The complete works of Count Tolstoy. Vol 21.

Translated from the Original Russian and edited by Leo Wiener

Assittant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

BOSTON £ DANA ESTES & COMPANY £ PUBLISHERS

RESURRECTION

PART I and II

1899

“ Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ? till seven times ?

“Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven limes : but Until seventy times seven.” (Matt, xviii. 21-22.)

“ And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye ? ” (Matt. vii. 3.)

“ He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John viii. 7.)

“ The disciple is not above his master : but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.” (Luke vi. 40.)

PART THE FIRST

I.

No matter how people, congregating in one small spot to the number of several hundred thousand, tried to deform the earth on which they were jostling ; how they paved the earth with stones, that nothing might grow upon it ; how they weeded out every sprouting blade ; how they smoked up the air with coal and naphtha ; how they lopped the trees and expelled all animals and birds; — spring was spring, even in the city. The sun gave warmth ; the grass, reviving, grew strong and lush wherever it had not been scraped away, not only on the greenswards of the boulevards, but also between the flagstones ; and the birches, the poplars, and the bird-cherries had unfolded their viscid, fragrant leaves, and the lindens had swelled their bursting buds ; the jackdaws, the sparrows, and the pigeons were cheerfully building their vernal nests, and the flies, warmed by the sun, were buzzing along the walls. Happy were the plants, and the birds, and the insects, and the children. But the people

— the big, the grown people — did not stop cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. People regarded as sacred and important not this spring morning, nor this beauty of God’s world, given to all creatures to enjoy,

— a beauty which disposes to peace, concord, and love, — but that which they themselves had invented, in order to rule over each other.

Thus, in the office of the provincial prison, what they regarded as sacred and important was not that the blissfulness and joy of spring had been given to all animals and to all people, but that on the previous day a numbered document, bearing a seal and a superscription, had been received, which said that at nine o’clock in the morning, of this, the twenty-eighth of April, three prisoners, two women and one man, who were kept in the prison subject to a judicial inquest, should be brought to the courthouse. One of these women, being the most important criminal, was to be delivered separately.

To carry out this instruction, the chief warden entered, at eight o’clock of the twenty-eighth of April, the malodorous corridor of the women’s department. He was followed by a woman with a careworn face and curling gray hair, wearing a jersey, with sleeves bordered by galloons, and girded with a blue-edged belt. This was the matron.

“Do you want Méslova?” she asked, going up with the warden of the day to one of the cell doors which opened into the corridor.

The warden, rattling his keys, turned the lock, and opening the door of the cell, from which burst forth an even greater stench than there was in the corridor, called out :

” Maslova, to court ! ” and again closed the door, while waiting for her to come.

Even in the prison yard there was the brisk, vivifying air of the fields, wafted to the city by the wind. But in the corridor there was a distressing, jail-fever atmosphere, saturated by the odour of excrements, tar, and decay, which immediately cast a gloom of sadness on every newcomer. The same feeling was now experienced by the matron, who had just arrived from the outside, notwithstanding the fact that she was accustomed to this foul air. The moment she entered the corridor she was overcome by fatigue, and felt sleepy.

A bustle, caused by feminine voices and by the steps of bare feet, was heard within the cell.

” Livelier there, hurry up, Maslova, I say ! ” shouted the chief warden through the door of the cell.

About two minutes later, a short, full-breasted young woman, in a gray cloak, thrown over a white vest and a white skirt, walked briskly out of the door, swiftly turned around, and stopped near the warden. The woman’s feet were clad in linen stockings, and over them she wore the prison shoes ; her head was wrapped in a white kerchief, underneath which, apparently with design, protruded ringlets of curling black hair. The woman’s whole countenance was of that peculiar whiteness which is found on the faces of persons who have passed a long time indoors, and which reminds one of potato sprouts in a cellar. Of the same colour were her small, broad hands, and her white, full neck, which was visible from behind the large collar of the cloak. In this countenance, especially against the dull pallor of the face, stood out strikingly a pair of jet-black, sparkling, slightly swollen, but very lively eyes, one of which was a bit awry. She carried herself very erect, extending her swelling bosom.

Upon arriving in the corridor, she threw her head back a little, looked the warden straight in the eyes, and stood ready to execute anything that might be demanded of her. The warden was on the point of locking the door, when from it emerged the pale, austere, wrinkled face of a straight-haired old woman. The old woman began to tell Maslova something ; but the warden pressed the door against her head, and so it disappeared. In the cell a feminine voice burst out laughing. Maslova herself smiled, and turned toward the barred little window of the door. The old woman pressed her face to it, and said in a hoarse voice :

“ Above all, don’t say a superfluous word ; stick to the same story, and let that be the end of it ! “

” That’s all one, it can’t be any worse,” said Maslova, shaking her head.

“Of course, it’s one, and not two,” said the chief warden, with an official consciousness of his wit. “After me, march ! “

The eye of the old woman, visible through the window, disappeared, and Maslova stepped into the middle of the corridor, and with rapid, mincing steps walked behind the chief warden. They descended the stone staircase, passed by the men’s cells, which were even more malodorous and noisy than the women’s, and from which they were everywhere watched by eyes at the loopholes in the doors : they entered the office, where two soldiers of the guard, with their guns, were waiting for them.

The clerk, who was sitting there, handed to one of the soldiers a document, which was saturated by tobacco smoke, and, pointing to the prisoner, said, ” Take her ! ” The soldier, a Nizhni-Novgorod peasant, with a red, pockmarked face, stuck the paper into the rolled-up sleeve of his overcoat, and, smiling, winked to his companion, a broad-cheeked Chuvash, in order to direct his attention to the prisoner. The soldiers, with the prisoner between

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Photogravure from Painting by L. O. Pasternak them, descended the staircase, and walked over to the main entrance.

A small gate was opened in the door of the main entrance, and, stepping across the threshold of the gate into the yard, the soldiers, with the prisoner, walked out of the enclosure, and proceeded through the city, keeping in the middle of the paved streets.

Cabmen, shopkeepers, cooks, workmen, and officials, stopped to look with curiosity at the prisoner ; some shook their heads, and thought, “This is what a bad behaviour, not such as ours, leads to.” Children looked in terror at the murderess, being reassured only because she was accompanied by soldiers, and could no longer do any harm. A village peasant, who had sold coal and had drunk some tea in the tavern, went up to her, made the sign of the cross, and gave her a kopek. The prisoner blushed, bent her head, and muttered something.

Being conscious of the looks which were directed toward her, she imperceptibly, without turning her head, cast side glances at those who were gazing at her, and the attention which she attracted cheered her. She was also cheered by the vernal air, which was pure in comparison with that in the jail ; but it was painful for her to walk on the cobblestones, for her feet were now unaccustomed to walking, and were clad in clumsy prison shoes ; and so she looked down at them, and tried to step as lightly as possible. As she passed near a flour shop, in front of which pigeons waddled, unmolested by anybody, she almost stepped on one: the pigeon fluttered up, and flapping its wings, flew past the prisoner’s ear, fanning the air against her. She smiled, and drew a deep sigh, as she recalled her situation.

II.

The story of prisoner Maslova’s life was nothing out of the ordinary. Maslova was the daughter of an unmarried manorial servant-girl, who had been living with her mother in the capacity of dairymaid, on the estate of two maiden sisters. This unmarried woman bore a child every year ; as always happens in the country, the baby was baptized, but afterward the mother did not suckle the undesired child, and it died of starvation.

Thus five children had died. They had all been baptized, then they were not fed, and died. The sixth, begotten by an itinerant gipsy, was a girl, and her fate would have been the same, if it had not happened that one of the old maids had gone into the stable to upbraid the milkers on account of the cream, which smelled of the cows. In the stable lay the mother with her pretty, healthy, new-born baby. The old maid upbraided them on account of the cream and for having allowed a lying-in woman in the stable, and was about to leave, when, having espied the child, she took pity upon her, and offered to become her godmother. She had her baptized, and, pitying her godchild, gave the mother milk and money, and thus the girl remained alive. The old maids even called her the ” saved ” girl.

The child was three years old when her mother fell ill and died. The old stable-woman, her grandmother, was harassed by her grandchild, and so the ladies took her to the house. The black-eyed girl grew to be exceedingly vivacious and charming, and the old maids took delight in her.

The younger, Sofya Ivrînovna, who had had the child baptized, was the kinder of the two, and the elder, Màrya Ivànovna, was the more austere. S6fya Ivanovna dressed her, taught her to read, and wanted to educate her. Marya Ivanovna, however, said that she ought to be brought up as a working girl, — a good chambermaid, — and consequently was exacting, and punished and even struck her, when not in a good humour. Thus, between these two influences, the girl grew up to be partly educated and partly a chambermaid. She was even called by a diminutive, expressive neither of endearment, nor of command, but of something intermediate, namely, not Katka or Katenka, but Katyusha. She did the sewing, tidied up the rooms, cleaned the pictures with chalk, cooked, ground, served the coffee, washed the small linen, and often sat with the ladies and read to them.

Several men sued for her hand, but she did not wish to marry, feeling that a life with those working people, her suitors, would be hard for her, who had been spoiled by the comforts of the manor.

Thus she lived until her sixteenth year. She had just passed her sixteenth birthday, when the ladies received a visit from their student-nephew, a rich prince, and Katyusha, not daring to acknowledge the fact to him or even to herself, fell in love with him. Two years later, this same nephew of theirs called on his aunts, on his way to the war, and passed four days with them ; on the day preceding his departure, he seduced Katyusha, and pressing a hundred-rouble bill into her band, he left her. Five months after his visit she knew for sure that she was pregnant.

After that she grew tired of everything, and thought of nothing else but of a means for freeing herself from the shame which awaited her ; she not only began to serve the ladies reluctantly and badly, but once, not knowing herself how it came about, her patience gave way : she said some rude things to them, which she herself regretted later, and asked for her dismissal.

The ladies, who had been very much dissatisfied with her, let her go. She then accepted the position of chambermaid at the house of a country judge, but she could stand it there no longer than three months, because the judge, a man fifty years of age, began to annoy her ; once, when he had become unusually persistent in his attentions, she grew excited, called him a fool and an old devil, and dealt him such a blow in the chest that he fell down. She was sent away for her rudeness. It was useless to take another place, for the child was soon to be born, and so she went to five with a widow, who was a country midwife and trafficked in liquor. She had an easy childbirth, but the midwife, who had delivered a sick woman in the village, infected Katyusha with puerperal fever, and the child, a boy, was taken to the foundling house, where, according to the story of the old woman who had carried him there, he died soon after his arrival.

When Katyusha took up her residence at the midwife’s, she had in all 127 roubles, twentyseven of which she had earned, and one hundred roubles which her seducer had given her. When she came away from that house, all she had left was six roubles. She did not know how to take care of money, and spent it on herself, and gave it away to all who asked for some. The midwife took for her two months’ board—for the food and the tea — forty roubles ; twenty-five roubles went for despatching the child ; forty roubles the midwife borrowed of her to buy a cow with ; and twenty roubles were spent for clothes and for presents, so that there was no money left, when Katyusha got well again, and had to look for a place. She found one at a forester’s.

The forester was a married man, but, just like the judge before him, he began the very first day to annoy Katyusha with his attentions. He was hateful to her, and she tried to evade him. But he was more experienced and cunning than she; above all, he was her master, who could send her wherever he pleased, and, waiting for an opportune moment, he conquered her. His wife found it out, and, discovering her husband alone in a room with Katyusha, she assaulted her. Katyusha defended herself, and a fight ensued, in consequence of which she was expelled from the house, without getting her wages. Then Katyusha journeyed to the city and stopped with her aunt. Her aunt’s husband was a bookbinder, who used to make a good living, but now had lost all his customers, and was given to drinking, spending everything that came into his hands. Her aunt had a small laundry establishment, and thus supported herself with her children and her good-for-nothing husband. She offered to Maslova a place in her laundry ; but, seeing the hard life which the laundresses at her aunt’s were leading, Maslova hesitated, and went to the employment offices to look for a place as a domestic.

She found such a place with a lady who was living with her two sons, students at the gymnasium. A week after entering upon her service, the elder boy, with sprouting moustaches, a gymnasiast of the sixth form, quit working and gave Maslova no rest, importuning her with his attentions. The mother accused Maslova of everything and discharged her.

She could not find another situation ; but it so happened that when Maslova once went to an employment office, she there met a lady with rings and bracelets on her plump bare hands. Having learned of Mdslova’s search for a place, the lady gave her her address, and invited her to her house. Maslova went there. The lady received her kindly, treated her to pastry and sweet wine, and sent her chambermaid somewhere with a note.

In the evening a tall man, with long grayish hair and gray beard, entered the room ; the old man at once sat down near Maslova, and began, with gleaming eyes, and smiling, to survey her, and to jest with her. The landlady called him out into another room, and Màslova heard her say : ” She is fresh, straight from the country ! ” Then the landlady called out Maslova and told her that this man was an author, who had much money, and who would not be stingy with it, if he took a liking to her. She pleased the author, who gave her twenty-five roubles, promising to see her often. The money was soon spent in paying her aunt for board, and on a new dress, a hat, and ribbons. A few days later the author sent for her again. She went. He again gave her twenty-five roubles, and proposed that she take rooms for herself somewhere.

While living in the apartments which the author had rented for her, Maslova fell in love with a merry clerk, who was living in the same yard. She herself told the author about it, and took up other, smaller quarters. The clerk, who had promised to marry her, suddenly left for Nizhni-Novgorod, without saying a word to her, with the evident intention of abandoning her, and she was left alone. She wanted to keep the rooms by herself, but was not permitted to do so. The inspector of police told her that she could continue to live there only by getting a yellow certificate and subjecting herself to examination.

So she went back to her aunt’s. Her aunt, seeing her fashionable dress, her mantle, and her hat, received her respectfully, and did not dare to offer her a laundress’s place, since she considered her as having risen to a higher sphere of life. For Maslova the question whether she had better become a laundress or not, no longer existed. She now looked with compassion at that life of enforced labour, down in the basement, which the pale laundresses, with their lean arms, — some of them were consumptive, — were leading, washing and ironing in an atmosphere of thirty degrees Réaumur, filled with steam from the soapsuds, the windows remaining open, winter and summer, — and she shuddered at the thought that she, too, might be brought to such a life. And just at this time, which was exceedingly hard for Màslova, as she could not find a single protector, she was approached by a procuress, who furnished houses of prostitution with girls.

Maslova had started smoking long before, and had become accustomed to drinking during the end of her connection with the clerk, and still more so after he had abandoned her. Wine attracted her, not only because it tasted good, but more especially because it made her forget all the heavy experiences in the past, and because it gave her ease and confidence in her own worth, which she did not have without it. Without wine she always felt sad and ashamed. The procuress treated her aunt to dainties, and having given wine to Mdslova, proposed that she should enter the best establishment in the city, representing to her all the advantages and privileges of such a position.

Maslova had the choice : either the humiliating position of a servant, where there would certainly be persecution on the side of the men, and secret, temporary adultery, or a secure quiet, legalized condition, and open, legitimate, and well-paid constant adultery, — and she chose the latter. Besides, she thought in this manner to be able to avenge the wrong done her by her seducer, the clerk, and all other people who had treated her shamefully. She was also enticed by the words of the procuress, — and this was one of the causes that led to her final decision,— that she could order any dresses she wished, of velvet, of gauze, of silk, or ball-dresses with bare shoulders and arms. And when Maslova imagined herself in a bright-yellow silk garment, with black velvet trimmings,— décolleté, — she could not withstand the temptation, and surrendered her passport. On that same evening the procuress called a cab and took her to Kitàeva’s well-known establishment.

From that time began for Maslova that life of chronic transgression of divine and human laws, which is led by hundreds and thousands of thousands of women, not only by permission, but under the protection of the government caring for the well-being of its citizens : that life which ends for nine out of every ten women in agonizing disease, premature old age, and death.

In the morning and in the daytime — slumber after the orgies of the night. At three or four o’clock — a tired waking in an unclean bed, seltzer to counteract the effects of immoderate drinking, coffee, indolent strolling through the rooms in dressing-gowns, vests or cloaks, looking behind the curtain through the windows, a lazy exchange of angry words ; then ablutions, pomading, perfuming of the body and the hair, the trying on of dresses, quarrels with the landlady on account of these garments, surveying oneself in the mirror, painting the face, dyeing the eyebrows, eating pastry and fat food ; then putting on a bright silk dress, which exposed the body ; then coming out into a bright, gaily illuminated parlour : the arrival of guests ; music, dances, sweetmeats, wine, smoking, and adultery with youths, half-grown men, half-children, and desperate old men ; with bachelors, married men, merchants, clerks, Armenians, Jews, Tartars; with men who were rich, poor, healthy, sick, drunk, sober, coarse, tender; with officers, private citizens, students, gymnasiasts, — of all conditions, ages and characters. And cries, and jokes, and quarrels, and music, and tobacco and wine, and wine and tobacco, and music, from evening to daybreak. And only in the morning liberation and heavy slumber. And the same tiring every day, the whole week. At the end of the week — a drive to a government institution, the police station, where officers in government service, the doctors, men who sometimes seriously and austerely, and sometimes with playful mirthfulness, examined these women, annihilating that very sense of shame which has been given by Nature not only to men, but also to animals, in order to put a check to transgressions ; then they handed them a patent for the continuation of these transgressions, of which they and their partners had been guilty during the past week. And again such a week. And thus every day, — in summer and winter, on week-days and on holidays.

Mdslova had passed seven years in this manner. During that time she had changed houses twice, and had been once in a hospital. In the seventh year of her sojourn in a house of prostitution, and in the eighth since her first fall, when she was twenty-six years old, there had happened to her that for which she had been imprisoned, and now was being led to the courthouse, after six months in jail, with murderers and thieves.

III.

At the same time that Maslova, worn out by the long march, reached, with the soldiers of the guard, the building of the circuit court, that very nephew of her educators, Prince Dmitri Ivdnovich Nekhlyudov, who had seduced her, was lying on his high, crumpled spring bed, with its feather mattress, and, unbuttoning the collar of his clean linen night-shirt, with its ironed gussets, was smoking a cigarette. He was gazing in front of him with his motionless eyes, and thinking of what he would have to do that day, and of what had happened the day before.

As he recalled the previous evening, which he had passed at the house of the Korchagins, rich and distinguished people, whose daughter, so all were convinced, he was going to marry, he drew a sigh, and, throwing away his finished cigarette, was on the point of taking another out of his silver cigarette-holder; but he changed his mind, and, letting down from the bed his smooth white feet, found his way into his slippers ; he threw over his full shoulders a silk morning-gown, and, striding rapidly and heavily, walked into the adjoining dressing-room, which was saturated with the artificial odours of elixirs, eau de Cologne, pomatum, and perfumes. There, with a special powder, he cleaned his teeth, which were filled in many places, washed them with fragrant tooth-water, and then began to wash his body all over, and to dry himself with all kinds of towels. He washed his hands with scented soap, carefully cleaned his long nails with a brush, and rinsed his face and fat neck in the large marble wash-m <r

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“Lying on his high, crumpled spring bed”

Photogravure from Painting by L. O. Pasternak

stand ; then he walked into a third room, near the chamber, where a douche was waiting for him. He there washed his muscular, plump, white body with cold water, and rubbed himself off with a rough sheet ; then he put on clean, freshly ironed linen, and his shoes, which shone like mirrors, and sat down in front of the toilet-table to brush his short, black, curly beard, and the curling hair on his head, which was rather scanty in front.

All the things which he used, all the appurtenances of his toilet, the linen, the garments, the shoes, the ties, the pins, the cuff-buttons, — were of the best, of the most expensive kind ; they were unobtrusive, simple, durable, and costly.

Having selected from a dozen ties and pins those which he happened to pick up first, — at one time, it had been new and amusing, but now it made no difference to him, — Nekhlyudov put on his well-brushed clothes, which were lying on a chair, and, clean and perfumed, though not feeling very fresh, proceeded to the long dining-room, the parquetry of which had been waxed on the previous day by three peasants ; here stood an immense oak buffet, and an equally large extension table, which had a certain solemn appearance on account of its broadly outstretched carved legs in the shape of lion-claws. On this table, covered with a fine starched cloth with large monograms, stood a silver coffee-pot with fragrant coffee, a sugar-bowl of similar design, a cream-pitcher with boiling cream, and a bread-basket with fresh rolls, toast, and biscuits. Near the service lay the last mail, the papers, and a new number of the Revue de Deux Mondes.

Nekhlyudov was on the point of taking up his letters, when the door from the corridor opened and a plump, elderly woman in mourning and with a lace head-dress, which covered the widened parting of her hair, glided into the room. This was Agraféna Petrovna, the chambermaid of Nekhlyudov’s mother, who had but lately died in this

very house ; she was now staying with the son in the capacity of housekeeper.

Agraféna Petrovna had at various times been abroad with Nekhlyudov’s mother, and had the looks and manner of a lady. She had lived in Nekhyludov’s house since her childhood, and had known Dmitri Ivànovich when he was a boy and when they called him Mitenka.

” Good morning, Dmitri Ivanovich.”

” Good morning, Agrafena Petrovna. What is the news?” asked Nekhlyudov, jestingly.

