you," said the general in a rough voice to Nekhludoff, pointing to an arm-chair near the desk. "How long have you been in St. Petersburg?"
Nekhludoff said that he had but lately arrived.
"Is your mother, the Princess, well?"
"My mother is dead."
"Beg pardon; I was very sorry. My son told me that he had met you."
The general's son was making the same career as his father, and was very proud of the business with which he was entrusted.
"Why, I served with your father. We were friends, comrades. Are you in service?"
"No, I am not."
The general disapprovingly shook his head.
"I have a request to make of you, general," said Nekhludoff.
"Very glad. What can I do for you?"
"If my request be out of season, please forgive me. But I must state it."
"What is it?"
"There is a man, Gurkevitch, kept in prison under your jurisdiction. His mother asks to be permitted to visit him, or, at least to send him books."
The general expressed neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction at Nekhludoff's request, but, inclining his head to one side, seemed to reflect. As a matter of fact he was not reflecting; Nekhludoff's question did not even interest him, knowing very well that his answer would be as the law requires. He was simply resting mentally without thinking of anything.
"That is not in my discretion, you know," he said, having rested awhile. "There is a law relating to visits, and whatever that law permits, that is permitted. And as to books, there is a library, and they are given such books as are allowed."
"Yes, but he wants scientific books; he wishes to study."
"Don't believe that." The general paused. "It is not for study that they want them, but so, it is simply unrest."
"But their time must be occupied somehow?"
"They are always complaining," retorted the general. "We know them."
He spoke of them in general as of some peculiar race of people.
"They have such conveniences here as is seldom seen in a prison," he continued.
And as though justifying himself, he began to recount all the conveniences enjoyed by the prisoners in a manner to make one believe that the chief aim of the institution consisted in making it a pleasant place of abode.
"Formerly, it is true, the regulations were very harsh, but now their condition is excellent. They get three dishes, one of which is always of meat--chopped meat or cutlet. Sundays they get a fourth dish--dessert. May God grant that every Russian could feed so well."
The general, like all old men, evidently having committed to memory the oft-repeated words, proceeded to prove how exacting and ungrateful the prisoners were by repeating what he had told many times before.
"They are furnished books on spiritual topics, also old journals. We have a library of suitable books, but they seldom read them. At first they appear to be interested, and then it is found that the pages of all the new books are barely half cut, and of the old ones there is no evidence of any thumb-marks at all. We even tried," with a remote semblance of a smile the general continued, "to put a piece of paper between the pages, and it remained untouched. Writing, too, is allowed. A slate is given them, also a slate-pencil, so that they may write for diversion. They can wipe it out and write again. And yet they don't write. No, they become quiet very soon. At first they are uneasy, but afterward they even grow stout and become very quiet."
Nekhludoff listened to the hoarse, feeble voice; looked on that fleshless body, those faded eyes under the gray eyebrows, those sunken, shaved cheeks, supported by a military collar, that white cross, and understood that to argue and explain to him the meaning of those words were futile. But, making another effort, he asked him about the prisoner, Shustova, whose release, he had received information, had been ordered, through the efforts of Mariette.
"Shustova? Shustova--I don't remember them all by name. There are so many of them," he said, evidently reproving them for being so numerous. He rang the bell and called for the secretary.
While a servant was going after the secretary he admonished Nekhludoff to go into service, saying that the country was in need of honest, noble men.
"I am old, and yet I am serving to the extent of my ability."
The secretary came and reported that there were no papers received relating to Shustova, who was still in prison.
"As soon as we receive an ord
er we release them the very same day. We do not keep them; we do not particularly value their presence," said the general, again with a waggish smile, which had the effect only of making his face wry.
"Good-by, my dear," he continued. "Don't be offended for advising you, for I do so only because I love you. Have nothing to do with the prisoners. You will never find innocent people among them. They are the most immoral set. We know them," he said, in a tone of voice which did not permit the possibility of doubt. "You had better take an office. The Emperor and the country need honest people. What if I and such as you refused to serve? Who would be left? We are complaining of conditions, but refuse to aid the government."