by Leo Tolstoy
With quick step she approached him.
"Maria Pablovna sent me," she said, stopping near him.
"Yes, I would like to talk with you. Take a seat. Vladimir Ivanovitch spoke to me."
She seated herself, crossed her hands on her knees, and seemed calm. But as soon as Nekhludoff pronounced Simonson's name, her face turned a purple color.
"What did he tell you?" she asked.
"He told me that he wishes to marry you."
Her face suddenly became wrinkled, evidencing suffering, but she remained silent, only looking at the floor.
"He asked my consent or advice. I told him that it all rests with you; that you must decide."
"Oh, what is it all for?" she said, and looked at Nekhludoff with that squinting glance that always peculiarly affected him. For a few seconds they looked silently at each other. That glance was significant to both.
"You must decide," repeated Nekhludoff.
"Decide what?" she said. "It has all been decided long ago. It is you who must decide whether you will accept the offer of Vladimir Ivanovitch," she continued, frowning.
"But if a pardon should come?" said Nekhludoff.
"Oh, leave me alone. It is useless to talk any more," she answered, and, rising, left the cell.
Gaining the street, Nekhludoff stopped, and, expanding his chest, drew in the frosty air.
The following morning a soldier brought him a note from Maria Pablovna, in which she said that Kryltzoff's condition was worse than they thought it to be.
"At one time we intended to remain here with him, but they would not allow it. So we are taking him with us, but we fear the worst. Try to so arrange in town that if he is left behind some one of us shall remain with him. If it is necessary for that purpose that I should marry him, then, of course, I am ready to do it."
Nekhludoff obtained horses and hastened to catch up with the party of prisoners. He stopped his team near the wagon carrying Kryltzoff on a bed of hay and pillows. Beside Kryltzoff sat Maria Pablovna. Kryltzoff, in a fur coat and lambskin cap, seemed thinner and more pale than before. His beautiful eyes seemed particularly larger and sparkling. Weakly rolling from side to side from the jostling of the wagon, he steadily looked at Nekhludoff, and in answer to questions about his health, he only closed his eyes and angrily shook his head. It required all his energy to withstand the jostling of the wagon. Maria Pablovna exchanged glances with Nekhludoff, expressing apprehension concerning Kryltzoff's condition.
"The officer seems to have some shame in him," she shouted, so as to be heard above the rattling of the wheels. "He removed the handcuffs from Bouzovkin, who is now carrying his child. With him are Katia, Simonson and, in my place, Verotchka."
Kryltzoff, pointing at Maria Pablovna, said something which could not, however, be heard. Nekhludoff leaned over him in order to hear him. Then Kryltzoff removed the handkerchief, which was tied around his mouth, and whispered:
"Now I am better. If I could only keep from catching cold."
Nekhludoff nodded affirmatively and glanced at Maria Pablovna.
"Have you received my note, and will you do it?" asked Maria Pablovna.
"Without fail," said Nekhludoff, and seeing the dissatisfied face of Kryltzoff, went over to his own team, climbed into the wagon, and holding fast to the sides of it, drove along the line of gray-coated and fettered prisoners which stretched for almost a mile.
Nekhludoff crossed the river to a town, and his driver took him to a hotel, where, notwithstanding the poor appointments, he found a measure of comfort entirely wanting in the inns of his stopping places. He took a bath, dressed himself in city clothes and drove to the governor of the district. He alighted at a large, handsome building, in front of which stood a sentry and a policeman.
The general was ill, and did not receive. Nekhludoff, nevertheless, asked the porter to take his card to the general, and the porter returned with a favorable answer:
"You are asked to step in."
The vestibule, the porter, the messenger, the shining floor of the hall--everything reminded him of St. Petersburg, only it was somewhat dirtier and more majestic. Nekhludoff was admitted to the cabinet.
The general, bloated, with a potato nose and prominent bumps on his forehead, hairless pate and bags under his eyes, a man of sanguine temperament, was reclining in a silk morning gown, and with a cigarette in his hand, was drinking tea from a silver saucer.
"How do you do, sir? Excuse my receiving you in a morning gown; it is better than not receiving at all," he said, covering his stout, wrinkled neck with the collar of his gown. "I am not quite well, and do not go out. What brought you into these wilds?"
"I was following a party of convicts, among whom is a person near to me," said Nekhludoff. "And now I come to see Your Excellency about that person, and also another affair."
The general inhaled the smoke of his cigarette, took a sip of tea, placed his cigarette in a malachite ash-holder, and steadily gazing with his watery, shining eyes at Nekhludoff, listened gravely. He only interrupted Nekhludoff to ask him if he wished to smoke.