” A letter from the princess, or from her daughter. The chambermaid brought it long ago ; she is waiting in my room,” said Agraféna Petrovna, handing him the letter, and smiling significantly.

” Very well, in a minute,” said Nekhlyudov, taking the letter and frowning, as he noticed Agraféna Petrovna’s smile.

Agraféna Petrovna’s smile meant that the letter was from the young Princess Korchagin, whom, according to Agraféna Petrovna’s opinion, Nekhlyudov was going to marry.

“ Then I will tell her to wait,” and Agraféna Petrovna, picking up the crumb-brush, which was out of place, and putting it away, glided out of the dining-room.

Nekhlyudov broke the seal of the perfumed letter, which Agraféna Petrovna had given him, and began to read :

” In fulfilment of my self-assumed duty to act as your memory,” so ran the letter on a sheet of thick gray paper with uneven margins, in a sharp, broad hand, ” I remind you that to-day, the twenty-eighth of April, you are to serve on a jury, and consequently can by no means drive out with Kolosov and us to look at the pictures, as you yesterday, with your characteristic thoughtlessness, prom- . ised us you would ; à moins que vous ne soyez disposé à payer à la cour d’assises les 300 roubles d’amende que vous

RESURRECTION

19

refusez pour votre cheval for not having appeared in time. 1 thought of it yesterday, the moment you left. So don’t forget it.

“Princess M. Korchagin.”

On the other page was the following addition :

” Maman vous fait dire que votre couvert vous attendra jusqu’à la nuit. Venez absolument à quelle heure que cela soit.

“M. K.”

Nekhlyudov frowned. The note was a continuation of that artifice which the young Princess Korchagin had been practising on him for the last two months, and which consisted in drawing him evermore to herself by invisible threads. On the other hand, Nekhlyudov had, in addition to the usual indecision before marriage, which all people have who are past their first youth and are not passionately in love, another important reason, which kept him from proposing at once, even if he had made up his mind to do so. This reason was not that he had ten years before seduced and abandoned Katyusha, — this he had entirely forgotten, and did not regard as an impediment to his marriage ; the real cause was that at that time he had a liaison with a married woman, which, though broken by him, had not yet been acknowledged as broken by her.

Nekhlyudov was very shy with women, and it was this very timidity which had provoked a desire in that married woman to subdue him. She was the wife of the marshal of the nobility of the county whither Nekhlyudov used to go for the elections. This woman had drawn him into a liaison, which from day to day became more binding on him and at the same time more repulsive. At first, Nekhlyudov could not withstand her seductive charms ; then, feeling himself guilty toward her, he was not able without her consent to tear asunder this union. This was the reason why Nekhlyudov felt that he had no right to propose to Princess Korchagin, even if be wished to do so.

On the table happened to lie a letter from that woman’s husband. Upon noticing the handwriting and postmark, Nekhlyudov blushed, and immediately experienced an onrush of energy, which always came over him at the approach of danger. But his agitation was vain: her husband, the marshal of the nobility in the county where the more important estates of Nekhlyudov were located, informed him that at the end of May there would be an extra session of the County Council, and asked him to be sure and come in order to donner un coup d’cpaulc in the important questions concerning schools and roads which were to be brought up before the coming meeting of the County Council, when it was expected that the reactionary party would put up a strong opposition.

The marshal was a liberal, and with several party friends was engaged in struggling against the reaction which had set in during the reign of Alexander III. ; he was busily occupied with this struggle, and knew nothing of his unfortunate family life.

Nekhlyudov recalled all the painful minutes which he had passed in the presence of this man : he recalled how once he had thought that her husband had found out everything, and how he had prepared himself to fight a duel at which he had intended to shoot into the air ; and he recalled that terrible scene with her, when in despair she had rushed out into the garden ready to drown herself in its pond, and how he had run after her to find her.

” I cannot go there, or undertake anything, unless I first hear from her,” thought Nekhlyudov. The week before he had written her a decisive letter in which he had confessed his guilt, and had declared himself ready for any atonement ; but, nevertheless, for her own good, he regarded their relations as for ever ended. He was expecting an answer to this very letter, but none had yet been received. The delay in replying he considered a good sign. If she had not agreed to the disruption of the union, she would have written him long ago, or would have come to see him, as she had done on previous occasions. Nekhlyudov had heard that there was a certain officer in the country, who was paying her attentions, and this gave him a twinge of jealousy, and at the same time filled him with hope that he should be freed from the lie which was harassing him.

Another letter was from the superintendent of his estates. The superintendent wrote Nekhlyudov that he would have to come down himself, in order to be confirmed in the rights of inheritance, and besides, to decide the question of how the estates were to be managed henceforth ; whether as in the days of the deceased princess, or, as he had proposed to the defunct, and now was again proposing to the young prince, by increasing the inventory and himself working the land, which had been parcelled out to [the peasants. The superintendent wrote that such an exploitation would be much more profitable. At the same time he excused himself for having somewhat delayed the transmission of the three thousand roubles which, by order, had been due on the first. The money would be sent by the next post. The reason for this delay was that he had been absolutely unable to collect from the peasants, who had gone so far in their dishonesty that it became necessary to invoke the authorities to compel them to pay their debts.

This letter was both pleasant and unpleasant to Nekhlyudov. It was pleasant for him to feel his power over his extensive possessions, and unpleasant, because in his first youth he had been an enthusiastic follower of Herbert Spencer, and, being himself a large landed proprietor, had been particularly struck by his statement in his Social Statics that justice did not permit the private ownership of land. With the directness and determination of youth he then maintained that land could not form the object of private ownership, and he not only wrote a thesis on the subject while at the university, but at that time really distributed to the peasants a small part of the land, which did not belong to his mother, but which by inheritance from his father belonged to him personally, so as not to be possessed of land, contrary to his convictions. Having now become a large landed proprietor by inheritance, he had to do one of the two things : either to renounce his possessions, as he had done ten years before in connection with the two hundred desyatmas of his paternal estate, or by his silent consent to acknowledge all his former ideas faulty and false.

He could not do the former, because he had no other means of subsistence but the land. He did not wish to serve in a government capacity, and in the meantime had acquired luxurious habits of life, from which he considered it impossible ever to depart. Nor was there any reason why he should, since he no longer had that force of conviction, nor that determination, nor that ambition and desire to surprise people, which had actuated him in his youth. Similarly he was quite incapable of doing the latter, — to recant those clear and undeniable proofs of the illegality of private ownership of land, which he had then found in Spencer’s Social Statics, and the brilliant confirmation of which he had found later, much later, in the works of Henry George.

For this reason the superintendent’s letter did not please him.

IV.

Having finished his coffee, Nekhlyudov went into his cabinet, to find out from the summons at what time he was to be at court, and to write the princess an answer. The cabinet was reached through the studio. Here stood an easel with a covered, unfinished picture, and studies were hanging on the wall. The sight of this picture, on which he had vainly worked for two years, and of the studies, and of the whole studio, reminded him of his feeling of impotence to advance farther in painting, a feeling which of late had overcome him with unusual force. He explained to himself this sensation as arising from a too highly developed æsthetic feeling, but still the consciousness of it was exceedingly disagreeable to him.

Seven years before, he had given up his government position, having decided that he had a talent for painting, and from the height of his artistic activity he looked down somewhat contemptuously on all other activities. Now it appeared that he had no ground for such an assumption, and thus every reminder of it was extremely distasteful to him. He looked with a heavy heart at all these luxurious arrangements of his studio, and in an unhappy frame of mind entered his cabinet. The cabinet was a very large and high room, with all kinds of adornments, appliances, and comforts.

He immediately found in the drawer of the immense table, under the division of memoranda, the summons, which said that he had to be at court at eleven o’clock. He sat down and wrote a note to the princess, thanking her for the invitation, and promising to come to dinner, if he could. But after he had written this note, he tore it up : it was too familiar ; he wrote another, — and it was cold, almost offensive. He again tore it up, and pressed a button on the wall. On the threshold appeared an elderly, morose, cleanly shaven, whiskered lackey, in a gray calico apron.

” Please send for a cab.”

” Yes, sir.”

“And tell her — there is somebody here from the Korchagins waiting for an answer — tell her that I am much obliged, and that 1 shall try to be there.”

“ Yes, sir.”

” It is impolite, but I cannot write. I shall see her to-day, anyway,” thought Nekhlyudov, and went away to dress himself.

When, all dressed, he appeared on the porch, his familiar cab with the rubber tires was already waiting for him.

“ Yesterday, the moment you had left Prince Korchagin,” said the cabman, half turning around his powerful, sunburnt neck, in a white shirt collar, “I came back, but the porter told me, ‘ He has just left.’ “

” Even the cabmen know of my relations with the Korchagins,” thought Nekhlyudov, and the unsolved question, which had of late constantly preoccupied him, — whether he should marry Princess Korchagin or not, — rose before him, and, as happened with him in the majority of questions which presented themselves to him at that time, he was unable to solve it one way or the other.

In favour of the marriage spoke the fact that marriage, in addition to supplying him with a domestic hearth, would remove the irregularities of sexual life, and would make it possible for him to lead a moral existence ; and, in the second place, and this was most important, Nekhlyudov hoped that a family and children would give a meaning to his empty life. So much for marriage in general. Against marriage in general was, in the first place, the fear of losing his liberty, a fear which is common to all old bachelors, and in the second, an unconscious dread before the mysterious being of a woman.

In favour of his marrying Hissy in particular (Princess Korchagin’s name was Mariya, but, as in all families of a certain circle, she was nicknamed Missy) was, in the first place, her breeding, for in everything, from her wearing-apparel to her manner of speaking, walking, and laughing, she stood out from among common people, not by any special features, but by her general ” decency,” — he could not think of any other expression for this quality, which he esteemed highly ; and in the second, because she respected him above all other men, consequently, according to his conceptions, she understood him. And it was this comprehension, that is, the acknowledgment of his high worth, which testified in Nekhlyudov’s opinion to her good mind and correct judgment.

Against his marrying Missy in particular was, first, that it was quite possible that he should find a girl who would possess an even greater number of desirable qualities than Missy had, and who consequently would be worthier of him ; and, secondly, the fact that she was twentyseven years old and, therefore, must have been in love before, — and this thought tormented Nekhlyudov. His pride could not make peace with the thought that at any time, even though it be in the past, she could have loved anybody but him. Of course, she could not have foreseen that she would meet him, but the very idea that she could have been in love with some one else offended him.’

Thus there were as many arguments in favour of marrying as against it ; at least these two classes of arguments were equally urgent, and Nekhlyudov, laughing at himself, called himself ” Buridan’s ass.” And he remained one, for he could not make up his mind to which bundle to turn.

” However, since I have received no answer from Marya Vasilevna (the marshal’s wife), and have not completely settled that affair, I cannot begin anything,” he said to himself.

The consciousness that he could and should delay his decision was agreeable to him.

” Still, I will consider all this later,” he said to himself when his vehicle inaudibly drove over the asphalt driveway of the courthouse.

” Now I must act conscientiously, as I always execute, and always should execute my public duties. Besides, they are frequently interesting,” he said to himself, passing by the doorkeeper, into the vestibule of the courthouse.

V.

In the corridors of the courthouse there was already animated motion, when Neklilyudov entered it.

The janitors were either walking rapidly, or even running, without lifting their feet from the floor, but shuffling them, and out of breath, carrying orders and documents up and down. The bailiffs, the lawyers, and the judges passed from one place to another, while the plaintiffs and the defendants who were not under surveillance morosely walked up and down near the walls, or were sitting, waiting for their turns.

“ Where is the circuit court ? ” Neklilyudov asked one of the janitors.

“ Which ? There is a civil division, there is a supreme court.”

“lama juryman.”

“ Criminal division. You ought to have said so. Here, to the right, then to the left, second door.”

Nekhlyudov followed his directions.

At the door indicated two men stood waiting for something. The one was a tall, fat merchant, a good-hearted man, who had evidently had something to drink and to eat, and was in a happy frame of mind ; the other was a clerk, of Jewish extraction. They were talking about the price of wool, when Nekhlyudov walked over to them and asked them whether this was the jury-room.

” Here, sir, here. Are you one of our kin, a juryman ? ” the merchant asked good-naturedly, winking merrily.

” Well, we shall all work together,” he continued, upon Nekhlyudov’s affirmative answer. ” Baklashov, of the second guild,” he said, extending his soft, broad, open hand. ” We shall have to work. With whom have I the honour ? “

Nekhlyudov mentioned his name, and went into the jury-room.

In the room there were some ten men of all descriptions. They had all just arrived, and some were seated, while others walked about, eyeing one another and getting acquainted. There was an ex-officer in his uniform ; the others wore long or short coats, and one was clad in a sleeveless peasant coat.

Though many of those present had been taken away from their work, and complained that this was a tiresome affair, they all bore the imprint of a certain pleasure, as though they were conscious of performing an important public duty.

The jurors, having become acquainted with each other, or merely guessing who was who, were talking about the weather, about the early spring, and about the work before them. Those who did not know Nekhlyudov hastened to become acquainted with him, obviously regarding this as a special honour. Nekhlyudov received their advances as something due him, as he always did when among strangers. If he had been asked why he regarded himself higher than the majority of mankind, he would not have been able to answer the question, because no part of his life was distinguished for any particular quaff ties. The fact that he spoke English, French, and German correctly, and that his linen, his attire, his ties, and his cuff-buttons came from the first purveyors of these articles, could not have served at all, so he knew himself, as a reason for supposing any superiority in himself. And yet, he unquestioningly assumed this superiority, and received the expressions of respect as something due him, and felt offended whenever they were not forthcoming. In the jurors’ room he had occasion to experience the disagreeable sensation arising from an expression of disrespect. Among the jurymen was an acquaintance of Nekhlyudov’s. This was Peter Gerasimovich (Nekhlyudov never had known his family name, and even boasted of this fact), who had formerly been a teacher of his sister’s children. This Peter Gerasimovich had finished his course at the university, and now was a teacher at a gymnasium. Nekhlyudov never could bear him on account of his familiarity, and his self-satisfied laughter, — in general, on account of his ” vulgarity,” as Nekhlyudov’s sister used to express herself.

” Ah, you are caught, too,” Peter Gerasimovich met Nekhlyudov, with a guffaw. ” You could not tear yourself away ? ”

” I did not even have any intention of tearing myself away,” Nekhlyudov said, austerely and gloomily.

” Well, this is a citizen’s virtue. Just wait, when you get hungry, and don’t have any sleep, you will sing a different song! ” Peter Gerasimovich shouted, laughing louder still.

“ Tiffs protopope’s son will soon be saying ‘ thou ’ to me,” thought Nekhlyudov, and with a face expressive of a sadness which would have been natural only if he had suddenly received the news of the death of all his relatives, he went away from him, and joined the group which had formed itself around a tall, cleanly shaven, stately gentleman, who was relating something with animation. The gentleman was telling of the lawsuit which was being tried in the civil department, as of an affair which he well knew ; he called all the judges and famous lawyers by their Christian names and patronymics. He was expatiating on the wonderful turn which a famous lawyer had given to it, so that one of the contesting parties, an old lady, though entirely in the right, would have to pay an immense sum to the other party.

” A brilliant lawyer ! ” he said.

He was listened to with respect, and some tried to put in a word of their own, but he interrupted them all, as though he were the only one who could know anything properly.

Although Nekhlyudov had arrived late, he had to wait for a long time. The case was delayed by one of the members of the court, who bad not yet arrived.

VI.

The presiding judge had come early. He was a tall, stout man, with long, grayish sidewhiskers. He was married, but led a very dissolute life, and so did his wife. They did not interfere with each other. On that morning he had received a note from the Swiss governess, who lived in their house in the summer and now was on her way to St. Petersburg, that she would wait for him in town, in ” Hotel Italy,” between three and six o’clock. And so he was anxious to begin and end the sitting of the court as early as possible, in order to get a chance of visiting this red-haired Klara Vasilevna, with whom he had begun a love-affair the summer before, in the country.

Upon entering the cabinet, he bolted the door, took out a pair of dumb-bells from the lowest shelf of the safe with the documents, and twenty times moved them up, forward, sidewise, and downward, and then three times squatted lightly, holding the dumb-bells above his head.

” Nothing keeps up a man’s physique so well as water and gymnastic exercises,” he thought, feeling with his left hand, with a gold ring on its ring-finger, the swelling biceps of his right arm. He had still to make two windmill motions, which he always practised before a long session, when the door was shaken. Somebody was trying to come in. The presiding judge immediately put the dumb-bells away, and opened the door.

” I beg your pardon,” he said.

Into the room stepped one of the members of the court, in gold spectacles; he was short, with raised shoulders and frowning face.

” Matvyéy Nikitich is again absent,” said the member with displeasure.

“He is not yet here,” replied the presiding judge, donning his uniform. ” He is eternally late.”

” I wonder he is not ashamed of himself,” said the member, and angrily sat down and took the cigarettes out of his pocket.

This member, who was a very precise man, bad had an unpleasant encounter with his wife on that morning, because she had spent the money which was to have lasted her a whole month. She had asked for some more in advance, but he insisted that he would not depart from his rules. A scene ensued. His wife said that if he insisted upon this, there would be no dinner, — and that he had better not expect any. Thereupon he left, fearing that she would keep her word, for she was capable of anything. “ So this is what you get for living a good, moral life,” he thought, looking at the shining, healthy, gay, and good-hearted presiding judge, who, spreading wide his elbows, was with his beautiful white hands clawing his thick and long grayish sidewhiskers on both sides of his embroidered collar. ” He is always happy and content, and I suffer.”

The secretary entered, bringing some papers.

” Very much obliged to you,” said the presiding judge, lighting a cigar. “ Which case shall we launch first ? ”

“ I suppose the poisoning case,” the secretary said, apparently with indifference.

” Very well, let it be the poisoning case,” said the presiding judge, reflecting that it was a case that might be ended by four o’clock, whereupon he could leave. ” Has Matvyéy Nikitich not yet come ? ”

” Not yet.”

“ And is Brève here ? ”

“ He is,” answered the secretary.

The Judges

Photogravure from Painting by L O. Pasternak

MN

« Tell him, then, if you see him, that we shall begin with the poisoning case.”

Brève was the assistant prosecuting attorney who was to prosecute at the present sitting.

Upon reaching the corridor, the secretary met Brève. Raising high his shoulders, he was almost running along the corridor ; his uniform was unbuttoned, and he carried his portfolio under one arm ; he continually struck his heels together, and swung bis free arm in such a manner that the palm of his hand was perpendicular to the direction of his walk.

” Mikhail Petrovich wants to know whether you are ready ?” the secretary asked him.

” Of course I am,” said the assistant prosecuting attorney. ” Which case comes first ? ”

“ The poisoning case.”

“Very well,” said the assistant prosecuting attorney; but he did not think it well at all, for he had not slept the whole night. There had been a farewell party, where they had drunk and played cards until two o’clock in the morning ; then they all called on the women in the very house where Maslova had been six months ago, so that he had not had any time whatsoever to read up the brief ; he hoped to be able to do so now. The secretary, who knew that he had not yet read up the poisoning case, had purposely advised the presiding judge to start with it. The secretary was a man of liberal, nay, even radical views. Brève, on the contrary, was a conservative, and, like all Germans in Russian service, a devout Greek-Catholic ; the secretary did not like him, and envied him his place.

“Well, how about the Castrate Sectarians?” asked the secretary.

“I said, I could not,” said the assistant prosecuting attorney. “For want of witnesses, — I shall so report to the court.”

” But, all the same — “

“ I cannot,” said the assistant prosecuting attorney, and, swaying his arm as before, entered his cabinet.

He delayed the case of the sectarians on account of the absence of an unimportant witness, who was not at all needed, and his reason for doing this was just because the case was to be heard in a court where the jury were an intelligent set, and where it might easily end in their favour. By agreement with the presiding judge, this case was to be transferred to the session in a county seat, where there would be more peasants on the jury, and a better chance to end the case unfavourably for the sectarians.

The crowd in the corridor was getting more animated. Most people were gathered near the hall of the civil division, where the case was being tried, of which the stately gentleman, the lover of lawsuits, had been telling the jurors. During an intermission, from the hall emerged the same old woman from whom the brilliant lawyer had succeeded in wrenching away her whole property in favour of a pettifogger, who did not have the slightest right to it. The judges knew that, and the plaintiff and his attorney knew it even better ; but the case had been conducted in such a manner that there was no other issue possible but that the property should be taken away from the old woman, and given over to the pettifogger. The old woman was a stout lady in her holiday clothes, and with enormous flowers on her hat. Upon coming out of the door, she stopped in the corridor, and, swaying her plump short arms, kept repeating, as she turned to her lawyer : « How will that be ? I beg you. How will that be ? ” The lawyer was looking at the flowers on her hat, and, without listening to her, was considering something.

Immediately after the old woman, there hurried out of the hall of the civil division, resplendent in his wide-open

VIL

Finally Matvyéy Nikitich arrived, and a bailiff, a spare man, with a long neck and sidling gait, and also a lower lip that protruded sidewise, entered the jury-room.

This bailiff was an honest man, who had received a university education, but was not able to keep a place any length of time, because he was a confirmed tippler. Three months before, a countess, a protectress of his wife, had got this place for him, and he had so far been able to hold it, which made him feel happy.

” Well, gentlemen, are you all here ? ” he said, putting on his eyeglasses, and looking over them.

“ It seems, all,” said the merry merchant.

” Let us see,” said the bailiff, and drawing a list from his pocket, he began to call out the names, looking now through his glasses, and now over them.

” Councillor of State I. M. Nikiforov.”

“Here,” said the stately gentleman, who knew about all the cases at law.

“ Ex-Colonel Ivan Semovich Ivanov.”

“ Here,” said the haggard man in the uniform of an officer out of service.

“ The Merchant of the second guild, Petr Baklashov.”

“ Here he is,” said the good-hearted merchant, smiling with his mouth wide open. ” Ready ! “

“ Lieutenant of the Guard Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov.”

“ Here,” answered Nekhlyudov.

The bailiff, looking with an expression of pleasurable politeness above his glasses, made a bow, as if to honour him above the rest.

” Captain Yuri Dmitrievich Danchénko, Merchant Gri-gdri Efimovich Kuleshdv,” and so on.

All but two were present.

” Now, gentlemen, please proceed to the hall,” said the bailiff, pointing to the door with a polite gesture.

They started, and, letting one after another pass through the door into the corridor, went from the corridor into the courtroom.

The courtroom was a large, long hall. One end of it was occupied by a platform, which was reached by three steps. In the middle of this elevation stood a table which was covered with a green cloth, bordered by a green fringe of a darker shade. Behind the table stood three chairs, with very high carved oak backs, and behind the chairs hung a bright life-sized picture of the emperor in the uniform of a general, with a sash ; he was represented in the act of stepping forward, and resting his hand on his sabre. In the right-hand corner hung a shrine with the image of Christ in his crown of thorns, and stood a pulpit, while on the right was the desk of the prosecuting attorney. On the left, opposite the desk, was the secretary’s table, set back against the wall ; and nearer to the audience was a screen of oak rounds, and back of it the unoccupied bench of the defendants.

On the right on the platform stood two rows of chairs, also with high backs, for the jurors, and beneath them were the tables for the lawyers. All this was in the fore part of the hall, which was divided by the screen into two parts. The back half was occupied by benches, which, rising one behind the other, went as far as the back wall. In the front benches sat four women, either factory girls or chambermaids, and two men, also labourers, evidently oppressed by the splendour of the room’s interior, and therefore speaking to each other in a whisper.

Soon after the jurors had entered, the bailiff went with his sidling gait to the middle of the room, and shouted in a loud voice, as though he wished to frighten somebody :

“ The court is coming ! “

Everybody rose, and the judges walked out on the platform. First came the presiding judge, with his well-developed muscles and beautiful whiskers. Then came the gloomy member of the court, in gold spectacles, who now was even more gloomy, because just before the session began he had seen his brother-in-law, a candidate for a judicial position, who had informed him that he had just been at his sister’s, and that she had told him that there would be no dinner.

” Well, I suppose we shall have to go to an inn,” said the brother-in-law, smiling.

“There is nothing funny in this,” replied the gloomy member of the court, and grew gloomier still.

And, finally, the third member of the court, that same Matvyéy Nikitich, who was always late. He was a bearded man, with large, drooping, kindly eyes. This member suffered from a gastral catarrh ; with the doctor’s advice he had begun that morning a new regimen, and it was this new regimen which had detained him at home longer than usual. Now, as he was ascending the platform, he had a concentrated look, because he was in the habit of using all kinds of guesses, in order to arrive at a solution of such questions as he propounded to himself. Just now, he had made up his mind that if the number of steps from the door of the cabinet to the chair should be divisible by three, without a remainder, the new regimen would cure him of the catarrh, but if it did not divide exactly, the regimen would be a failure. There were in all twenty-six steps, but he doubled one, and thus reached the chair with his twenty-seventh step.

The figures of the presiding judge and of the members, as they ascended the platform in their uniforms with the collars embroidered in gold lace, were very impressive. They were themselves conscious of this, and all three, as though embarrassed by their grandeur, swiftly and modestly lowering their eyes, sat down on their carved chairs, back of the table with the green cloth, on which towered a triangular Mirror of Law with an eagle, and a glass vase such as js used on sideboards for confectionery ; there also stood an inkstand, and lay pens, clean paper, and newly sharpened pencils of all dimensions. The associate prosecuting attorney had come in at the same time as the judges. He at once walked up to his place near the window just as hurriedly, with his portfolio under his arm, and waving his hand in the same manner as before, and at once buried himself in the reading and examination of the papers, utilizing every minute in order to prepare himself for the case. This was the fourth time he had had a case to prosecute. He was very ambitious and had firmly determined to make a career, therefore he regarded it as necessary that the cases should go against the defendant ever)’ time he prosecuted. He was acquainted with the chief points in the poisoning case, and had even formed a plan of attack, but he needed a few more data, and was now hurriedly reading the briefs, and copying out the necessary points.

The secretary was seated at the opposite end of the platform, and, having arranged all the documents that might be needed, was looking over a proscribed article, which he had obtained and read the day before. He was anxious to talk about this article to the member of the court with the long beard, who shared his views, and was trying to become familiar with its contents before he spoke to him about it.

VIII.

The presiding judge looked through the papers, put a few questions to the bailiff and the secretary, and, having received affirmative answers, gave the order to bring in the defendants. The door back of the screen was immediately thrown open, and two gendarmes in caps, and with unsheathed swords, entered, and were followed by the defendants, — by a red-haired, freckled man, and by two women. The man was clad in a prison cloak, which was much too broad and too long for him. As he entered the courtroom, he held his hands with their outstretched fingers down his legs, thus keeping the long sleeves back in place. He did not glance upon the judges or upon the spectators, but gazed at the bench, around which he was walking, Having got to the other end, he let the women sit down first, and himself took up a seat on the very edge ; gazing fixedly at the presiding judge, he began to move the muscles of his cheeks, as though whispering something. After him came a young woman, also dressed in a prison cloak. Her head was wrapped in a prison kerchief ; her face was ashen-white, without eyebrows or lashes, but with red eyes. This woman seemed to be very calm. As she was going up to her seat, her cloak caught on something, but she carefully, without any undue haste, freed it, and sat down.

The third defendant was Maslova.

The moment she entered, the eyes of all the men who were in the courtroom were directed upon her, and for a long time were riveted upon her white face, with her black, sparkling eyes, and her swelling bosom underneath her cloak. Even the gendarme, near whom she passed, gazed at her uninterruptedly, until she had gone beyond him; when she sat down, he rapidly turned away, as though conscious of his guilt, and, straightening himself up, fixed his eyes upon the window in front of him.

The presiding judge waited until the defendants had taken their seats, and the moment Maslova sat down, he turned to the secretary.

Then began the usual procedure : the roll-call of the jurors, the discussion about those who had failed to make their appearance, and the imposition of fines upon them, the decision in regard to those who wished to be excused, and the completion of the required number from the reserve jurors. Then the presiding judge folded some slips of paper, placed them in the glass vase, and, rolling up a little the embroidered sleeves of his uniform and baring his hirsute arms, began, with the gestures of a prestidigitator, to take out one slip at a time; these he unrolled and read. Then the presiding judge adjusted his sleeves, and ordered the priest to swear in the jurors.

The old priest, with a swollen, sallow face, in a cinnamon-coloured vestment, with a gold cross on his breast and a small decoration pinned to his vestment, slowly moving his swollen legs under his garment, went up to the reading-desk which stood under the image.

The jurymen arose and in a crowd moved up to the desk.

” Please, come up,” said the priest, touching the cross on his chest with his swollen hand, and waiting for the approach of all the jurors.

This priest had taken orders forty-six years before, and was preparing himself in three years to celebrate his jubilee in the same manner in which the cathedral protopope had lately celebrated his. He had served in the circuit court since the opening of the courts, and was very proud of the fact that he had sworn in several tens of

thousands of people, and that at his advanced age he continued to labour for the good of the Church, of his country, and of his family, to whom he would leave a house and a capital of not less than thirty thousand roubles in bonds. It had never occurred to him that his work in the courtroom, which consisted in having people take an oath over the Gospel, in which swearing of oaths is directly prohibited, was not good ; he was not in the least annoyed by his routine occupation, but, on the contrary, liked it very much, because it gave him an opportunity of getting acquainted with nice gentlemen. He had just had the pleasure of meeting the famous lawyer, who inspired him with great respect because he had received a fee of ten thousand roubles for nothing more than the case of the old woman with the immense flowers.

When the jurors had walked up the steps of the platform, the priest, bending his bald, gray head to one side, stuck it through the greasy opening of the scapulary, and, arranging his scanty hair, addressed the jurors.

“ Raise your right hands and put your fingers together like this,” he said, in the deliberate voice of an old man, lifting his plump hand, with dimples beneath every finger, and putting three fingers together. “Now repeat after me,” he said, and began, “ I promise and swear by Almighty God, before His Holy Gospel and before the Lifegiving Rood of the Lord, that in the case, in which — ” he said, making a pause after every sentence. ” Don’t drop your hand, but hold it like this,” he addressed a young man, who had dropped his hand, — “ that in the case, in which — “

The stately gentleman with the whiskers, the colonel, the merchant, and others held their fingers as the priest had ordered them to do ; some of these held them high and distinctly formed, as though this gave them special pleasure ; others again held them reluctantly and in an indefinite manner. Some repeated the words too loudly, as though with undue zeal and with an expression which said, ” There is nothing to prevent my speaking aloud ; ” others again spoke in a whisper, and fell behind the words of the priest, and then, as if frightened, hastened to catch up with him ; some held their three fingers firmly folded, and flaunted them, as though they were afraid of freeing something from their hands ; others loosened their fingers and again gathered them up. All felt awkward, and the old priest alone was firmly convinced that he was performing a useful work.

After the oath had been administered, the presiding judge told the jurors to elect a foreman. The jurymen arose, and, crowding each other, went into the councilroom, where they immediately took out their cigarettes, and began to smoke. Somebody proposed the stately gentleman for a foreman ; he was chosen by unanimous consent, and, throwing away and extinguishing the cigarette stumps, they returned to the courtroom. The stately gentleman announced to the presiding judge that he had been chosen foreman, and, stepping over each others’ feet, they sat down in two rows, on the chairs with the high backs.

Everything went without a hitch, almost with solemnity, and this regularity, this sequence and solemnity, afforded all the participants pleasure, for it confirmed them in their conviction that they were performing a serious and important public duty. Nekhlyudov, too, felt this.

The moment the jurors had taken their seats, the presiding judge made a speech to them about their rights, their duties, and their responsibilities. While delivering his speech, the judge kept changing his pose : he leaned now on his right arm, now on his left, now on the back, and now on the arm of his chair ; he smoothed out the edges of the papers, or he stroked the paper-knife, or fingered a pencil.

Their rights consisted, according to his words, in being

permitted to ask questions of the defendants through the presiding judge, in having pencil and paper, and in being allowed to inspect the exhibits. Their duty consisted in judging justly, and not falsely. And their responsibility was this : if they did not keep their consultations secret, or if they established any communication with the outside world, they would be subject to punishment.

Everybody listened with respectful attention. The merchant, wafting around him the odour of liquor, and restraining himself from loud belching, approvingly nodded his head at every sentence.

IX.

Having finished his speech, the judge turned to the defendants.

” Simdn Kartinkin, arise ! ” he said.

Simon got up with a jerk, and the muscles of his cheeks moved more rapidly.

” Your name ? “

« Simon Petrov Kartinkin,” he answered rapidly, in a crackling voice, evidently having prepared his answer in advance.

“ Your rank ?”

” Peasant.”

” What Government and county ? ”

“From the Government of Tula, Krapivensk County, Kupyànsk township, village of Borki.”

“ How old are you ? “

” Thirty-three ; born in one thousand — ”

“ What is your religion ? “

“lama Russian, an Orthodox.”

” Married ? ”

“No, sir.”

“ What is your occupation ? ”

“ I worked in the corridor of ‘ Hotel Mauritania.’ ”

“ Have you been in court before ? ”

“ I have never been sentenced, because I used to live — ”

” You have not been tried before ? ”

“ So help me God, never.”

“ Have you received a copy of the indictment ? “

“ I have.”

” Take your seat ! Evfimiya Ivanovna Bochkova,” the presiding judge addressed the next defendant.

But Simon continued standing, and Bochkova could not be seen behind his back.

” Kartinkin, sit down.”

Kartinkin continued to stand.

” Kartlnkin, sit down ! ”

But Kartlnkin still stood up ; he sat down only when the bailiff ran up, and, bending his head down, and unnaturally opening his mouth, said to him in a tragic whisper : ” Sit down, sit down ! ”

Kartlnkin dropped as fast into his seat as he had shot up before, and, wrapping himself in his cloak, began once more silently to move his cheeks.

” Your name?” the judge addressed the second defendant, with a sigh of fatigue, without looking at her, and looking up something in the document which was lying before him. The presiding judge was so used to his cases that, in order to expedite matters, he was able to attend to two things at the same time.

Bdchkova was forty-three years old ; her rank, burgess of Kolomna ; her occupation, corridor maid in the same “ Hotel Mauritania.” She had not been before under trial, and had received the indictment. She answered all the questions very freely, and with such intonations as though she meant to convey the idea: “Yes, 1, Evfimiya Bochkova, have received the copy, and am proud of it, and allow nobody to laugh at me.” She did not wait for the permission to be seated, but sat down the moment the last question was answered.

” Your name ?” the gallant presiding judge exceedingly politely addressed the third defendant. ” You must stand up ! ” he added, softly and kindly, noticing that Maslova was sitting.

Maslova started up with a swift motion, and with an expression of readiness, thrusting forward her swelling bosom, looked, without answering, at the face of the judge with her smiling and slightly squinting black eyes.

“ What is your name ? ”

” Lyubdv,” she quickly replied.

In the meantime, Nekhlyudov, who had put on his eyeglasses, was watching the defendants while the questions were being asked. ” It can’t be,” he thought, riveting his eyes on the defendant. “ But how is it Lyubov ? ” he thought, upon hearing her answer.

The judge wanted to continue his questions, but the member in the spectacles, saying something angrily under his breath, stopped him. The judge nodded consent, and again turned to the defendant.

“ Lyubdv ? ” he said. “ A different name is given here.”

The defendant remained silent.

” 1 ask what your real name is ? “

” By what name were you baptized ? ” the member asked, angrily.

” Formerly I was called Katerina.”

« It is impossible,” Nekhlyudov kept saying to himself, and meanwhile he knew beyond any doubt that it was she, the same girl, half-educated, half-chambermaid, with whom he had once been in love, precisely, in love, but whom he had seduced during an uncontrollable transport and then had abandoned, and whom he later never thought of, because that recollection would have been too painful to him and would have condemned him ; it would have proved that he, who was so proud of his ” decency,” not only was not decent, but had simply treated this woman contemptibly.

Yes, it was she. He now saw clearly that exclusive and mysterious individuality which separates one person from another and makes him exclusive, one, and unrepeated. Beneath the unnatural pallor and plumpness of her face, this individuality, this sweet, exceptional individuality, was in her face, her lips, her slightly squinting eyes, and, above all else, in her naïve, smiling glance, and in that expression of readiness, not only in her face, but in her whole figure.

” You ought to have said so,” the judge said, still very softly. ” Your patronymic ? “

” I am of illegitimate birth,” said Mdslova.

“ How were you called by your godfather ? ”

“ Mikhaylovna.”

” What could her crime be ? ” Nekhlyudov continued to think, breathing with difliculty.

“Your family name?” continued the judge.

” Maslova, by my mother.”

“ Rank ? ”

” Burgess.”

“ Of the Orthodox faith ? ”

” Yes.”

” Occupation ? What was your occupation ? “

Maslova was silent.

” What was your occupation ? ” repeated the judge.

” I lived in an establishment,” she said.

” In what kind of an establishment ? ” angrily asked the member in the spectacles.

” You know yourself in what kind,” said Maslova, smiling, and, immediately turning around, she again fixed her eyes on the presiding judge.

There was something so unusual in the expression of her face, and something so terrible and pitiable in the meaning of the words which she had uttered, in her smile, and in that rapid glance which she then cast upon the whole courtroom, that the presiding judge lost his composure, and for a moment ensued a complete silence in the hall. The silence was broken by the laughter of somebody among the spectators. Somebody else cried, ” Hush ! ” The presiding judge raised his head and continued the questions.

” Have you ever been tried or under a judicial inquest before ? ”

“ No,” softly said Maslova, with a sigh.

” Have you received the indictment ? ”

” I have.”

” Take your seat,” said the presiding judge.

The defendant lifted her skirt with a motion with which dressed up women adjust their train, and sat down, folding her small white hands in the sleeve of the cloak, without taking her eyes off the presiding judge.

Then began the roll-call of the witnesses, and the removal of the witnesses, and the determination of the medical expert, and his call to the courtroom. Then the secretary rose and began to read the indictment. He read with a clear and loud enunciation, but so rapidly that his voice, with its incorrectly articulated r’s and l’s, mingled into one uninterrupted, soporific din. The judges leaned now on one arm of the chair, now on the other, now on the table, or against the back, and now closed their eyes or opened them and passed some words to each other in a whisper. One gendarme several times held back his incipient convulsive yawning.

Of the defendants, Kartinkin never stopped moving his cheeks. Bochkova sat very quiet and erect, occasionally scratching her head underneath her kerchief.

Maslova sat motionless, listening to the reader and looking at him ; now and then she shuddered, as though wishing to contradict, blushed, and drew deep sighs ; she changed the position of her hands, looked around her, and again riveted her eyes on the reader.

Nekhlyudov sat in the first row, on his high chair, the second from the outer edge ; he did not take oil his eyeglasses, and gazed at Méslova, while his soul was in a complicated and painful ferment.

X.

The indictment was as follows : On the seventeenth of January, 188-, the police was informed by the proprietor of ” Hotel Mauritania,” of that city, of the sudden death of the transient Siberian merchant of the second guild, Ferapont Smyelkov, who had been staying in his establishment. According to the testimony of the physician of the fourth ward, Smyelkdv’s death had been caused by a rupture of the heart, induced by an immoderate use of spirituous liquors, and Smyelkdv’s body was committed to the earth on the third day. In the meantime, on the fourth day after Smyelkdv’s death, there returned from St. Petersburg his countryman and companion, the Siberian merchant Timdkhin, who, upon learning of the death of his friend Smyelkov, and of the circumstances under which it had taken place, expressed his suspicion that Smyelkdv’s death was due to unnatural causes, and that he had been poisoned by evil-doers, who had seized his money and a gold ring, which were wanting from the inventory of his property. As a result of this, an inquest was instituted, and the following was ascertained : First, that it was known to the proprietor of ” Hotel Mauritania ” and to the clerk of Merchant Starikov, with whom Smyelkov had had business affairs after his arrival in the city, that Smyelkov ought to have had 3,800 roubles, which he had received from the bank, whereas in the travelling-bag and pocketbook, which had been sealed up at his death, only 312 roubles and sixteen kopeks were found. Secondly, that the day and night preceding his death, Smyelkdv had passed with the prostitute Lyubov, who had been twice to his room. Thirdly, that said prostitute had sold a diamond ring, belonging to Smyelkov, to the landlady. Fourthly, that the hotel maid Evfimiya Bdcbkova had deposited eighteen hundred roubles in a bank on the day after Smyelkdv’s death. And, fifthly, that, according to the declaration of the prostitute Lyubdv, the hotel servant Simon Kartinkin had handed a powder to said prostitute Lyubdv, advising her to pour it into the wine of Merchant Smyelkov, which she, according to her own confession, had promptly done.

At the inquest, the defendant, said prostitute, named Lyubdv, deposed that during the presence of Merchant Smyelkov in the house of prostitution, in which, according to her words, she had been working, she had really been sent by the said Merchant Smyelkov to his room in the “ Hotel Mauritania ” to fetch him some money ; and that there she had opened his valise with the key which he had given her, and had taken from it forty roubles, as ordered to do, but that she had not taken any more money, to which Simon Kartinkin and Evfimiya Bochkova could be her witnesses, for she had opened and closed the valise and had taken out the money in their presence.

But as to the poisoning of Smyelkov, prostitute Lyubdv deposed that upon her third arrival at Merchant Smyelkov’s room, she had really, at the instigation of Simon Kartinkin, given him some powders in his cognac, thinking them to be such as would induce sleep, for the purpose of being freed from him as soon as he fell asleep ; that she had taken no money ; and that the ring had been given her by Smyelkov himself, when he had dealt her some blows, and she had intended to leave.

At the inquisition, the defendants, Evfimiya Bochkova and Simon Kartinkin, deposed as follows : Evfimiya Bochkova deposed that she knew nothing of the lost money ; that she had not once entered the merchant’s room; and

that Lyubov had been there by herself, and that, if any money had been stolen, it must have been stolen by Lyubov when she had come with the merchant’s key for the money.

At this point of the reading, Maslova shuddered, and,, opening her mouth, glanced at Bochkova.

When the eighteen-hundred-rouble bank-bill was presented to Evfimiya Bochkova, the secretary continued reading, and she was asked where she got such a sum of money, she deposed that it had been earned by her during twelve years in conjunction with Simon, whom she had intended to marry.