Nekhludoff told the general that the person in whom he was interested was a woman, that she was unjustly convicted, and that His Majesty's clemency had been appealed to.
"Yes. Well?" said the general.
"I was promised in St. Petersburg that the news of this woman's fate would be sent to this place not later than this month."
Looking steadily at Nekhludoff, the general asked:
"Anything else?"
"My second request would be concerning the political prisoner who is going to Siberia with this detachment."
"Is that so?" said the general.
"He is very sick--he is a dying man. And he will probably be left here in the hospital; for this reason one of the female prisoners would like to remain with him."
"Is she a relative of his?"
"No. But she wishes to marry him, if it will allow her to stay with him."
The general looked sharply at Nekhludoff from his shining eyes, and, smoking continually, he kept silence, as if wishing to confound his companion.
When Nekhludoff had finished he took a book from the table, and frequently wetting the fingers with which he turned the leaves, he lighted on the chapter treating of marriage and perused it.
"What's her sentence?" he asked, lifting his eyes from the book.
"Hers? Hard labor."
"If this is the case, the sentence cannot be changed by marriage."
"But----"
"I beg your pardon! If a free man would marry her she would have to serve her sentence all the same. Whose sentence is harder, his or hers?"
"Both are sentenced to hard labor."
"So they are quits," the general said, laughing. "An equal share for both of them. He may be left here on account of his sickness," he continued, "and, of course, everything will be done to ameliorate his condition, but she, even if she should marry him, cannot remain here. Anyhow, I will think it over. What are their names? Write them down here."
Nekhludoff did as he was asked.
"And this I cannot do either," said the general, concerning his request to see the patient. "Of course I don't suspect you, but you are interested in them and in others. You have money, and the people here are corrupt. How, then, is it possible for me to watch a person who is five thousand miles distant from me? There he is king, as I am here," and he began to laugh. "You have surely seen the political prisoners. You have surely given them money," he added, smiling. "Isn't it so?"
"Yes, it is true."
"I understand that you must act in this way. You want to see the political prisoner, and you all sorrow for him, and the soldier on guard will surely take money, because he has a family, and his salary amounts to something less than nothing; he cannot afford to refuse. I would do the same were I in yours or his place. But, being situated as I am now, I cannot permit myself to disobey one iota of the law, for the very reason that I, too, am no more than a man, and am liab
le to yield to pity. They confide in me under certain conditions, and I, by my actions, must prove that I am trustworthy. So this question is settled. Well, now tell me what is going on at the metropolis?"
Then the general put various questions, as if he would like to learn some news.
"Well, tell me now whom you are stopping with--at Duke's? It is unpleasant there. Come to us to dinner," he said, finally, dismissing Nekhludoff, "at five. Do you speak English?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, that is good. You see, there is an English traveler here. He is studying the exile system, and the prisons in Siberia. So he will dine with us, and you come, too. We dine at five, and madam wants us to be punctual. I will let you know what will be done with that woman, and also with the patient. Maybe it will be possible to leave somebody with him."
Having taken leave of the general, Nekhludoff drove to the postoffice. Receiving his mail, he walked up to a wooden bench, on which a soldier was sitting, probably waiting for something; he sat down beside him, and started to look through the letters. Among them he found a registered letter in a beautiful, large envelope, with a large seal of red wax on it. He tore open the envelope, and, seeing a letter from Selenin with some official document, he felt the blood mounting to his cheeks, and his heart grow weak. This document was the decision concerning Katiousha's trial. What was it? Was it possible that it contained a refusal? Nekhludoff hastily ran over the letter, written in small, hardly legible, broken handwriting, and breathed freely. The decision was a favorable one.
"Dear friend," wrote Selenin, "our last conversation made a strong impression upon me. You were right concerning Maslova. I have looked through the accusation. This could be corrected only through the Commission for Petitions, to which you sent your petition. They let me have a copy of the pardon, and here I send it to you, to the address which the Countess Catherine Ivanovna gave me. I press your hand in friendship."
The news was pleasant and important. All that Nekhludoff could wish for Katiousha and himself was realized. True, those changes in his life changed his relations to her. But now, he thought, all that was most important was to see her as quick as possible and bring her the good news of her freedom. He thought that the copy he had in his hand was sufficient for that. So he bade the cabman drive at once to the prison.
The superintendent of the prison told him that he could not admit him without a permit from the general. The copy of the petition from their majesty's bureau also did not prevail with the superintendent. He positively refused admittance. He also refused to admit him to see Kryltzoff.
CHAPTER VIII.
After the disappointment at the prison, Nekhludoff drove down to the Governor's Bureau to find out whether they had received there any news concerning the pardon of Maslova. There was no news there, so he drove back to his hotel, and wrote at once to the lawyer and to Selenin concerning it. Having finished the letters, he glanced at his watch; it was already time to go to the general.