At the inquest, the defendant Simon Kartinkin in his first deposition confessed that he and Bochkova had together stolen the money, at the instigation of Maslova, who had come from the house of prostitution with the key, and that he had divided it among himself, Màslova, and Bochkova ; he had also confessed that he had given the powders to Maslova, in order to induce sleep. But at the second deposition he denied his participation in the stealing of the money, and his having handed any powders to Maslova, and accused Maslova alone. But in regard to the money which Bochkova had deposited in the bank, he deposed, similar to her statement, that she had earned that money in conjunction with him during the eighteen years of her service at the hotel, from the gratuities of the gentlemen.

To clear up the circumstances of the case, it was found necessary to hold an inquest over the body of Merchant Smyelkdv, and consequently an order was given to exhume Smyelkov’s body and to investigate both the contents of his entrails, and the changes that might have taken place in his organism. The investigation of his entrails showed that death had been occasioned by poisoning. Then there followed in the indictment the description of the cross-examination, and the depositions of the

three years of age, and Burgess Katerina Mikhaylovna Maslova, twentyseven years of age, are accused of having, on January 17, 188-, conspired to seize the money of Merchant Smyelkov, to the sum of twenty-five hundred roubles, and to deprive Merchant Smyelkov of his life, in order to conceal the traces of their crime, for which purpose they administered poison to him, which caused his death.

This crime is provided for in Article 1455 of the Criminal Code. In pursuance thereof, and on the basis of article so and so of the Statutes of Criminal Procedure, Peasant Simon Kartinkin, Evfimiya Bochkova, and Burgess Katerina Maslova are subject to the jurisdiction of the circuit court and are to be tried by jury.

Thus the secretary ended the reading of his long indictment, and, putting away the documents, sat down in his seat, passing both his hands through his hair. Everybody drew a sigh of relief, with the pleasant conviction that now the investigation would begin, when everything would be cleared up, and justice would be satisfied. Nekhlyudov alone did not experience that sensation : he was all absorbed in the contemplation of the terrible charges brought against Maslova, whom he had known as an innocent and charming girl ten years before.

XL

When the reading of the indictment was ended, the presiding judge, having consulted with the members, turned to Kartinkin with an expression which manifestly said that now they would most surely ascertain all the details of the case.

” Peasant Simon Kartinkin,” he began, leaning to his left.

Simon Kartinkin got up, holding his hands close at his sides, and bending forward with his whole body, while his cheeks continued to move inaudibly.

“You are accused of having, on January 17, 188-, in company with Evfimiya Bochkova and Katerina Maslova, appropriated from Smyelkdv’s valise his money, and then of having brought arsenic, and having persuaded Katerina Maslova to give it to Merchant Smyelkov to drink in wine, from which his death ensued. Do you plead guilty ? ” he said, leaning to his right.

” It is entirely impossible, because it is our duty to serve the guests — “

“ You will tell that later. Do you plead guilty ? “

” Kot at all. I only —”

“ You will say that later. Do you plead guilty ? ” the presiding judge repeated calmly, but firmly.

” I can’t do that because — “

Again the bailiff ran up to Simon Kartinkin, and stopped him, in a tragic whisper.

The presiding judge, with an expression on his face as though this matter had been settled, changed the position of the elbow of that arm, in the hand of which he was holding a paper, and addressed Evfimiya Bochkova.

“ Evfimiya Bochkova, you are accused of having taken, on January 17, 188-, in company with Simon Kartmkin and Katerina Maslova, from Merchant Smyelkov’s valise, his money and ring, and after dividing the property up among yourselves, of having tried to conceal your crime by giving Merchant Smyelkov poison, from which his death ensued. Do you plead guilty?”

“ I am guilty of nothing,” the defendant spoke boldly and firmly. ” I did not even go into his room — And as this lewd one went in there, she did it.”

” You will tell that later,” the presiding judge said again, just as gently and firmly as before. ” So you do not plead guilty ? ”

” I did not take the money, and I did not give him anything to drink, and I was not in his room. If I had been in there, I should have kicked her out.”

” You do not plead guilty ?”

” Never.”

” Very well.”

” Katerina Maslova,” began the presiding judge, addressing the third defendant, ” you are accused of having come from the public house to the room of ‘ Hotel Mauritania,’ with the key to Merchant Smyelkov’s valise, and of having taken from that valise money and a ring,” he said, as though reciting a lesson learned by rote, leaning his ear to the member on the left, who was informing him that according to the list of the exhibits a certain vial was wanting, ” of having taken from that valise money and a ring,” repeated the judge, ” and, after having divided up the stolen property, and having arrived with Merchant Smyelkov at ‘ Hotel Mauritania,’ of having offered Smyelkdv poisoned wine to drink, from the effects of which he died. Do you plead guilty ? ”

” I am not guilty of anything,” she spoke rapidly.

” As I have said before, so I say now : I did not take it, I did not, I did not ; and the ring he gave me himself.”

” You do not plead guilty to the charge of having taken the twenty-five hundred roubles ? ” said the presiding judge.

” I say I took nothing but the forty roubles.”

” Do you plead guilty to having put some powders into the wine of Merchant Smyelkdv ? “

“I do. Only I thought that they were sleeping-powders, and that nothing would happen to him from them. I had no intentions of doing wrong. I say before God, I did not wish his death,” she said.

” And so you do not plead guilty to having taken the money and ring of Merchant Smyelkov,” said the ;‘residing judge. ” But you do plead guilty to the charge of having administered the powders ? ”

” I plead guilty to this, only I thought they were sleeping-powders. I gave them to him to put him to sleep; I had no other intention.”

” Very well,” said the presiding judge, evidently satisfied with the result. ” Tell, then, how it all happened,” he said, leaning against the back of the chair, and placing both his bands on the table. “ Tell everything as it happened. You may be able to alleviate your condition by a frank confession.”

Méslova continued to gaze at the presiding judge, and to keep silent.

” Tell how it all happened.”

” How it happened ? ” Mdslova suddenly began, in a hurried voice. ” I arrived at the hotel ; I was taken to his room, and he was already there, very drunk.” She pronounced the word “ he ” with a peculiar expression of terror, opening her eyes wide. ” I wanted to drive home, but he would not let me.”

She stopped, as though having suddenly lost the thread of what she was saying, or recalling something else.

” Well, and then ? ”

” And then ? I stayed there, and then drove home.”

At that time the associate prosecuting attorney half raised himself, leaning unnaturally on one elbow.

” Do you wish to ask a question ? ” said the presiding judge, and, on the associate prosecuting attorney’s affirmative answer, he indicated by a gesture that he could put the question.

” I should like to ask whether the defendant had been acquainted with Simon Kartinkin before that,” said the associate prosecuting attorney, without looking at Maslova.

Having put the question, he compressed his lips and frowned.

The judge repeated the question. Maslova gazed frightened at the assistant prosecuting attorney.

” With Simon ? Yes,” she said.

” I should like to know wherein the defendant’s acquaintance with Kartinkin consisted, and whether they had frequent communications.”

” What this acquaintance consisted in ? He used to invite me to his room, but there was no other acquaintance,” replied Maslova, restlessly turning her eyes from the associate prosecuting attorney to the presiding judge, and back again.

” I should like to know why Kartinkin used to invite Maslova exclusively, and no other girls ? ” said the associate prosecuting attorney, half-closing his eyes, and with a light Mephistophelean smile.

“ I do not know. How can I know ?” replied Maslova, casting a frightened look all around her, and for a moment resting her eyes on Nekhlyudov. “He invited whom he pleased.”

” Has she recognized me ? ” Nekhlyudov thought in terror, feeling all his blood rush to his face ; but Màslova did not separate him from the rest, and, turning immediately away from him, riveted her eyes on the assistant prosecuting attorney, with an expression of terror in her face.

” The defendant, then, denies having had any close relations with Kartinkin? Very well. 1 have nothing else to ask.”

And the associate prosecuting attorney immediately removed his elbow from the desk, and began to write something down. In reality he was not writing anything at all, but only running his pen over the letters of his brief, but he pretended to imitate the prosecuting attorneys and lawyers who, after a clever question, make a note in their speeches that are to crush their opponents.

The presiding judge did not at once turn to the defendant, because he was just then asking the member in the spectacles whether he agreed to his putting the previously prepared and noted down questions.

” What happened next ? ” the presiding judge continued his inquiry.

“ I came back home,” continued Mdslova, looking more boldly at the judge, “and gave the money to the landlady, and went to bed. I had barely fallen asleep when one of our girls, Bérta, woke me up with ‘ Go, your merchant has come again ! ’ I did not want to go out, but the madam told me to go. In the meantime, he” she again uttered this word with manifest terror, “ he had been all the time treating our girls ; then he wanted to send for some more wine, but his money was all gone. The landlady did not trust him. So he sent me to his room ; and he told me where his money was, and how much I should take. So I went.”

The presiding judge was whispering something to the member on the left, and did not hear what Mdslova was saying, but to show that he was listening, he repeated her last words.

“ You went. Well, and then ? ” he said.

” I went there and did as he had ordered me to do. I went to his room. I did not go by myself, but called Simon Mikhaylovich, and her,” she said, pointing to Bdchkova.

“She is lying; I did not put my foot in there — ” began Evfimiya Bochkova, but she was stopped.

“ I took out four red bills in their presence,” Maslova continued, frowning, and without glancing at Bochkova.

” Well, did not the defendant notice how much money there was in it, while she was taking the forty roubles ? ” again asked the prosecuting attorney.

Maslova shuddered, the moment the prosecuting attorney addressed her. She did not know how to explain her feeling, but she was sure he meant her harm. “ 1 did not count, but I saw there were some hundred-rouble bills there.”

” The defendant saw hundred-rouble bills, — I have nothing else to ask.”

” Well, so you brought the money ? ” the presiding judge went on to ask, looking at his watch.

“ I did.”

” Well, and then ? ” asked the presiding judge.

” Then he took me with him once more,” said Maslova.

” And how did you give him the wine with the powder?” asked the judge.

“ IIow ? I poured it into the wine, and gave it to him.”

” Why did you give it to liim ? “

Without answering the question, she heaved a deep and heavy sigh.

” He would not let me go,” she said, after a moment’s silence. ” I got tired of him, so I went into the corridor, and said to Simon Mikhaylovich, ‘ If he’d only let me go, — I am so tired.’ And Simon Mikhaylovich said, « We are tired of him, too. Let us give him some sleeping-powders; that will put him to sleep, and then you will get away.’ And I said,‘Very well! ‘ I thought it was a harmless powder. He gave me a paper. I went in, and he was lying behind a screen, and asked me at once to let him have some cognac. I took from the table a bottle of line-champagne, tilled two glasses,— one for myself, and one for him, — and poured the powder into his glass. I should never have given it, if I had known what it was.”

“ Well, how did you get possession of the ring ? ” asked the presiding judge.

” He himself had made me a present of it.”

“ When did he give it to you ? ”

” When we came to his room, I wanted to leave, and he struck me upon the head, and broke my comb. I grew angry, and wanted to go away. He took the ring off his finger and gave it to me, asking me to stay,” she said.

Just then the associate prosecuting attorney half-raised himself, and, with the same feignedly naïve look, asked the judge’s permission to put a few more questions. His request being granted, he bent his head over his embroidered collar, and asked :

“ I should like to know how long the defendant remained in Merchant Smyelkov’s room.”

Again Maslova was overcome by terror, and, her eyes restlessly flitting from the associate prosecuting attorney to the presiding judge, she muttered, hurriedly :

“ I do not remember how long.”

“ Well, does the defendant remember whether she called elsewhere in the hotel upon coming out of Merchant Smyelkov’s room? “

Maslova thought awhile.

“ I went into the adjoining room, — it was unoccupied,” she said.

“ Why did you step in there ? ” said the associate prosecuting attorney, enthusiastically, and addressing her directly.

” I went in to fix myself, and to wait for a cab.”

” And was Kartinkin in the room with the defendant, or not ? “

“ He came in, too.”

” What did he come in for ? “

“ There was some of the merchant’s fine-champagne left, so we drank it together.”

“Ah, you drank it in company. Very well.”

“ Did the defendant have any conversation with Simon ? ”

Maslova suddenly frowned, grew red in her face, and rapidly said : ” What I said ? Nothing. I have told everything that took place. I know nothing else. Do with me what you please. I am not guilty, and that’s all.”

” I have nothing else,” the prosecuting attorney said to the presiding judge, and, unnaturally raising his shoulders, began swiftly to note down in the brief of his speech the confession of the defendant that she had been in an unoccupied room with Simon.

There ensued a moment’s silence.

” Have you nothing else to say ? “

“ 1 have said everything,” she declared, with a sigh, and sat down again.

Thereupon the presiding judge made a note of something, and, upon having listened to a communication which the member on the left had made to him in a whisper, he announced a recess of ten minutes in the session, and hurriedly rose and left the room. The consultation between the presiding judge and the member on his left, the tall, bearded man, with the large, kindly eyes, consisted in the latter’s information that his stomach was slightly out of order, and that he wished to massage himself a little and swallow some drops. It was this that he had told the presiding judge, and the judge acceded to his request and granted a ten minutes’ recess.

Right after the judges rose the jurors, the lawyers, and the witnesses, and, with the pleasurable sensation of having performed a part of an important duty, they moved to and fro.

Nekhlyudov went into the consultation room, and there sat down at the window.

XII.

Yes, this was Katyusha.

Nekhlyudov’s relations with Katyusha had been like this :

Nekhlyudov saw Katyusha for the first time when, as a third-year student at the university, he passed the summer with his aunts, working on his thesis about the ownership of land. His vacations he usually passed with his mother and sister on his mother’s suburban estate near Moscow ; but in that particular year his sister was married, and his mother went abroad to a watering-place. Nekhlyudov had to work on his essay, and so he decided to stay during the summer with his aunts. There, in the depth of the country, it was quiet, and there were no distractions ; and the aunts tenderly loved their nephew and heir, and he loved them and their old-fashioned ways and simplicity of life.

During that summer Nekhlyudov experienced that rapturous mood which comes over a youth when he for the first time discovers, not by the indications of others, but from within, all the beauty and significance of life and all the importance of the work which is to be performed in it by each man ; when he sees the endless perfectibility of himself and of the whole universe ; and when he devotes himself to that perfectibility not only with the hope, but with the full conviction of being able to attain the perfection of which he has been dreaming. During that year, while attending his lectures, he had had a chance of reading Spencer’s Social Statics, and Spencer’s reflections on the ownership of land had produced a strong impression upon him, especially since he himself was the son of a large proprietress. His father had not been rich, but his mother had received about ten thousand desyatinas of land as a dowry. It was then the first time that he had perceived the cruelty and injustice of private ownership, and, being one of those men to whom a sacrifice in the name of moral demands affords the highest spiritual enjoyment, he had decided not to make use of his right of the ownership of land, and had given away to the peasants the land which he had inherited from his father. And it was on this subject that he was writing his essay.

His life on the estate of his aunts, during that summer, ran like this : he rose very early, sometimes at three o’clock, and before sunrise, frequently before the morning mist had lifted, went to bathe in the river at the foot of a hill, and returned home while the dew was still on the grass and the flowers. At times, he seated himself, soon after drinking his coffee, to write on his essay, or to read up the sources for his essay ; but very frequently, instead of reading or writing, he went away from the house and wandered over fields and through woods. Before dinner he fell asleep somewhere in the shade of the garden ; then, at table, he amused Iris aunts with Iris jollity ; then he rode on horseback, or went out rowing, and in the evening he read again, or sat with his aunts, playing solitaire. Frequently he could not sleep during the night, especially when the moon was shining, because he was overflowing with a billowing joy of life, and so, instead of sleeping, he would stroll through the garden, dreaming and thinking.

Thus he had quietly and happily passed the first month of Iris sojourn on the estate of his aunts, without paying the slightest attention to the half-chambermaid, half-educated, black-eyed, swift-footed Katyusha.

At that time, Nekhlyudov, who had been brought up under his mother’s wing, though nineteen years of age, was an entirely innocent youth. He dreamed of woman only as of a wife. But all the women who, according to his opinion, could not be his wife, were people and not women, so far as he was concerned. But on Ascension day of that summer a neighbour happened to call with her children, two young ladies and a gymnasiast, and a young artist, of peasant origin, who was staying at their house.

After tea they began to play the ” burning ” catchinggame on the lawn before the house, which had already been mowed down. Katyusha was of the company. After several changes of places Nekhlyudov had to run with Katyusha. It was always a pleasure for Nekhlyudov to see Katyusha, but it had never occurred to him that there could be any special relations between them.

” Well, I sha’n’t be able to catch them,” said the ” burning,” jolly artist, who was very swift on his short and crooked, but strong peasant legs.

” Maybe they will stumble ! “

” No, you will not catch us! ”

” One, two, three ! ”

They clapped their hands three times. With difficulty restraining her laughter, Katyusha rapidly exchanged places with Nekhlyudov, and, with her strong, rough, little hand pressing his large hand, she started running to the left, rustling her starched skirt.

Nekhlyudov was running fast, and, as he did not wish to be caught by the artist, he raced as fast as his legs would carry him. As he looked around he saw the artist close at her heels, and she, moving her lithe young legs, did not submit to him, but got away to his left. In front was a clump of lilac bushes, behind which no one was running, and Katyusha, looking back at Nekhlyudov, made a sign with her head to him to join her behind the bushes. He understood her, and ran back of the clump. But here, back of the lilac bushes, there was a small ditch overgrown with nettles, of which he did not know; he stumbled into it, and in his fall stung his hands with the nettles, and wet them in the evening dew; but he immediately got up, laughing at himself, and ran out on a clear spot.

Katyusha, gleaming with a smile and with her eyes as black as moist blackberries, was running toward him. They met and clasped each other’s hands.

“The nettles have stung you, I think,” she said, adjusting her braid with her free hand ; she breathed heavily and, smiling, looked straight at him with her upturned eyes.

” I did not know there was a ditch there,” he said, himself smiling, and not letting her hand out of his.

She moved up to him, and he, himself not knowing how it all happened, moved his face up to hers ; she did not turn away, and he pressed her hand more firmly, and kissed her on the lips.

” I declare ! ” she muttered, and, with a swift motion freeing her hand, ran away from him.

She ran up to the lilac bushes, picked off two bunches of withering white lilacs, and striking her heated face with them and looking around at him, waved her hands in a lively manner and went back to the players.

From that time the relations between Nekhlyudov and Katyusha were changed for those other relations which are established between an innocent young man and an equally innocent young girl, who are attracted to each other.

The moment Katyusha entered the room, or if he saw her white apron from a distance, everything seemed to him as though illuminated by the sunlight, everything became more interesting, more cheerful, more significant, and life was more joyful. She experienced the same. It was not merely Katyusha’s presence and nearness that produced that effect upon Nekhlyudov; it was also produced by the mere consciousness that there was a Katyusha, just as she was affected by the consciousness of his existence. If Nekhlyudov received an unpleasant letter from his mother, or if his essay did not proceed satisfactorily, or if he felt an inexplicable youthful sadness, — it was enough for him to think of Katyusha’s existence, and to see her, in order that all that should be dispersed.

Katyusha had many household cares, but she generally had time to spare, and in such moments she read books ; Nekhlyudov gave her the works of Dostodvski and of Turgenev, which he himself had just finished reading. Nothing gave her so much pleasure as Turgénev’s “The Calm.” They conversed with each other by fits, while meeting in the corridor, in the balcony, in the yard, and sometimes in the room of the aunts’ old chambermaid, Matréna Pdvlovna, with whom Katyusha was living, and to whose room Nekhlyudov used to go to drink unsweetened tea. The conversations which took place in the presence of Matréna Pavlovna were the most enjoyable. It was much worse when they talked to each other without witnesses. Their eyes at once began to say something different, something much more important than what the bps were saying ; the lips pursed, and they felt uneasy, and hastened to get away from each other.

These relations existed between Nekhlyudov and Katyusha during the whole time of his first visit at his aunts’. They noticed these relations, were frightened, and even wrote about them to Princess Eléna Ivanovna, Nekhlyudov’s mother. Aunt Mariya Ivanovna was afraid lest Dmitri should have a liaison with Katyusha. But her fears were groundless : Nekhlyudov, without knowing it, loved Katyusha, as only innocent people love, and his love was his main shield against his fall, and against hers. He not only had no desire of a physical possession of her, but was even terrified at the thought of such a possibility. There was much more reason for the fears of poetical Sdfya Ivanovna, lest Dmitri, with his uncompromising and determined character, being in love with the girl, should make her his wife, without paying any attention to her origin and position. If Nekhlyudov had then clearly been conscious of his love for Katyusha, and especially if they had tried to convince him that he could not and should not by any means unite his fate with that of the girl, it might have easily happened that he, with his customary directness in everything, would have decided that there were no urgent reasons against marrying a girl, whoever she might be, if he loved her. But liis aunts did not tell him their fears, and so he departed without confessing his love to Katyusha.

He was convinced that his feeling for Katyusha was only one of the manifestations of those feelings of the joy of living, which at that time filled all his being, and which was also shared by that dear, merry girl. As he was leaving, and Katyusha, standing on the porch with his aunts, saw him off with her black, slightly cross eyes, full of tears, he was conscious of leaving behind him something beautiful and dear, which would never be repeated. And he felt very sad.

” Goodbye, Katyusha, I thank you for everything,” he said, across Sdfya Ivanovna’s cap, seating himself in the vehicle.

“ Goodbye, Dmitri Ivdnovich,” she said, in her pleasant, soothing voice, and, restraining her tears, which filled her eyes, ran into the vestibule, where she could weep at her ease.

XIII.

After that Nekhlyddov did not see Katyusha for three years. And he saw her only when, having been promoted to the rank of a commissioned officer, he, on his way t’o join the army, came to see his aunts ; he was then a different man from what he had been three years before.

At that time he had been an honest, self-sacrificing youth, ready to devote himself to any good cause ; but now he was a dissolute, refined egotist, who loved only his own enjoyment. Then, God’s world had presented itself to him as a mystery, which he had joyfully and rapturously tried to solve ; but now, in his new life, everything was simple and clear, and was defined by those conditions of life in which he happened to be. Then, he had regarded as necessary and important a communion with Nature and with men who had lived, thought, and felt before him (philosophy, poetry) ; now human institutions and communion with comrades were the necessary and important things. Then, woman had presented herself to him as a mysterious and enchanting creature, — enchanting by dint of her very mysteriousness; now, the significance of woman, of every woman, except such as were of his family, or the wives of his friends, was quite definite; woman was one of the best instruments of tasted enjoyment. Then, money had not been needed, and one-third of the money offered him by his mother had sufficed, and it had been possible to renounce the land left him by his father in favour of his peasants ; now, the fifteen hundred roubles granted him every month by his mother were not enough, and he had had some unpleasant encounters with her on account of money. Then, he had regarded his spiritual being as his real ego ; now, he regarded his healthy, virile, animal ego as his actual personality.

All this terrible change had taken place in him only because he had quit believing himself, and had begun to believe others. The reason he had quit believing himself and had begun believing others was because he had found it hard to live by believing himself : while believing himself, every question had to be solved not in favour of liis own animal ego, in search of frivolous enjoyments, but nearly always against himself ; whereas believing others, there was nothing to solve, — everything had been solved before, and not in favour of the spiritual, but of the animal ego. More than that : while he believed himself, he was constantly subjected to the judgment of others ; while believing others, he met the approval of those who surrounded him.

Formerly, when Nekhlyudov had been thinking, reading, and speaking about God, about truth, about wealth, about poverty, — all his neighbours had considered this out of place and even ridiculous, and his mother and his aunt had called him ” notre cher philosophe ” with good-natured irony; but when he read novels, told nasty anecdotes, drove to the French theatre to witness ridiculous vaudevilles, and mirthfully narrated them, he was praised and applauded by everybody. When he had regarded it as necessary to limit his needs, and had worn an old overcoat, everybody had considered this an odd and boastful originality ; but when he spent large sums on the chase, or on the appointments of his extremely luxurious cabinet, everybody praised his good taste and presented costly things to him. When he had been chaste and had intended to remain so until his marriage, his relatives had been afraid for his health, and even his mother was not grieved, but, on the contrary, rejoiced, when she heard that he was a real man and had won a certain French woman away from his comrade. But the princess could not think without horror of the incident with Katyusha, — namely, that it might have occurred to him to marry her.

Similarly, when Nekhlyudov, upon having reached his majority, had given away to the peasants the small estate inherited from his father, because he had considered the ownership of land to be an injustice, this deed of his had horrified his mother and his relatives and formed a constant subject of reproach and ridicule for all his kin. They never stopped telling him that the peasants who had received the land had not only not become any richer, but that, on the contrary, they had been impoverished, through the establishment of three dram-shops and from their cessation from work. But when Nekhlyudov, upon entering the Guards, had gambled away so much money in the company of distinguished comrades that Eldna Ivanovna was compelled to draw money away from the capital, she was hardly grieved, for she considered it to be natural and even good to have this virus inoculated early in youth and in good society.

At first Nekhlyudov had struggled, but it was a hard struggle, because everything which he had considered good, while believing himself, was regarded as bad by others, and, vice versa, everything which he, believing himself, had regarded as bad, was considered good by all the people who surrounded him. The end of it was that Nekhlyudov succumbed, ceased believing himself, and began to believe others. At first this renunciation of self had been unpleasant, but this disagreeable sensation lasted a very short time, and soon Nekhlyudov, who in the meantime had begun to smoke and drink wine, no longer experienced this heavy sensation, but rather a great relief.

Nekhlyudov surrendered himself, with all the passion of his nature, to this new life, which was approved by all his neighbours, and drowned that voice in himself that demanded something quite different. This had begun after his arrival in St. Petersburg and was an accomplished fact after he had entered upon his military service.

Military service in general corrupts people by putting the military men into a condition of complete indolence, that is, by giving them no intelligent and useful work to do, and by liberating them from common human obligations, in place of which it substitutes the conventional honour of army, uniform, and flag, and by investing them, on the one hand, with an unlimited power over other people, and, on the other, by subjecting them to servile humility before their superiors.

But when to this corruption of the military service in general, with its honour of the army and flag, and its legalization of violence and murder, is added the seduction of wealth and the communion with the imperial family, as is the case in the select regiments of the Guards, in which only rich and aristocratic officers serve, this corruption reaches in people who are under its influence a condition of absolute insanity of egotism. It was in such an insanity of egotism that Nekhlyudov was from the time when he entered the military service and began to live in the manner of his comrades.

There was no other work to do but to put on a uniform which had been beautifully made and brushed, not by himself, but by others, and a helmet and weapons, which had also been made and burnished and handed to him by others ; to ride on a beautiful charger, which somebody else had brought up, exercised, and groomed ; to go thus to instruction or to parade, with people similarly accoutred, and to gallop, and sway his sword, to shoot, and teach others to shoot. There was no other occupation, and distinguished dignitaries, young and old men, and the Tsar and his suite, not only approved of this occupation, but even praised and rewarded it. In addition to this, it was regarded good and proper to squander the money, which came from one knew not where, to come together in the clubs of the officers or in the most expensive restaurants to eat, or, more particularly, to drink ; then to the theatre, to balls, and to women, and then again riding, swaying of sabres, galloping, and squandering of money, and wine, cards, and women.

Such a life has a peculiarly corrupting influence upon the military, because if any man, not belonging to the army, should lead such an existence, he could not help feeling ashamed of it to the bottom of his heart. But military people think that it cannot be otherwise, and brag and are proud of such a life, particularly during war time, just as had been the case with Nekhlyudov, who had entered the army immediately after the declaration of the war with Turkey. “We are ready to sacrifice our lives in war, and therefore such a careless, gay life is not only permissible, but even necessary for us. And we do live such a life.”

Such were the thoughts which Nekhlyudov dimly thought during that period of his life; he experienced during that time the rapture of liberation from moral barriers, which he had erected for himself before, and he continuously remained in a chronic state of egotistical insanity.

He was in that condition when, three years later, he visited his aunts.

XIV.

Nekhlyudov made a call upon his aunts because their estate was on the way to the regiment, which was in advance of him, and because they had earnestly requested it, and, chiefly, in order to see Katyusha. It may be that in the bottom of his heart there was already an evil intention in regard to Katyusha, which his unfettered animal man kept whispering to him, but he was not conscious of this intention, and simply wanted to visit the places where he had been so happy before, and to see the somewhat funny, but dear and good-hearted aunts, who always surrounded him with an invisible atmosphere of love and transport, and to look at dear Katyusha, of whom he had such an agreeable recollection.

He arrived at the end of March, on Good Friday, while the roads were exceedingly bad and the rain came down in sheets, so that he was wet to his skin and chilled, but brisk and wide awake, as he always was during that time. ” I wonder whether she is still here ! ” he thought, as he drove into the snow-covered old country courtyard with its brick wall. He had expected her to come running out on the porch upon hearing the tinkling of his bell, but on the servants’ porch there came out only two barefooted old women with their dresses tucked up and buckets in their hands. They were evidently busy washing floors. Nor was she at the main entrance; none came out but lackey Tikhon, in an apron, who, no doubt, was also busy cleaning up. In the antechamber he met Sofya Ivanovna, in a silk dress and a cap, who had come out to meet him.

“Now, it is nice that you have come!” said Sofya Ivanovna, kissing him. ” Mariya is a little ill ; she was tired out in church. We have been to communion.”

“ I congratulate you, Aunt Sdfya,” said Nekhlyudov, kissing Sofya Ivanovna’s hands. ” Forgive me for having wet you.”

“Go to your room. You are dreadfully wet. I see you now have a moustache — Katyusha ! Katyusha ! Quick, get him some cotlee.”

“ Right away ! ” was heard the familiar, pleasant voice from the corridor. Nekhlyudov’s heart gave a joyful leap.

“ She is here ! ” And he felt as though the sun had come out from behind the clouds. Nekhlyudov merrily followed Tikhon to his old room to change his clothes.

Nekhlyudov wanted to ask Tikhon about Katyusha — how she was, and whether she was going to marry soon. But Tikhon was so respectful and, at the same time, so stern, and so firmly insisted upon pouring water from the pitcher upon Nekhlyudov’s hands, that he did not have the courage to ask him about Katyusha, and inquired only about his grandchildren, about the old stallion, and about the watch-dog, Polkan. All were well and hale, except Polkdn, who had gotten the hydrophobia the year before.

He had barely thrown off his damp clothes, and was dressing himself, when he heard hurried steps, and somebody knocked at the door. Nekhlyudov recognized the steps and the knock at the door. Nobody walked or knocked that way but she.

He threw over him his damp overcoat, and went up to the door.

” Come in ! ”

It was she, Katyusha. The same Katyusha, only more charming than before. Her smiling, naïve, slightly squinting, black eyes were as upturned as before. She wore, as formerly, a clean white apron. She brought from his aunts a cake of scented soap, fresh from the wrapper, and two towels, one a large Russian towel, and the other a towel of a rough texture. The untouched soap, with the letters distinctly marked upon it, and the towels, and she herself, — everything was equally clean, fresh, untouched, agreeable. Her sweet, firm, red lips pursed as before from uncontrollable joy, when she beheld him.

” I greet you upon your arrival, Dmitri Ivanovich!” she uttered with difficulty, and her face was all covered with a blush.

“ I greet thee — you,” he did not know whether to say “ thou ” or “ you ” to her, and he blushed, just like her. “ Are you alive and well ? ”

” Thank God. Your aunt has sent you your favourite rose-scented soap,” placing the soap on the table, and the towels over the back of an armchair.

“ He has his own,” said Tikhon, defending his guest’s independence, and pointing proudly at Nekhlyudov’s large open toilet bag, with its silver lids and an immense mass of bottles, brushes, pomatums, perfumes, and all kinds of toilet articles.

“ Thank aunty for me. I am so glad I have come,” said Nekhlyudov, feeling that there was the same light and gentleness in his heart that used to be there in former days.

She only smiled in return to these words, and went out.

His aunts, who had always loved Nekhlyudov, this time met him with even greater expressions of joy than usual. Dmitri was going to the war, where he might be wounded, or killed. This touched his aunts.

Nekhlyudov had so arranged his journey as to be able to pass but one day with his aunts; but, upon seeing Katyusha, he consented to stay until past Easter which was to be in two days, and so he telegraphed to his friend and comrade Shénbok, whom he was to have met at Odessa, to have him also stop at his aunts’. Nekhlyudov felt the old feeling toward Katyusha, from the first day he saw her. Just as formerly, he was not able even now to see with equanimity Katyusha’s white apron, nor to restrain a pang of joy when he heard her steps, her voice, her laugh, nor without a soothing sensation to look into her eyes, which were as black as moist blackberries, especially when she smiled, nor, above all, could he help seeing with embarrassment that she blushed every time she met him. He felt that he was in love, but not as formerly, when this love had been a mystery to him and he did not dare acknowledge that he was in love, and when he had been convinced that it was not possible to love more than once ; now he was consciously in love, and he was glad of it ; he had a dim idea what this love was, though he concealed it from himself, and what might come of it.

In Nekhlyudov, as in all people, there were two men ; one the spiritual man, who sought his well-being in such matters only as could at the same time do other people some good, and the other the animal man, who was looking out only for his own well-being, ready for it to sacrifice the well-being of the whole world. During that period of his insanity of egotism, induced by his Petersburgian and military life, the animal man was ruling within him, and had completely suppressed the spiritual man. But, upon seeing Katyusha and becoming actuated by the same feeling which he had had for her before, the spiritual man raised his head, and began to assert his rights. During the two days preceding Easter an internal struggle, though unconscious on his part, agitated him incessantly.

In the depth of his soul he knew that he ought to depart, that there was no reason why he should stay at his aunts’ any longer, and that nothing good would come of it ; but he experienced such an agreeable and joyful sensation that he did not speak of it to himself, and remained.

On the Saturday evening preceding Easter Sunday, the priest, with the deacon and the sexton, having with dilli-culty journeyed in a sleigh over puddles and dirt in order to make the three versts which separated the church from the house of his aunts, arrived to serve the matins.

During the matins, which were attended by Nekhlyudov, his aunts, and the servants, he did not take his eyes from Katyusha, who was standing at the door and bringing the censers ; then he gave the Easter kiss to the priest and his aunts, and was on the point of retiring, when he saw in the corridor Matréna Pdvlovna, Mariya Ivanovna’s old chambermaid, and Katyusha getting ready to drive to church, in order to get the bread and Easter cakes blessed. ” I will go with them,” he thought.

The road to the church was passable neither for wheel carriages, nor for sleighs, and so Nekhlyudov, who ordered things at his aunts’ as though he were at home, told them to saddle the riding stallion for him, and, instead of going to bed, dressed himself in his gorgeous uniform with the tightly fitting riding pantaloons, threw his overcoat over his shoulders, and rode on the overfed, stout old stallion, that did not stop neighing, in the darkness, through puddles and snow, to church.

XV.

This matin then remained during Nekhlyudov’s whole life as one of his brightest and strongest memories.

The service had already begun, when, having groped through the dense darkness, lighted up occasionally by patches of snow, and having splashed through the water, he rode into the yard of the church on the stallion, that kept pricking his ears at the sight of the little streetlamps that were burning all around the church.

Having recognized Mariya Ivanovna’s nephew, the peasants took him to a dry place, where he could dismount, tied his horse, and led him into the church. The church was full of people celebrating the holiday.

On the right were the old men, in homemade caftans and bast shoes and clean white leg-rags, and the young men, in new cloth caftans, girded with brightly coloured belts, and in boots. Ou the left were the women, in bright silk kerchiefs, plush vests, with brilliant red sleeves and blue, green, red, and variegated skirts, and small boots with steel heel-plates. The modest old women, in white kerchiefs, gray caftans, old skirts, and leather or new bast shoes, were standing back of them. Here and there, on both sides, stood the dressed-up children, with oily heads. The peasants were crossing themselves and bowing, tossing their heads ; the women, especially the old women, riveting their faded eyes upon one image with its tapers, firmly pressed their joined fingers against the kerchief, the shoulders, and the abdomen, and, saying something under their breath, were standing and making low obeisances, or were kneeling. The children imitated their elders, and prayed attentively, as long as they were watched. The golden iconostasis was resplendent from the tapers that on all sides surrounded the large gilt candles. The candelabrum was aglow with its candles ; from the choir were heard the joyous voices of the amateur choristers, with the roaring basses, and the descants of the boys.

Nekhlyudov went to the front. In the middle stood the aristocracy : a landed proprietor, with his wife and his son in a sailor blouse, the country judge, the telegraphist, a merchant in boots with smooth boot-legs, the village elder with a decoration, and to the right of the ambo, back of the proprietress, Matréna Pavlovna, in a short lilac dress and white fringed shawl, and Katyusha, in a white dress with tucks, blue belt, and red ribbon on her black hair.

Everything was holiday-like, solemn, cheerful, and beautiful: the priests in their bright silver vestments, with their golden crosses, and the deacon and sextons in their gala silver and gold copes, and the dressed-up amateur choristers, with their oily hair, and the gay dancing tunes of the holiday songs, and the continuous blessing of the people by the clergy with their triple, flower-bedecked candles, with the ever repeated exclamations, ” Christ is arisen ! Christ is arisen ! ” — everything was beautiful, but better than all was Katyusha, in her white dress and blue belt, with the red ribbon on her head, and with her sparkling, rapturous eyes.

Nekhlyudov was conscious of her seeing him, though she did not turn around. lie noticed that as he passed by her, up to the altar. He had nothing to say to her, but he made up something and said, when abreast of her :

“Aunty said that she would break her fast after the late mass.”

Her young blood, as always at the sight of him, flushed her sweet face, and her black eyes, smiling and rejoicing, looked naïvely upwards and rested on Nekhlyudov.

” I know,” she said, smiling.

Just then a sexton, with a brass coffee-pot, making his way through the crowd, came past Katyusha, and without looking at her, caught the skirt of his cope in her dress. The sexton had done so evidently in his attempt to express his respect for Nekhlyudov by making a circle around him. Nekhlyudov could not understand how it was this sexton did not comprehend that everything that was there, or anywhere else in the world, existed only for Katyusha, and that one could disregard anything else in the world but her, because she was the centre of everything. For her gleamed the gold of the iconostasis, and burnt all these candles in the candelabrum and in the candlesticks ; for her were the joyous refrains, ” The Easter of the Lord, rejoice, O people ! ” Everything good that was in the world was only for her. And Katyusha understood, so he thought, that it was all for her. So it seemed to Nekhlyudov, as he looked at her stately form in the white dress with its tucks, and upon her concentrated, joyful countenance, by the expression of which he could see that the same that was singing in his heart was singing also in hers.

In the interval between the early and late mass, Nekhlyudov went out of the church. The people stepped aside before him and bowed. Some recognized him, and some asked, ” Who is he ? ” He stopped at the door. Mendicants surrounded him : he distributed the small change, which he had in his purse, and walked down the steps of the entrance.

It was now sufficiently light to distinguish objects, but the sun was not yet up. The people were seated on the churchyard mounds. Katyusha had remained in the church, and Nekhlyudov stopped, waiting for her to come out.

The people still kept coming out, and, clattering with their hobnails on the flagstones, ‘walked down the steps and scattered in the yard and cemetery.

A decrepit old man, Marya Ivanovna’s pastry-baker, with trembling head, stopped Nekhlyudov, to give him the Easter greeting, and his old wife, with wrinkled neck beneath her silk kerchief, took out of a handkerchief a saffron-yellow egg, and gave it to him. Then also came up a young, muscular peasant, in a new sleeveless coat and green belt.

” Christ is arisen ! ” he said, with laughing eyes, and, moving up toward Nekhlyudov, wafted an agreeable peasant odour upon him and, tickling him with his curly beard, three times kissed him in the middle of his mouth with his own strong, fresh lips.

While Nekhlyudov was kissing the peasant and receiving from him a dark brown egg, there appeared the shot dress of Matréna Pavlovna, and the sweet black head with the red ribbon.

She espied him above the heads of those who were walking in front of her, and he saw her countenance gleaming with joy.

Matréna Pdvlovna and Katyusha stopped before the door, to give alms to the mendicants. A beggar, with a healed-over scar in place of a nose, went up to Katyusha. She took something out of her handkerchief, gave it to him, and, without expressing the least disgust, — on the contrary, with the same joyful sparkle in her eyes,— kissed him three times. While she was giving the beggar the Easter kiss, her eyes met Nekhlyudov’s glance. Her eyes seemed to ask : “Ami doing right ? “

” Yes, yes, my dear, everything is good, everything is beautiful, I love it.”

They walked down the steps, and he walked over to her. He did not mean to exchange the Easter kiss with her, but only to be in her neighbourhood.

” Christ is arisen ! ” said Matréna Pavlovna, bending her head and smiling, with an intonation which said that on that day all were equal, and, wiping her mouth with her rolled up handkerchief, offered him her lips.

“Verily,” replied Nekhlyudov, kissing her.

He looked around for Katyusha. She burst into a blush, and immediately went up to him.

“ Christ is arisen, Dmitri Ivanovich ! “

” Verily He arose,” he said. They kissed twice and stopped, as though considering whether it was necessary to proceed, and having decided in the affirmative, kissed for the third time, and both smiled.

“You will not go to the priest?” asked Nekhlyudov.

“No, Dmitri Ivanovich, we shall stay here,” said Katyusha, breathing with her full breast, as though after a labour of joy, and looking straight at him with her submissive, chaste, loving, slightly squinting eyes.

In the love between a man and a woman there is always a minute when that love reaches its zenith, when consciousness, reason, and feeling are dormant. Such a moment was for Nekhlyudov the night preceding Easter Sunday. As he now recalled Katyusha, this moment alone, of all the situations in which he had seen her, loomed up and effaced all the others : her black, smooth, shining little head, her white dress with the tucks, chastely embracing her stately figure and small bosom, and that blush, and those tender, sparkling eyes, and in her whole being two main characteristics, — the purity of the chastity of love, not only toward him, he knew that, but of her love for all and everything, not only for the good that there was in the world, but even for the beggar, whom she had kissed.

He knew that she had that love, because he was conscious of it on that night and on that morning, as he was conscious that in that love he became one with her.