On the way he thought again of how he might hand over the pardon to Katiousha; of the place she would be sent to, and how he would live with her.
At dinner in the general's house all were not only very friendly to Nekhludoff, but, as it seemed, very favorably inclined to him, as he was a new, interesting personality. The general, who came in to dinner with a white cross on his breast, greeted Nekhludoff like an old friend. On the general's inquiry as to what he had done since he saw him in the morning, Nekhludoff answered that he had been at the postoffice, that he had found out the facts concerning the pardoning of the person they were talking of in the morning, and he asked permission to visit her.
The general seemed displeased, began to frown and said nothing.
"Will you have some whisky?" he said in French to the Englishman who had walked up to him. The Englishman took some, and related that he had been to see the cathedral of the city, and the factory, and expressed the desire to see the great jail in which criminals were confined on their way to Siberia.
"This idea is excellent!" exclaimed the general, turning to Nekhludoff. "You may go together. Give them a pass!" he added, turning to his lieutenant.
"What time do you wish to go?" Nekhludoff asked the Englishman.
"I prefer to visit prisons in the evening," the Englishman replied. "All are then at home, and there are no preparations."
After dinner, Nekhludoff followed her into the ante-chamber, where the Englishman was already waiting for him to visit the prison, as they had agreed. Having taken leave of the whole family, he walked out, followed by the Englishman.
The sombre looking prison, the soldier on guard, the lantern behind the gate, notwithstanding the pure white layer of snow which had covered everything--the sidewalk, the roof and the walls--made a gloomy impression. The proud looking superintendent, walking out to the gate and glancing at Nekhludoff's pass in the light of the lantern, shrugged his broad shoulders, but obeyed the order and invited the visitors to follow him. He first led them to the yard, and then to a door on the right hand and up the stairs leading to the office. Offering them seats, he asked them in what way he could serve them, and learning from Nekhludoff that he wished to see Maslova, he sent the jailer for her and prepared himself to answer the questions which the Englishman wished to ask him, before going to the cell.
Nekhludoff translated the Englishman's questions. While they were conversing they heard approaching footsteps, the door opened and the jailer entered, followed by Katiousha in her prison garb, with a scarf tied around her head.
Nekhludoff rose and made a few steps toward her. She said nothing, but her excited expression surprised him. Her face was lit up with a wonderful decision. He had never seen her look like that. Now the blood rushed to her face, and now she turned pale; now her fingers twisted convulsively the edges of her jacket, now she looked at him, and now she dropped her eyes.
"You know what I called you for?" asked Nekhludoff.
"Yes, he told me. But now I am decided. I will ask permission to go with Vladimir Ivanovitch." She said this quickly, as if she had made up her mind before what to say.
"How with Vladimir Ivanovitch?" asked Nekhludoff. But she interrupted him.
"But if he wants me to live with him?" Here she stopped in fear, and added, "I mean to stay with him. I could expect nothing better, and perhaps I may be useful to him and others. What difference does it make to me?"
One of the two things had happened--either she had fallen in love with Simonson and did not wish his sacrifice, which weighed so heavily on him, or she was still in love with Nekhludoff and renounced him for his own good, burning all bridges behind her, and throwing her fortunes in the same scale with those of Simonson. Nekhludoff understood it, and felt ashamed.
"If you are in love with him," he said.
"I never knew such people, you know. It is impossible not to love them. And Vladimir is entirely unlike any person I have ever known."
"Yes, certainly," said Nekhludoff. "He is an excellent man, and I think----"
Here she interrupted him, as if she were afraid that he would speak too much, or she would not say everything.
"You will forgive me for doing that which you did not wish. You, too, must love."
She said the very thing that he had just said to himself.
But now he was no longer thinking so, but felt altogether different. He felt not only shame, but pity.
"Is it possible that all is at an end between us?" he said.
"Yes, it looks like it," she answered, with a strange smile.
"But nevertheless I would like to be useful to you."
"To us," she said, glancing at Nekhludoff. "We don't need anything. I am very much obliged to you. If it were not for you"--she wished to say something, but her voice began to tremble.
"I don't know which of us is under greater obligation to the other. God will settle our accounts," said Nekhludoff.
"Yes, God will settle them," she whispered.
"Are you ready?" asked the Englishman.
"Directly," answered Nekhludoff, and then he inquired of her what she knew of Kryltzoff.
She quieted down and calmly told him:
"Kryltzoff became very weak on the road and was taken to the hospital. Maria Pablovna wanted to become a nurse, but there is no answer yet."