Ah, if all that had stopped at the feeling which he had experienced that night ! “ Yes, all that terrible work was done after that night of Easter Sunday ! ” he now thought, sitting at the window in the jury-room.

XVI.

After returning from church, Nekhlyudov broke his fast with his aunts, and, to brace himself, followed the habit which he had acquired in the army, and drank some brandy and wine, and went to his room, where he fell asleep in his clothes. lie was awakened by a knock at the door. He knew by the knock that it was she. He arose, rubbing his eyes and stretching himself.

” Katydsha, is it you ? Come in,” he said, rising.

She half-opened the door.

” Dinner is served,” she said.

She was in the same white dress, but without the ribbon in her hair. As she glanced into his eyes, she beamed, as though she had announced something very joyful to him.

” I shall be there at once,” he said, taking up the comb to smooth his hair.

She lagged behind for a minute. He noticed it and, throwing away the comb, moved toward her. But she immediately turned around and walked with her customary light, rapid gait over the corridor carpet-strip.

” What a fool I am ! ” Nekhlyudov said to himself, ” Why did I not keep her ? “

And he ran at full speed after her through the corridor.

He did not know himself what it was he wanted of her ; but it seemed to him that when she had entered his room, he ought to have done what everybody does under such circumstances, and he had failed to do.

” Katyusha, wait,” he said.

She looked back.

” What do you wish ? ” she said, stopping.

” Nothing, only — ”

And making an effort over himself, and recalling how other men would do in his situation, he put his arm around Katyusha’s waist.

She stopped and looked him in the eyes.

” Don’t do that, Dmitri Ivanovich, — don’t do that,” she muttered, blushing and with tears, and with her rough, strong hand pushed away the embracing arm.

Nekhlyudov let her go, and for a moment felt not only uneasy and ashamed, but disgusted with himself. He ought to have believed himself, but he did not understand that this uneasiness and shame were the best qualities of his soul begging to be freed, whereas he, on the contrary, thought that it was his stupidity that was speaking within him, and that it was necessary to do as everybody else did.

He caught up with her a second time, again embraced her, and kissed her on the neck. This kiss was not at all like those first two kisses : the first, the unconscious kiss behind the lilac bush, and the other, in the morning, at church. This kiss was terrible, and she felt it.

” What are you doing ? ” she cried, in such a voice as though he had irretrievably broken something endlessly valuable, and ran away from him at full speed.

He arrived in the dining-room. The dresscd-up aunts, the doctor, and a lady from the neighbourhood were standing near the appetizer. Everything was as usual, but in Nekhlyüdov’s soul there was a storm. He did not understand a word of what was said to him, answered to questions at haphazard, and only thought of Katyusha, recalling the sensation of that last kiss, when he had caught up with her in the corridor. He was not able to think of anything else. Whenever she entered the room, he, without looking at her, was with all his being conscious of her presence, and had to make an effort over himself in order not to gaze at her.

After dinner he at once went back to his room, and long paced up and down in the greatest agitation, listening to all the sounds in the house, and waiting to hear her steps. The animal man which was dwelling within him not only raised his head, but had trampled underfoot the spiritual man which he had been during his first visit, and even on that morning while at church ; and now that terrible animal man ruled all alone in his soul. Though Nekhlyudov lay all the time in watch for Katyusha, he did not succeed once during that day in seeing her alone. She obviously avoided him. But in the evening it so happened that she had to go into the room adjoining the one which he occupied. The doctor was to remain overnight, and Katyusha had to make the bed for him. Hearing her steps, Nekhlyudov, stepping lightly and holding his breath, as though getting ready to commit a crime, walked up behind her.

Having put both her hands into a pillow-slip and holding the corners of a pillow, she looked back at him and smiled, not a gay and joyful smile, but one expressive of fear and pity. This smile seemed to tell him that that which he was doing was bad. He stopped for a moment. A struggle was still possible. Though feebly, the voice of genuine love was still audible in him, which told him of her, of her feelings, of her life, but another voice kept saying to him, ” Look out, or you will lose your enjoyment, your happiness.” And this second voice drowned the first. He went up to her with firmness. And a terrible, uncontrollable, animal feeling took possession of him.

Without letting her out of his embrace, Nekhlyudov seated her on the bed, and, feeling that something else had to be done, sat down near her.

“ Dmitri Ivdnovich, my dear, please let me go,” she said, in a pitiful voice. ” Matréna Pavlovna is coming ! ” she cried, tearing herself away ; there was, really, some one coming toward the door.

” Then I will come to you in the night,” he muttered. ” You are alone ? ”

“ “What are you saying ? Never ! You must not,” she spoke with her lips only, but her whole agitated being spoke something quite different.

The person who came to the door was Matréna Pavlovna. She entered the door with a sheet over her arm, and, looking reproachfully at Nekhlyudov, angrily upbraided Katyusha for having taken the wrong sheet.

Nekhlyudov went away in silence. He did not even feel ashamed. He saw, by Matréna Pavlovna’s expression, that she condemned him, and knew that she was right in condemning him, just as he knew that that which he was doing was bad ; but the animal feeling, which straightened itself out from behind the former feeling of genuine love for her, took possession of him and reigned all alone, to the exclusion of everything else. He now knew what it was necessary to do in order to satisfy his sensation, and he was looking for means to attain his end.

During the whole evening he was beside himself : he now went in to see his aunts, now went away from them to his room or upon the porch, and was thinking of nothing else but how he might see her alone ; but she avoided him, and Matréna Pavlovna did not let her out of her sight.

XVII.

Thus passed the whole evening, and night approached. The doctor had retired. The aunts were going to bed. Nekhlyudov knew that Matréna Pavlovna was now in the aunts’ sleeping-room, and that Katyusha was alone in the maids’ chamber. He again went out on the porch. The air was dark, damp, and warm, and filled with that white mist which in spring dispels the last snow, or itself rises from the melting snow. From the river, which was within one hundred feet of the house, down a hill, were borne strange sounds : the ice was breaking.

Nekhlyudov descended from the porch, and, walking through the puddles over the crusted snow, went up to the window of the maids’ room. His heart beat so strongly in his breast that he could hear it ; his breath now stopped, now burst forth in a deep sigh. In the maids’ chamber a small lamp was burning; Katyusha was sitting at the table and looking in front of her. Nekhlyudov did not stir, looking long at her, and wondering what she would do, when unconscious of anybody’s presence. For a couple of minutes she sat motionless, then raised her eyes, smiled, shook her head as though reproachfully at herself, and, changing her position, abruptly placed both her hands in front of her on the table, and gazed ahead of her.

He stood and looked at her, and at the same time heard the beating of his own heart and the strange sounds that were borne from the river. There, on the river, a continuous slow work was going on, and now something crashed, or cracked, or rushed down ; and now the ice-floes tinkled like glass.

He stood and looked at the pensive face of Katyusha, which was tormented by an inward struggle, and he was sorry for her, but, strange to say, that pity only intensified his passion for her.

The passion took complete possession of him.

He tapped at the window. She quivered with her whole body, as though from an electric shock, and terror was expressed in her face. Then she sprang up, went up to the window, and pressed her face to the windowpane. Nor did the expression of terror leave her face when, upon screening it with the palms of her hands, she recognized him. Her countenance was serious, such as he had never observed it before. She smiled, when he smiled, as though submitting to him, but in her soul there was no smile, but terror.

He motioned to her with his hand, calling her out into the yard to him ; but she shook her head, to deny his request, and remained standing at the window. He put his face once more to the window, intending to cry to her to come out, but just then she turned to the door,— evidently somebody had called her. Nekhlyudov went away from the window. The fog was so heavy that upon walking back five steps it was not possible to see the windows of the house, but only a black mass, from which stood out the gleaming light of the lamp, which seemed to be of enormous size. On the river was going on the same strange crashing, rustling, crackling, and tinkling of the ice. Near by, through the fog, crowed a cock, and others near him answered, and then from the village were borne the intermingling cockcrows, finally joining into one. But everything else around, except the river, was absolutely quiet. This was at second cockcrow.

After having walked a couple of times around the corner of the house, and having stepped several times into a puddle, Nekhlyudov once more went up to the window of the maids’ room. The lamp was still burning, and Katyusha was again sitting at the table, as though in indecision. The moment he came up to the window, she looked at him. He knocked. And, without watching to see who it was that had knocked, she ran out of the maids’ room, and he heard the back door smack and creak. He was waiting for her near the vestibule, and immediately embraced her, in silence. She pressed close to him, raised her head, and with her lips met his kiss. They were standing around the corner of the vestibule on a spot from which the ice had melted, and he was full of a tormenting, unsatisfied desire. Suddenly the back door smacked and creaked in the same manner, and Matréna Pavlovna’s angry voice was heard :

” Katyusha ! “

She tore herself away from him and returned to the maids’ room. He heard the latch being fastened. Soon after all grew silent ; the red eye of the window disappeared, and nothing was left but the fog and the noise on the river.

Nekhlyudov went up to the window, but no one was to be seen. He knocked, and nobody answered him. Nekhlyudov returned to the house by the main entrance, but did not go to sleep. He took off his boots, and went barefooted along the corridor to her door, which was the one adjoining Matréna Pavlovna’s room. At first he heard Matréna Pavlovna’s quiet snoring, and was on the point of entering, when suddenly she began to cough, and turned around on her creaking bed. He stood as though petrified for five minutes in one spot. When everything again grew silent, and the quiet snoring was heard again, he tried to walk on the deals that did not creak, and thus approached the door. Everything was quiet. Evidently she was not asleep, for he could not hear her breathing. But the moment he whispered, ” Katyusha ! ” she leaped up, went to the door, and angrily, so he thought, began to persuade him to go away.

“ That’s not right ! How can you ! Your aunts will hear you,” said her lips, but her whole being said : ” I am all yours ! ”

And it was this only which Nekhlyudov understood.

” Just for a moment, please open. I implore you,” he uttered senseless words.

She grew silent: then he heard the rustling of her hand as it groped for the latch. The latch clicked, and he slipped in through the opened door.

He seized her, as she was, in her coarse, rough shirt with her bare arms, lifted her up, and carried her away.

” Ah ! What are you doing ? ” she whispered.

But he paid no attention to her words, carrying her to his room.

“ Ah, you must not, — let me — ” she said, all the time clinging to him.

When she, trembling and silent, without saying a word, went away from him, he came out on the porch, trying to reflect on the significance of all that had taken place.

It was now lighter in the yard ; down below, on the river, the crackling and ringing and crashing of the floes was stronger than before, and to it was now added the sound of the rippling water. The fog was settling, and behind the wall of the fog swam out the last quarter of the moon, dimly illuminating something black and terrible.

” What is this ? Has a great happiness or a great misfortune come to me ? ” he asked himself. “ It is always this way, and all do this way,” he said to himself, and went to sleep.

XVIII.

On the following day, brilliant, merry Shénbok came to the aunts’ to fetch Nekhlyudov, and he completely fascinated them with his elegance, kindness, merriment, generosity, and love for Dmitri. His generosity very much pleased the aunts, but it baffled them somewhat by its exaggeration. To some blind beggars, who came to the house, he gave a rouble ; in gratuities he spent about fifteen roubles; and when’Suzette, Sofya Ivanovna’s lapdog, in his presence had so scratched her leg that the blood began to flow, he proposed to dress her wound, and, without a moment’s hesitation, tore up his cambric lace-edged handkerchief (Sofya Ivanovna knew that such handkerchiefs cost not less than fifteen roubles a dozen), and made bandages of it for Suzette. The aunts had not yet seen such gentlemen and did not know that this Shénbok owed something like two hundred thousand roubles, which, he knew full well, would never be paid, and that therefore twenty-five roubles more or less would not matter much.

Shénbok stayed only one day, and on the following night drove off with Nekhlyudov. They could not stay any longer because it was the last date for their leave of absence from the army.

On this last day of Nekhlyudov’s stay at his aunts’, while the memory of the night was still fresh, two feelings rose and struggled in his soul : one, the burning, sensual recollections of the animal love, even though it had failed by much to give him what it had held out to him, and a certain self-satisfaction of having reached a goal ; the other, the consciousness that he had done something very bad, and that that evil had to be mended, not for her sake, but for his.

In this condition of his insanity of egotism, in which he now found himself, he thought only of himself, — of whether he would be condemned, and bow much he would be condemned, if it were found out how he had acted toward her, and not of what she was experiencing, or what would become of her.

He thought that Shénbok guessed of his relations with Katyusha, and that flattered his vanity.

” I now see what has made you so suddenly fall in love with your aunts,” Shénbok said to him, when he saw Katyusha, « and why you have passed a week with them. If I were in your place, I would not leave myself. Superb ! “

He also thought that although it was a shame to leave at once, without having had the full enjoyment of his love, the peremptory call to duty was advantageous in that it broke the relations at once, which otherwise it would have been difficult to sustain. He also thought that it was necessary to give her money, not for her sake, because the money might be useful to her, but because it was customary to do so, and he would have been regarded as a dishonest man, if, after seducing her, he did not pay her. And so he gave her money, — as much as he thought proper according to their respective positions.

On the day of his departure, he watched for her in the vestibule. Her face flushed, when she saw him, and she wanted to pass by him, indicating with her eyes the open door into the maids’ room, but he kept her back.

” I wanted to bid you goodbye,” he said, crumpling the envelope with the hundred-rouble bill in it. ” I — ”

She guessed what it was, frowned, shook her head, and pushed his hand away.

” Do take it,” he mumbled, putting the envelope in the bosom of her garment, and running back to his room, frowning and groaning, as though he had burnt himself.

He paced his room for a long time, and crouched, and even leaped and groaned, as though from physical pain, every time he thought of that scene.

But what was to be done? It was always that way. It had been so with Shénbok and the governess, of whom he had told him ; thus it had been with Uncle Grisha ; and thus it had been with his father, when he was living in the country, and when that illegitimate son, Mitenka, was born to a peasant woman, who was alive even now. And if all do that way, it must be right. Thus he tried to console himself, without getting any real consolation. The memory of his deed burnt his conscience.

In the depth, way down in the depth of bis soul, he knew that he had acted so meanly, so contemptibly, and so cruelly that with the consciousness of this deed he not only could not condemn any one, but even could not look straight into people’s eyes, and that he certainly could not regard himself as a fine, noble, magnanimous young man, such as he considered himself to be. And yet he had to continue in that opinion of himself, if he wished to lead the same free and happy life as before. For this there was but one means : not to think of it. And thus he did.

The life which he now entered upon — the new places, comrades, and the war — was helpful to him. The longer he lived, the more he forgot, until, at last, he did not remember anything of it.

Only once, when, after the war, he visited his aunts, with the hope of seeing her, and when he found out that Katyusha was no longer there, that soon after his departure she had left them, to give birth to a child, that she had given birth to one, and that, so the aunts bad heard, she had become entirely dissolute, — his heart gave him a painful twinge. To judge from the time of the child’s birth, it might have been his, and yet it might have been somebody else’s. The aunts said that she was demoralized, and just such a dissolute character as her mother had been. This reflection of his aunts gave him pleasure, because it in a certain way justified him. At first he intended to look up Katyusha and the child, but then, since in the depth of his soul he was too much ashamed and pained to think of it, he did not make every effort to locate her, and still more forgot his sin, and ceased thinking of it.

And just now this marvellous coincidence reminded him of everything, and everything demanded the confession of his heartlessness, cruelty, and meanness, which had made it possible for him quietly to live ten years with such a sin upon his conscience. But he was still very far from such a confession, and now he was thinking only that all might be found out, that she or her counsel would bring out the facts, and would put him to shame before every one.

XIX.

Nekhlyûdov was in this frame of mind when he left the courtroom for the consultation-room. He sat at the window, listening to the conversations that took place about him, and smoking incessantly.

The merry merchant obviously with all his heart sympathized with Merchant Smyelkov in his pastime.

“ Well, he was a great carouser, in Siberian fashion. He knew a tiling or two, when he selected such a girl to kiss.”

The foreman was expatiating on the importance of the expert testimony. Peter Gerasimovich was jesting with the Jewish clerk, and they were both laughing about something. Nekhlyudov answered in monosyllables to all the questions which were addressed to him and wished only to be left alone.

When the bailiff, with his sidling gait, again called the jurors to the courtroom, Nekhlyudov experienced a sensation of terror, as though he were going, not to give a verdict, but to be tried. In the depth of his soul he felt that he was a scoundrel who ought to be ashamed to look people in the eyes, and yet he, by force of habit, ascended the platform with his usual self-confident gait, and sat down in his seat, the second from the foreman’s, and began to play with his glasses.

The defendants had been removed, and now were being brought back.

In the courtroom there were new faces,— the witnesses,— and Nekhlyudov noticed that Maslova several times gazed down, as though she could not take her eyes off a fat woman, all dressed up in silk and velvet, who, in a tall hat with a large ribbon, and with an elegant reticule on her arm, which was bare up to the elbow, was sitting in the first row, next to the screen. This was, as he later found out, the landlady of the establishment in which Maslova had lived.

Then the examination of the witnesses began : their names, religion, and so forth. Then, after the sides had been consulted as to whether the witnesses should be examined under oath or not, the same old priest, with difficulty moving his legs, and in the same manner adjusting the gold cross on his silk vestment, with the same calm and conviction that he was performing an exceedingly useful and important work, administered the oath to the witnesses and to the expert. When the oath was finished, all the witnesses were led away, and only one, namely, Kitdeva, the proprietress of the house of prostitution, was allowed to remain. She was asked what she knew of the affair. Kitdeva, with a feigned smile, ducking her head under her hat at every-phrase, told, with a German accent, everything in detail and distinctly :

At first the hotel servant Simon, whom she well knew, had come to get a girl for a rich Siberian merchant. She sent Lyubov. After awhile Lyubov returned with the merchant. The merchant was already in ” raptures,” Kitaeva said, with a slight smile, ” and at our house continued to drink and treat the girls, but as his money gave out, he sent’ that same Lyubov, for whom he had a predilection,” she said, glancing at the defendant.

It seemed to Nekhlyudov that at these words Mdslova smiled, and this smile seemed disgusting to him. A strange, indefinable feeling of loathing, mingled with compassion, arose in him.

” And what has your opinion been of Mdslova ? ” timidly asked the blushing candidate for a judicial place who had been appointed by the court to be Maslova’s counsel.

“The very best,” answered Kitàeva. “An educated girl and chic. Educated in good family, and could read French. At times drank a little too much, but never lost her senses. A very good girl.”

Katyusha looked at the proprietress, and then suddenly transferred her eyes to the jurors, and rested them on Nekhlyudov, and her face became serious and even stern. One of her stern eyes squinted. For quite awhile these strange-looking eyes were turned upon Nekhlyudov, and, in spite of the terror which took possession of him, he was unable to turn his glance away from these squinting eyes with the bright white around them. He recalled that terrible night with the breaking ice, with its fog, and, above all, with that upturned last quarter of the moon, which rose before daybreak and illuminated something black and terrible. These two black eyes, which gazed at him and past him, reminded him of something black and terrible.

“ She has recognized me,” he thought. And Nekhlyudov seemed to crouch, as though expecting a blow. She calmly heaved a sigh, and once more began to look at the presiding judge. Nekhlyudov, too, sighed. “ Oh, if it only came at once,” he thought. He now experienced a sensation which he had experienced before at the chase, when he had to pick up a wounded bird, — he felt shame, and pity, and annoyance. The wounded bird would flutter in his game-bag, and he would feel loathing and pity, and would like to kill it, and to forget.

It was such a mixed feeling that Nekhlyudov was now experiencing, as he listened to the examination of the witnesses.

XX.

As if to spite him, the case was drawn out long : after the examination of the witnesses and the expert, one after the other, and after the assistant prosecuting attorney and the lawyers for the defence had, with significant looks, asked a number of useless questions, the presiding judge told the jurors to inspect the exhibits, which consisted of a ring of enormous size, with a setting of rose-diamonds, which evidently fitted on the stoutest of forefingers, and of a vial in which the poison had been examined. These things were sealed, and there were small labels upon them.

The jurors were just getting ready to inspect these objects when the assistant prosecuting attorney again raised himself in his seat and demanded the reading of the medical examination of the dead body, before passing to the inspection of the exhibits.

The presiding judge, who was hurrying the case as fast as possible, in order to get to his Swiss woman, was very well convinced that the reading of that document could have no other effect then inducing ennui and delaying the dinner, and that the assistant prosecuting attorney had requested this only because he knew he had the right to make such a request ; still, he could not refuse, and so ordered it to be read. The secretary got the document, and again with bis monotonous voice, with the guttural enunciation of the letters I and r, began to read.

The external investigation had given the following results :

(1) Ferapdnt Smyelkov’s height was two arshins and twelve vershoks.1

“ I declare, he was a strapping fellow,” the merchant, with an interested mien, whispered over Nekhlyudov’s ear.

(2) His age was from external appearances approximately fixed as forty years.

(3) The body had a bloated appearance.

(4) The colour of the integuments was greenish, here and there tinged with darker spots.

(5) The cuticle on the surface of the body had risen in pustules of different size, and in places had come off and was hanging in the shape of large flaps.

(6) His hair was dark blond, thick, and at the touch came out of the skin.

(7) The eyes stood out of their sockets, and the cornea was dimmed.

(8) From the apertures of the nose, of both ears, and of the cavity of the mouth a lathery, foamy, serous liquid was discharged, and the mouth was half open.

(9) There was no perceptible neck, on account of the bloated condition of the face and chest.

And so on, and so on.

Four pages contained twentyseven points of such kind of a description of all the details revealed at the external examination of the terrible, immense, fat and swollen, decomposing body of the merchant who had been carousing in the city. The sensation of indefinable loathing, which Nekhlyudov had been experiencing, was intensified at the reading of this description of the corpse. Katyusha’s life and the serum which issued from his nostrils, and the eyes standing out from their sockets, and his treatment of her, seemed to him to be objects of one and the same order, and he was on all sides surrounded

1 An arshin equals twentyeight inches, and a vershôk equals one and three-quarters inches.

and absorbed by these objects. When, at last, the reading of the external examination was over, the presiding judge heaved a deep sigh and raised his head, hoping that all was ended, but the secretary immediately proceeded to the reading of the internal examination.

The presiding judge once more lowered his head, and, leaning on his arm, closed his eyes. The merchant, who was sitting next to Nekhlyudov, with difficulty kept the sleep from his eyes, and now and then swayed to and fro ; the defendants, and the gendarmes behind them, sat motionless.

The internal examination revealed that :

(1) The cranial integuments easily separated from the cranial bones, and suffusion was nowhere noticeable.

(2) The cranial bones were of medium thickness, and sound.

(3) On the dura mater two small pigmented spots were observed ; they were approximately four lines in size ; the dura mater itself was of a pale white hue ; and so on, and so on, through thirteen points.

Then followed the names of the coroner’s jury, the signatures, and then the conclusion of the medical examiner, from which it was seen that the modifications which had taken place in the stomach, and partly in the intestines and kidneys, as discovered at the inquest and as mentioned in the protocol, gave a right to conclude, with a great degree of probability, that Smyelkov’s death had been caused by poison which had found its way into the stomach with the wine. From the modification in the stomach and intestines, which were at hand, it was difficult to determine what kind of poison it was that had been introduced into the stomach ; but that it found its way into the stomach with the wine must be surmised from the fact that a large quantity of wine was discovered in Smyelkov’s stomach.

“Evidently he was a great hand at drinking,” again whispered the merchant, waking from his sleep.

But the reading of this protocol, which lasted nearly an hour, did not satisfy the assistant prosecuting attorney. When it was over, the presiding judge turned to him :

” I suppose it would be superfluous to read the document referring to the investigation of the internal organs.”

” I should ask to have this examination read,” sternly said the associate prosecuting attorney, without glancing at the presiding judge, raising himself with a sidewise motion, and giving the judge to feel, by the intonation of his voice, that the request for this reading constituted one of his privileges, that he would not be curtailed of his right, and that a refusal would serve as a ground for cassation.

The member of the court with the long beard and the kindly, drooping eyes, who was suffering from the catarrh, feeling himself very weak, turned to the presiding judge :

“ What is the use of reading it ? It only delays matters. These new brooms sweep longer, but not cleaner.”

The member in the gold spectacles did not say anything, and looked gloomily and with determination in front of him, expecting nothing good from his wife, or from life in general.

The reading of the document began :

“On February 15, 188-, I, the undersigned, at the request of the medical department, as given in writing in No. 638,” the secretary, who had such a soporific effect upon all persons present, began in a determined tone, raising the diapason of his voice, as though wishing to dispel sleep, “in presence of the assistant medical inspector, have made the following examination of the internal organs:

“ (1) Of the right lung and of the heart (in a six-pound glass jar).

“ (2) Of the contents of the stomach (in a six-pound glass jar).

“ (3) Of the stomach itself (in a six-pound glass jar).

“ (4) Of the liver, the spleen, and the kidneys (in a three-pound glass jar).

“ (5) Of the intestines (in a six-pound glass jar) — ”

The presiding judge in the beginning of the reading bent down to one of the members and whispered something to him ; then to the other, and having received an affirmative answer, interrupted the reading in this place :

“ The court finds the reading of the document to be superfluous,” he said. The secretary stopped and picked up his papers. The assistant prosecuting attorney angrily made a note of something.

“ The jurors may examine the exhibits,” said the presiding judge.

The foreman and a few of the jurymen arose, and, embarrassed as to the disposition of their hands, went up to the table, and in turns looked at the ring, the jars, and the vial. The merchant even tried on the ring on his finger.

” Well, he had a good-sized finger,” he said, upon returning to his seat. “ As big as a cucumber,” he added, obviously enjoying the conception of the hero which he had formed of the poisoned merchant.

XXL

When the examination of the exhibits was ended, the presiding judge declared the judicial inquest closed, and, without any interruption, wishing to get through as soon as possible, asked the prosecutor to begin his speech, in the hope that he, too, wishing to have a smoke and a dinner, would have pity on him. But the assistant prosecuting attorney pitied neither himself nor them. The assistant prosecuting attorney was naturally very stupid, but he had the additional misfortune of having graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal, and of having received a reward at the university for his thesis on the servitudes of the Roman law, which made him exceedingly self-confident and self-satisfied (which was still more increased by his success with the ladies), and in consequence of this he was extremely stupid. When the floor was given to him, he slowly rose, displaying his whole graceful figure, in an embroidered uniform, and, placing both his hands on the desk, and slightly inclining his head, cast a glance upon the whole room, avoiding only the defendants, and then began :

” The case which is presented to you, gentlemen of the jury,” he began his speech, which he had prepared during the reading of the protocol and coroner’s inquest, ” is, if I may so express myself, a characteristic crime.”

The speech of the associate prosecuting attorney, according to his opinion, ought to have a public significance, like those famous speeches which had been delivered by those who later became famous lawyers. It is true, among the spectators were only three women, a sewing girl, a cook, and Simon’s sister, and one coachman, but that was nothing. Those celebrities had begun in the same way. It was a rule of the associate prosecuting attorney always to be on the height of his calling, that is, to penetrate the depth of the psychologic significance of the crime, and to lay bare the sores of society.

” You see before you, gentlemen of the jury, if one may so express oneself, a characteristic crime of the end of the century, bearing upon itself, so to speak, the specific characteristics of that melancholy phenomenon of decomposition, to which, in our day, are subjected those elements of society that, so to speak, are under the ultraburning rays of that process — ”

The associate prosecuting attorney spoke a very long time, on the one hand trying to recall all those clever things which he had thought of, and, on the other, — and this was most important, — endeavouring not to stop for a moment, but to let his speech flow uninterruptedly for an hour and a quarter. Only once did he stop, and for awhile kept swallowing, but he soon found his bearings and made up for the interruption by his intensified eloquence. He spoke now in a tender, insinuating voice, stepping from one foot to the other, and looking at the jurors, and now in a quiet, businesslike tone, glancing at his notes, and now again in a loud, condemnatory voice, addressing now the spectators, and now the jurors. On the defendants, however, who had riveted their eyes upon him, he did not look once. In his speech were all the latest points which had become fashionable in his circle, and which had been accepted as the latest word of scientific wisdom. Here were heredity, and inborn criminality, and Lombroso, and Tarde, and evolution, and struggle for existence, and hypnotism, and suggestion, and Charcot, and decadence.

Merchant Smyelkov, according to the definition of the associate prosecuting attorney, was a type of a mighty, uncorrupted Russian, with his broad nature, who, on account of his confidence and magnanimity, had fallen as a victim of deeply perverted persons, into whose power he had come.

Simon Kartinkin was an atavistic production of serfdom, a crushed man, without education, without principles, even without religion. Evfimiya was his sweetheart, and a victim of heredity. In her could be observed all the characteristics of a degenerate personality. But the chief mainspring of the crime was Maslova, who represented the phenomena of decadence in its lowest form. “This woman,” so said the associate prosecuting attorney, without looking at her, “has received an education, as we have learned here in court from the evidence of her landlady. She not only can read and write, but can also speak French ; she is an orphan, who no doubt bears in herself the germs of criminality ; she has been educated in a family of cultured gentlefolk, and could have lived by honest labour; but she left her benefactors, abandoned herself to her passions, and, to satisfy them, entered a house of prostitution, where she stood out from among her companions by her education, and, above everything else, as we have heard here from her landlady, gentlemen of the jury, by her ability to influence the visitors by that mysterious quality, which has of late been investigated by science, especially by the school of Charcot, and which is known under the name of suggestion. By means of that quality she took possession of a Russian hero, that good-natured, trustful Sadko, the rich merchant, and used that confidence, first to rob him, and then pitilessly to deprive him of life.”

“ He is getting dreadfully off on a tangent,” said, smiling, the presiding judge, leaning down to the austere member.

” He’s a terrible blockhead,” said the austere member.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” the associate prosecuting attorney continued in the meantime, gracefully bending his lithe form, ” the fate of these persons is in your power, but, to a certain extent, the fate of society, which you influence by your sentence, is in your power. Carefully consider the meaning of this crime, the danger to which society is subjected by such pathological individuals, if I may so express myself, as is this Maslova, and guard it against contagion, guard the innocent, strong elements of society against contagion, and often against destruction.”

As though crushed by the importance of the impending decision, the associate prosecuting attorney, evidently highly enraptured with his own speech, fell back in his chair.

The pith of bis speech, outside of the flowers of eloquence, was that Maslova had hypnotized the merchant, by insinuating herself into his confidence, and, having arrived in the room with the key, in order to fetch the money, had intended to take it all for herself, but, having been caught by Simon and Evfimiya, had been compelled to share the booty with them. Later, intending to conceal the traces of her crime, she came with the merchant to the hotel, where she poisoned him.

After the associate prosecuting attorney’s speech there rose from the lawyers’ bench a middle-aged man in a dress coat, with the broad semicircle of a white starched shirt front, and with animation defended Kartinkin and Bdchkova. He was the attorney who had been employed by them for three hundred roubles. He justified their actions, and put all the guilt on Maslova’s shoulders.

He refuted Maslova’s testimony that Bochkova and Kartinkin had been with her, when she took the money, pointing out the fact that her testimony, as that of an established poisoner, could have no weight. The money, — the twenty-five hundred roubles, — said the lawyer, could have been earned by two industrious and honest people, who received as much as three and five roubles a day in gratuities. The merchant’s money had been stolen by Maslova, and had been given to somebody, or probably was lost, since she was in an abnormal condition. The poisoning was done by Maslova alone.

Therefore he asked the jury to declare Kartinkin and Bochkova not guilty of the robbery of the money, or, if they did declare them guilty of the robbery, to give a verdict without participation in the poisoning, and without premeditation.

In conclusion, the lawyer, to sting the associate prosecuting attorney, remarked that the eloquent reflections of the assistant prosecuting attorney explained the scientific questions of heredity, but were out of place in this case, because Bochkova was the child of unknown parents.

The associate prosecuting attorney, as though to show his teeth, angrily made a note on his paper, and with contemptuous surprise shrugged his shoulders.

Then arose Maslova’s counsel, and timidly and with hesitation made the defence. Without denying the fact that Maslova had taken part in the robbery, he insisted that she had had no intention of poisoning Smyelkov, and had given him the powder merely to put him to sleep. He wanted to make a display of eloquence, by surveying Maslova’s past, how she had been drawn to a life of debauch by a man who remained unpunished, while she had to bear the whole brunt of her fall, but this excursus into the field of psychology was a perfect failure, so that all felt sorry for him. As he was muttering about the ‘ cruelty of men and the helplessness of women, the presiding judge, wishing to help him out, asked him to keep closer to the essentials of the case.

After this defence, again rose the associate prosecuting attorney, and defended his position about heredity against the first counsel for the defence by saying that the fact that Bochkova was the daughter of unknown parents did not in the least invalidate the doctrine of heredity, because the law of heredity was so firmly established by science that we not only could deduce a crime from heredity, but also heredity from a crime. But as to the supposition of the defence that Maslova had been corrupted by an imaginary seducer (he dwelt with particular sarcasm on the word ” imaginary ”), all the data seemed to point to the fact that she had been the seducer of many, very many victims who had passed through her hands. Having said this, he sat down victorious.

Then the defendants were asked to say something in their justification.

Evfimiya Bochkova repeated that she knew nothing, that she had not been present at anything, and stubbornly pointed to Maslova as the only culprit. Simdn repeated several times :

” Do as you please, but I am not guilty, and it is all in vain.”

Maslova did not say anything. To the presiding judge’s invitation to say something in her defence, she only raised her eyes upon him, glanced at everybody, like a hunted deer, and immediately lowered her eyes, and burst out into loud sobs.

” What is the matter with you ? ” asked the merchant, who was sitting next to Nekhlyudov, upon hearing a strange sound, which Nekhlyudov was suddenly emitting. It sounded like a checked sob.

Nekhlyudov did not yet grasp the full significance of his position, and ascribed the restrained sobs and the tears, which had come out in his eyes, to the weakness of his nerves. He put on his eyeglasses, in order to conceal them, then drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and began to clear his nose.

The dréad of the disgrace with which he would cover himself, if all in the courtroom should learn of his deed, drowned all the inner work which was going on within him. This dread was during that time stronger than anything else.

XXII.

After these words of the defendants and the consultation of the sides about the putting of the questions, which lasted for quite awhile, the questions were put, and the presiding judge began Ins résumé.

Before entering on the recapitulation of the case, he, with a pleasant, familiar intonation, for a long time explained to the jury that misappropriation was misappropriation, and theft was theft, and robbery from a place under lock was robbery from a place under lock, and robbery from an unlocked place was robbery from an unlocked place. While giving this explanation, he very frequently glanced over to Nekhlyudov, as though anxious to impress him in particular with this important fact, in the hope that he, comprehending its whole import, would be able to explain it to his fellow jurors. Then surmising that the jury was sufficiently instructed in this truth, he began to expatiate on another truth, namely, that murder was an act from which ensues the death of a man, and that, therefore, poisoning was also murder. When this truth, too, had, in his opinion, been imbibed by the jury, he explained to them that when theft and murder are committed at the same time, then the crime constitutes both theft and murder.

Notwithstanding the fact that he wanted to get through as soon as possible and that the Swiss girl was waiting for him, he was so accustomed to his occupation that, having begun to speak, he could not check himself, and so he minutely instructed the jury that if they found the defendants guilty, they had a right to give a verdict of guilty, and that if they found them not guilty, they were empowered to pass a verdict of not guilty ; but if they found them guilty of one thing, and not guilty of another, they could declare them guilty of one thing, and not guilty of another. Then he explained to them that although they had such a right, they must use it with discretion. He also wished to instruct them that if they gave an affirmative answer to a given question, they therewith accepted the question in its entirety, and if they did not accept it in its entirety, they ought to specify what it was they excluded. But upon looking at his watch and seeing that it was five minutes to three, he decided to pass at once to the review of the case.

“The circumstances of the case are as follows,” he began, and repeated all that had previously been said by the defence, and the assistant prosecuting attorney, and the witnesses.

The presiding judge spoke, and the members on both sides listened to him with a thoughtful mien, and occasionally looked at the clock, finding his speech very beautiful, that is, such as it ought to be, but rather long. Of the same opinion were the assistant prosecuting attorney and all the judicial persons and all the spectators in the courtroom. The presiding judge finished his résumé.

It seemed that everything had been said. But the presiding judge could not part from his privilege of speaking, — it gave him such pleasure to listen to the impressive intonations of his own voice, — and he found it necessary to add a few words on the importance of the right which was granted to the jurors, and how attentively and cautiously they ought to make use of that right, and not misuse it ; he said that they were under oath, and that they were the public conscience, and that the secrecy of the jury-room must be kept sacred, and so on, and so on.

From the time that the presiding judge began to speak, Maslova did not take her eyes away from him, as though fearing to lose a word, and therefore Nekhlyudov was not afraid of meeting her glance, and uninterruptedly looked at her. And in his imagination took place that common phenomenon, that the long missed face of a beloved person, at first striking one by the external changes which have taken place during the period of absence, suddenly becomes precisely like what it was many years ago : all the changes disappear, and before the spiritual eyes arises only that chief expression of an exclusive, unrepeated, spiritual personality. Precisely this took place in Nekhlyudov.

In spite of the prison cloak, and the plumper body and swelling bosom, in spite of the broadened lower part of her face, the wrinkles on her brow and temples, and the somewhat swollen eyes, it was unquestionably that same Katyusha who on that Easter night had so innocently looked at him, the man beloved by her, with her upturned loving eyes, smiling with joy and with the fulness of life.

” Such a strange coincidence ! How wonderful that this case should come up during my turn as a juror, that after ten years I should meet her here, on the defendants’ bench ! And how will all this end ? Ah, if it only would all end soon ! “

He did not yet submit to that feeling of repentance which was beginning to speak within him. It appeared to him as an accident which would pass by without disturbing the tenor of his life. He felt himself to be in the condition of the pup, when, after he has misbehaved in the room, his master takes him by the back of his neck and sticks his nose into the filth which he has caused. The pup whines and pulls back, in order to get away as far as possible from the consequences of his deed, and to forget them, but the inexorable master does not let him go. Just so Nekhlyudov was conscious of the filth which he was guilty of, and of the mighty hand of the master ; but he did not yet understand the significance of what he had done, and did not acknowledge the master himself. He did not wish to believe that that which was before him was his deed. But an inexorable, invisible hand held him, and he felt that he should never wring himself away from it. He was still putting on a bold face, and, by force of habit, placed one leg over the other, carelessly played with his eyeglasses, and sat in a self-satisfied attitude on the second chair of the first row. In the meantime he was conscious, in the depth of his soul, of all the cruelty, meanness, arid rascality, not only of his deed, but of his whole indolent, dissolute, cruel, and arbitrary life, and that terrible curtain, which as if by some magic had for twelve years concealed from himself that crime and all his consequent life, was already swaying, and he could get some short glimpses behind it.

XXIII.

Finally, the presiding judge finished his speech, and with a graceful motion raising the question-sheet, handed it to the foreman, who had walked over to him. The jury rose, glad to get away, and, not knowing what to do with their hands, as though ashamed of something, went one after another into the consultation-room. The moment the door was closed behind them, a gendarme went up to the door, and, unsheathing his sabre and shouldering it, took up a position near it. The judges arose and walked out. The defendants, too, were led away.

Upon reaching the consultation-room, the jurors, as before, immediately took out their cigarettes and began to smoke. The unnaturalness and falseness of their situation, which they all had been conscious of in a greater or lesser degree while seated in the courtroom, passed the moment they entered the consultation-room and began to smoke, and, with a feeling of relief, they made themselves at home and began to converse in an animated manner.

” The girl is not guilty, she is just tangled up,” said the good-natured merchant. “We must be indulgent with her ! “

” This we shall consider later,” said the foreman. “ We must not be misled by our personal impressions.”

” The presiding judge has made a fine résumé,” remarked the colonel.

” Very fine indeed ! I almost fell asleep.”

“ The main thin” is that the servants could not have o known of the money, if Maslova had not been in a conspiracy with them,” said the clerk of Jewish type.

“Well, did she steal it, in your opinion ?” asked one of the jurors.

” You can’t make me believe it,” cried the good-natured merchant. ” The red-eyed wench has done it all.”

“They are every one of them a nice lot,” said the colonel.

” She says she never went inside the room.”

” Yes, you may believe her. I should not believe that slut for anything in the world.”

” But what of it if you would not believe her ? ” said the clerk.

” She had the key.”

” What of it if she did have it ? ” retorted the merchant.

“ And the ring ? “

“ She told about it,” again shouted the merchant. “ The merchant had a temper, and had been drinking and walloping her. And then, of course, he was sorry for what he had done. ‘ Take this, and don’t cry ! ‘ From what I heard, he must have been a strapping fellow, two and twelve, and weighing some three hundred pounds.”

” This has nothing to do with the case,” Peter Gerasimovich interrupted him. ” The question is, whether she did it all and persuaded the others, or whether the servants took the initiative.”

” The servants could not have done it by themselves, for she had the key.”

The disconnected conversation lasted quite awhile.

” Please, gentlemen,” said the foreman. ” Let us sit down at the table, and consider the case. Please,” he said, sitting down in the foreman’s chair.

” Those girls are contemptible,” said the clerk, and, in confirmation of his opinion that Maslova was the chief culprit, he told how one of these girls had stolen a watch from a friend of his in the boulevard.

This gave the colonel an opportunity of relating a more wonderful theft of a silver samovar.

“Gentlemen, let us take up the questions in order,” said the foreman, tapping his pencil on the table.

All grew quiet. The questions were expressed as follows :

(1) Is Simon Petrov Kartfnkin, a peasant of the village

of Bdrki, Krapivensk County, thirty-three years of age, guilty of having conspired on January 17, 188-, in the city of N–-, to deprive Merchant Smyelkov of his life,

for the purpose of robbing him, in company with others, by administering to him poison in cognac, from which ensued Smyelkov’s death, and of having stolen from him about 2,500 roubles and a diamond ring ?

(2) Is Burgess Evfimiya Ivanovna Bochkova, forty-three years of age, guilty of the crime described in the first question ?

(3) Is Burgess Katerina Mikhaylovna Maslova, twentyseven years of age, guilty of the crime described in the first question ?

(4) If the defendant, Evfimiya Bochkova, is not guilty

according to the first question, may she not be guilty of having, on January 17, 188-, in the city of N–-, while

being a servant in “ Hotel Mauritania,” secretly stolen from the locked valise of a hotel guest, Merchant Smyelkov, which was in his room, the sum of 2,500 roubles, having for this purpose opened the valise with a false key ?

The foreman read the first question.

” Well, gentlemen ? ”

To this question, the reply was readily made. All agreed to answer, ” Yes, guilty,” finding him guilty of participation, both in the poisoning and in the robbery. The only one who would not agree to finding Kartinkin guilty was an old labourer, who answered all questions in an exculpatory way.

The foreman thought that he did not understand, and explained to him that there was no possible doubt of Kartinkin’s and Bochkova’s guilt, but the labourer replied that he understood it all, but that it would be better to exercise mercy. ” We ourselves are no saints,” he said, and stuck to his opinion.

To the second question about Bochkova, they replied, after long discussions and elucidations, “Not guilty,” because there were no clear proofs of her participation in the poisoning, upon which her lawyer had dwelt so emphatically.

The merchant, wishing to acquit Maslova, insisted that Bdchkova was the chief instigator of the whole thing. Many jurors agreed with him, but the foreman, trying to remain within strictly legal bounds, said that there was no ground for finding her guilty of participation in the poisoning.

After many discussions, the foreman’s opinion prevailed.

To the fourth question, about Bdchkova, they replied, ” Yes, guilty,” but, since the labourer insisted upon it, they added, ” but deserves mercy.”

The question about Maslova brought forth violent discussions. The foreman insisted that she was guilty both of the poisoning and of the robbery, but the merchant did not agree with him, and he was joined by the colonel, the clerk and the labourer ; the others seemed to waver, but the opinion of the foreman began to prevail, especially since all the jurors were tired, and gladly accepted the opinion which was more likely to unite all, and therefore to free them.

By all that had taken place at the inquest, and by what Nekhlyudov knew of Maslova, he was convinced that she was not guilty either of the robbery or of the poisoning ; at first he was certain that all would find it so, but when he saw that, on account of the merchant’s awkward defence, which was based on the fact that M4s-lova pleased him in a physical way, a fact of which he made no secret, on account of the opposition of the foreman for that very reason, and, especially, on account of the fatigue of all, the verdict was turning toward finding her guilty, he wanted to retort, but he felt terribly about saying anything in regard to Maslova, — it seemed to him that everybody would at once discover his relations with her. At the same time he felt that he could not leave the case as it was, but that he had to retort. He blushed and grew pale by turns, and was on the point of saying something, when Peter Gerasimovich, who had remained silent until then, evidently provoked by the foreman’s authoritative tone, suddenly began to oppose him and to say the very thing Nekhlyudov had intended to bring out.

” If you please,” he said, “ you say that she is guilty of the robbery because she had a key ; could not the hotel servants have later opened the valise with a false key ? “

“ That’s it, that’s it,” the merchant seconded him.

” It was not possible for her to take the money, because in her situation she could not dispose of it.”

” That’s what I say,” the merchant confirmed him.

“ It is more likely that her arrival gave the servants the idea of utilizing the opportunity and throwing everything upon her shoulders.”

Peter Gerasimovich spoke in an irritated manner. His irritation was communicated to the foreman, who, for that very reason, began with greater stubbornness to insist upon his opposite views ; but Peter Gerasimovich spoke so convincingly that the majority agreed with him, finding that Maslova had not taken part in the robbery of the money and ring, and that the ring had been given to her.

When the discussion about her share in the poisoning began, her warm defender, the merchant, said that she ought to be found not guilty, because she had no reason for poisoning him. But the foreman said that they could not help finding her guilty because she had herself confessed to administering the poison to him.

” She gave it to him, but she thought it was opium,” said the merchant.

” She could have deprived him of life with opium,” said the colonel, who was fond of digressions, and began to tell that his brother-in-law’s wife had poisoned herself with opium, and that she would certainly have died if a doctor had not been near, and if the proper measures had not been taken in time. The colonel spoke so persuasively, self-confidently, and with such dignity, that nobody had the courage to interrupt him. Only the clerk, infected by his example, decided to interrupt him in order to tell his own story.

” Some get so used to it,” he began, ” that they can take forty drops. A relative of mine — ”

But the colonel did not permit himself to be interrupted, and continued his story about the effect of the opium on the wife of his brother-in-law.

“ Gentlemen, it is already past four,” said one of the jurors.

” How is it, then, gentlemen ? ” the foreman addressed them. ” Let us find her guilty without premeditated robbery, and without seizing any property.”

” How is that ? ”

Peter Gerasimovich, satisfied with his victory, agreed to this.

” But deserves mercy,” added the merchant.

All consented to this, only the labourer insisted upon saying ” Not guilty.”

“That’s what it amounts to,” explained the foreman., “ This makes her not guilty.”

” Put it down : ‘ and deserves mercy.’ That means, clearing off the whole matter,” merrily said the merchant.

Everybody was so tired, and so confused by their dis-eussions that it did not occur to any one to add to the answer : ” Yes, but without the intention of killing.”

Nekhlyudov was so agitated that he did not notice that. In this form the answers were written down and taken back to the courtroom.

Rabelais tells of a jurist, to whom people had come in a lawsuit, and who, after having pointed out all kinds of laws, and having read twenty pages of senseless juridical Latin, proposed to the contending parties to cast dice : if they fell even, the plaintiff was right; if odd, the defendant was right.

Thus it happened here. This or that verdict had been accepted, not because all had agreed to it, but, in the first place, because the presiding judge, who had made such a long résumé, had forgotten upon that occasion to say what he always said, namely, that they might answer the question: ” Yes, guilty, but without the intention of killing ; ” secondly, because the colonel had told a long and tiresome story about his brother-in-law’s wife ; thirdly, because Nekhlyudov had been so agitated that he did not notice the omission of the clause about the absence of any intention to kill, and because he thought that the clause, ” without any premeditated murder,” annulled the accusation ; fourthly, because Peter Gerasimovich did not happen to be in the room — he had gone out — when the foreman reread the questions and answers ; and, chiefly, because everybody was tired, and all wanted to be free as soon as possible, and therefore agreed to a verdict which would bring everything to an end.

The jury rang the bell. The gendarme, who was standing at the door with the unsheathed sword, put it back into the scabbard and stepped aside. The judges took their seats, and the jurors filed out from the room.

The foreman carried the sheet with a solemn look. He went up to the presiding judge, and gave it to him. The presiding judge read it, and, evidently surprised, waved his hands and turned to the members, to consult with them. The presiding judge was surprised to find that the jury had modified the first condition, by making it, « Without the intention of robbing,” while they had not equally modified the second, by saying, ” Without the intention of killing.” It now turned out that Maslova had not stolen, not robbed, and yet had poisoned a man without any evident cause.

” See what absurdity they have brought here,” he said to the member on the left. ” This means hard labour, and she is not guilty.”

” Why not guilty ?” said the stern member.

” Simply not guilty. In my opinion this case is provided for in Statute 817.” (This statute says that if a court finds the accusation unjust, it may set aside the jury’s verdict.)

” What do you think of it ? ” said the presiding judge, turning to the kind member.

The kind member did not answer at once. He looked at the number of the document which was lying before him, and it would not divide by three. He had made up his mind that he should be with him if the number would be divisible ; notwithstanding this, he, in the goodness of his heart, agreed with him.

” I think myself this ought to be done,” he said.

“ And you ? ” the judge turned to the angry member.

” On no condition,” he answered, firmly. ” The papers are saying, as it is, that the juries acquit the criminals. I sha’n’t agree to it under any circumstances.”

The presiding judge looked at his watch.

” I am sorry, but what is to be done? ” and he handed the list to the foreman to read.

All arose, and the foreman, resting now on one foot and now on the other, cleared his throat, and read the questions and answers. All the judicial persons, the score-tary, the lawyers, even the prosecuting attorney, expressed their surprise.

The defendants sat unperturbed, obviously not understanding the purport of the answers. Again, all sat down, and the presiding judge asked the prosecuting attorney to what punishment he proposed to subject the defendants.

The prosecuting attorney, delighted at the unexpected turn which Maslova’s case had taken, and ascribing this success to his eloquence, looked up some points, rose, and said :

” Simon Kartinkin ought to be subjected to punishment on the basis of article 1,452 and paragraph four of article 1,453 ; Evfimiya Bdchkova on the basis of article 1,659; and Katerina Maslova on the basis of article 1,454.”

All these punishments were the severest which it was possible to mete out.

“ The court will withdraw for the purpose of arriving at a sentence,” said the prosecuting attorney, rising.

All arose at the same time, and, with the relief and the agreeable sensation of a well-performed good work, began to leave the room, or to move up and down.

” My friend, we have done a shameful piece of business,” said Peter Gerasimovich, walking up to Nekhlyudov, to whom the foreman was telling something. ” We have sent her to hard labour.”

” You don’t say ? ” cried Nekhlyudov, this time not taking notice at all of the teacher’s disagreeable familiarity.

” Precisely so,” he said. “We did not put down in the answer, ‘ Guilty, but without the intention of killing.’ The secretary has just told me that the prosecuting attorney is giving her fifteen years of hard labour.”

” That’s the way we gave the verdict,” said the foreman.

Peter Gerasimovich began to argue with him, saying that it was self-evident that if she did not steal the money, she could not have had the intention of killing him.

“ But did I not read the answers before coming out ? ” the foreman justified himself. ” Nobody contradicted.”

” I was not in the room at that time,” said Peter Gerasimovich. “ But how is it you were napping ? ”

“ I could not imagine it was that way,” said Nekhlyudov.

” This comes from not imagining.”

“ But this can be corrected,” said Nekhlyudov.

” No, now everything is ended.”

Nekhlyudov looked at the defendants. They, whose fate was being decided, sat just as motionless behind the screen, in front of the soldiers. Maslova was smiling at something. An evil feeling began to stir in Nekhlyudov’s breast. Before this, while he saw her acquittal and sojourn in the city, he had been undecided as to how to act toward her. In any case, his relations with her would have been difficult; but now, the hard labour and Siberia at once destroyed every possibility of any relations with her. The wounded bird would stop fluttering in the game-hag and reminding him of itself.

XXIV.

Peter Gerasimovich’s suppositions were correct.

Upon returning from the consultation-room, the presiding judge took the paper and read :

” On April 28, 188-, by order of Iris Imperial Highness N–-, the criminal department of the Circuit

Court, by virtue of the jury’s verdict, and on the basis of par. 3, art. 771, par. 3, art. 776, and art. 777 of the Code of Crim, dur., has decreed: Peasant Simon Kartinkin, thirty-three years of age, and Burgess Katerina Maslova, twentyseven years of age, to be deprived of all civil rights, and to be sent to hard labour : Kartink in for the period of eight years, and Mdslova for four years, with the consequences incident thereupon according to art. 25 of the Statutes. But Burgess Evfimiya Bochkova, forty-three years of age, to be deprived of all special rights, both personal and civil, and of all privileges, to be incarcerated in prison, for the period of three years, with the consequences incident thereupon according to art. 48 of the Statutes. The expenses of the court incurred in this case to be borne in equal parts by all the defendants, and in case of their inability to meet them to be paid by the Crown.

” The exhibits presented in the case to be sold, the ring to be returned, and the jars to be destroyed.”

Kartmkin stood as erect as before, holding his hands with their spreading fingers down his sides, and moving his cheeks. Bochkova seemed to be quite calm. Upon hearing her sentence, Maslova grew red in her face.

” I am not guilty, I am not guilty ! ” she suddenly shouted through the courtroom. “ This is a sin. I am not guilty. I had no intention, no thought of doing wrong. I am telling the truth ! The truth ! ” And, letting herself down on the bench, she sobbed out aloud.

When Kartmkin and Bdchkova left, she still remained sitting in one spot and weeping, so that the gendarme had to touch her by the elbow of her cloak.

” No, it is impossible to leave it thus,” Nekhlyudov said to himself, entirely forgetful of his evil feeling, and, without knowing why, rushing out into the corridor, in order to get another glimpse of her.

Through the door pressed the animated throng of the jurors and lawyers, satisfied with the result of the case, so that he was kept for several minutes near the door. When he came out into the corridor, she was far away. With rapid steps, and without thinking of the attention which he was attracting, he caught up with her, and, going beyond, he stopped. She had ceased weeping, and only sobbed fitfully, wiping her flushed face with the end of the kerchief ; she passed beyond him, without looking around. After she was gone, he hurriedly went back, in order to see the presiding judge, but the judge had just left, and he ran after him and found him in the vestibule.

“Judge,” said Nekhlyudov, approaching him just as he had donned his bright overcoat and had taken from the porter his silver-knobbed cane, “may I speak with you about the case which has just been tried ? I was one of the jurors.”

“ Yes, certainly, Prince Nekhlyudov ! Very happy, we have met before,” said the presiding judge, pressing his hand at the pleasant recollection of how well and gaily and how much better than many a young man he had danced on the evening of his first meeting with Nekhlyudov. ” What can I do for you ? “

” There was a misunderstanding in the answer in regard to Màslova. She is not guilty of poisoning, and yet she has been sentenced to hard labour,” Nekhlyudov said, with a concentrated and gloomy look.

“The court has passed sentence according to the answers which you have handed in,” said the presiding judge, moving toward the entrance door, “even though the answers seemed to the court not to be relevant to the case.”

He recalled that he had intended to explain to the jury that their answer, “ Yes, guilty,” without a specific denial of intentional murder, only confirmed the murder with the intention, but that, in his hurry, he had forgotten to do so.

“ Yes ; but cannot the error be corrected ? “

“ A cause for annulment may always be found. One must consult the lawyers,” said the presiding judge, putting on his hat somewhat jauntily, and moving up toward the door.

“ But this is terrible.”

” You see, one of two things could have happened to Maslova,” said the presiding judge, wishing to be as agreeable and polite to Nekhlyudov as possible ; he straightened out all his whiskers above the collar of his overcoat, and, slightly linking his hand in Nekhlyudov’s arm, continued, on his way to the door : “You are going out, are you not ? ”

“Yes,” said Nekhlyudov, swiftly putting on his coat, and going out with him.

They came out into the bright, cheering sun, and it became necessary to speak louder, in order to be heard above the rattling of the wheels on the pavement.

“The situation, you see, is a strange one,” continued the presiding judge, raising his voice. “ One of the two things could have happened to her, I mean Maslova: either almost an acquittal, with incarceration in a prison, from which might have been deducted the time already passed in jail, or merely an arrest, or otherwise hard labour, — there was nothing between these two. If you had added the words, ‘ but without the intention of causing death,’ she would have been acquitted.”

“ It is inexcusable in me to have omitted them,” said Nekhlyudov.

“ That’s where the trouble is,” said the presiding judge, smiling, and looking at his watch.

There were only forty-five minutes left to the latest hour appointed by Klara.

“ If you wish it, invoke a lawyer’s aid. You must find cause for annulment. It is always possible to find such. To the Dvoryanskaya,” he said to a cabman ; ” thirty kopeks, — I never pay more than that.”

” If you please, your Excellency.”

” My regards to you. If I can be useful to you, call at Dvornikov’s house, on the Dvoryanskaya, — that is easily remembered.”

And, bowing graciously, he drove off.

XXV.

The conversation with the presiding judge and the fresh air somewhat calmed Nekhlyudov. He now concluded that the sensation experienced by him was exaggerated by his having passed the whole morning under such unaccustomed circumstances.

” Of course, it is a remarkable and striking coincidence ! I must do everything in my power to alleviate her condition, and I must do so at the earliest possible moment, — at once. I must find out in the courthouse where Fanarin or Mikfshin lives.” He recalled the names of these two famous lawyers.

Nekhlyudov returned to the courthouse, took off his overcoat, and went up-stairs. He met Fanarin in the first corridor. He stopped him, and told him that he had some business with him. Fanarin knew him by sight and by name, and said that he would be happy to be useful to him.

” Although I am tired — but if it will not take you long, tell me your business, — come this way.”

Fanarin led Nekhlyudov into a room, very likely the private cabinet of some judge. They sat down at the table.

“Well, what is it about?”

” First of all I shall ask you,” said Nekhlyudov, ” not to let anybody know that I am taking any interest in this matter.”

” That is self-understood. And — “

“ I served on the jury to-day, and we sentenced an innocent woman to hard labour. This torments me.”

Nekhlyudov blushed, quite unexpectedly to himself, and hesitated. Fanarin flashed his eyes upon him and again lowered them, and listened.

” Well ? ” was all he said.

” We have sentenced an innocent woman, and I should like to have the judgment annulled and carried to a higher court.”

” To the Senate,” Fanarin corrected him.

” And so I ask you to take the case.”

Nekhlyudov wanted to get over the most difficult point as soon as possible, and so he said, blushing :

« I shall bear the expenses in this case, whatever they may be.”

” Well, we shall come to an understanding about that,” said the lawyer, with a smile of condescension at his inexperience.

“ What case is it ? “

Nekhlyudov told him.

“Very well, I will take it up tomorrow, and look it over. And the day after tomorrow — no, on Thursday, come to see me at six o’clock, and I shall have an answer for you. Is that all right ? Come, let us go, I have to make some inquiries yet.”

Nekhlyudov said goodbye to him and went away.

His conversation with the lawyer and the fact that he had taken measures for Maslova’s defence calmed him still more. He went out. The weather was beautiful, and it gave him pleasure to breathe the vernal air. The cabmen offered him their services, but he went on foot. A whole swarm of thoughts and recollections in regard to Katyusha and to his treatment of her at once began to whirl around in his mind, and he felt melancholy, and everything looked gloomy. ” No, I will consider that later,” he said to himself, “but now I must divert my mind from these heavy impressions.”

He thought of the dinner at the Korchagins, and looked

at his watch. It was not yet late, and he could get there in time. A tramway car was tinkling past him. He ran and caught it. At the square he leaped down and took a good cab, and ten minutes later he was at the entrance of the large house of the Korchâgins.

XXVI.

“Please, your Serenity! They are expecting you,” said the kindly, stout porter of the large house of the Korchagins, opening the oak door of the entrance, which moved noiselessly on its English hinges. ” They are at dinner, but I was ordered to ask you to come in.”

The porter went up to the staircase and rang a bell.

” Is anybody there ? ” asked Nekhlyudov, taking off his overcoat.

« Mr. Kolosov and Mikhail Sergyéevich, and the family,” answered the porter.

A fine-looking lackey, in dress coat and white gloves, looked down-stairs.

“ Please, your Serenity,” he said, “ I am told to ask you in.”

Nekhlyudov ascended the staircase and through the familiar, luxurious, and spacious parlour passed to the dining-room. Here the whole family was sitting at the table, excepting the mother, Princess Sofya Vasilevna, who never left her cabinet. At the head of the table sat the elder Korchagin ; next to him, to the left, was the doctor; to the right, a guest, Ivan Ivanovich K61o-sov, formerly a Government marshal of the nobility, and now a director of a bank, a liberal comrade of Korchagin’s ; then, on the left, Miss Redder, the governess of Missy’s little sister, with the four-year-old girl; on the right, exactly opposite, was Missy’s brother, the only son of the Korchagins, a gymnasiast of the sixth form, Petya, for whose sake the whole family was still staying in the city, waiting for his examinations, and his tutor ; then, on

the left, Katerina Aleksyéevna, an old maid forty years of age, who was a Slavophile ; opposite her, Mikhail Sergyéevich, or Misha Telyégin, Missy’s cousin, and at the lower end of the table, Missy herself, and, near her, an untouched cover.

” Now, that’s nice. Sit down, — we are just at the fish,” said the elder Korchagin, carefully and with difficulty chewing with his false teeth, and raising his suffused, apparently lidless eyes.

” Stepan,” he turned, with his full mouth, to the stout, majestic butler, indicating with his eyes the empty plate. Although Nekhlyudov was well acquainted with old Korchagin, and had often seen him, especially at dinner, he never before had been so disagreeably impressed by his red face, with his sensual, smacking lips, with his napkin stuck into his vest, and by his fat neck, — in general, by his whole pampered military figure.

Nekhlyudov involuntarily recalled everything he had heard of the cruelty of this man, who, God knows why, — for he was rich and of distinguished birth, and did not need to earn recognition by zealous service, — had had people flogged and even hanged when he had been the chief officer of a territory.

” He will be served at once, your Serenity,” said Stepan, taking from the buffet, which was filled with silver vases, a large soup-ladle, and nodding to the fine-looking lackey with the whiskers ; the lackey at once arranged the untouched cover near Missy’s, on which lay a quaintly folded starched napkin with a huge coat of arms.

Nekhlyudov walked all around the table, pressing everybody’s hands. All but old Korchagin and the ladies rose when he came near them. On that evening the walking around the table and the pressing of the hands of all persons present, though with some of them he never exchanged any words, seemed to him particularly disagreeable and ridiculous. He excused himself for being so late, and was on the point of seating himself on the unoccupied chair, when old Korchagin insisted that, even if he did not take any brandy, he should take an appetizer from the table on which stood lobsters, caviare, various kinds of cheese, and herrings. Nekhlyudov did not know he was so hungry, but when he started on a piece of cheese sandwich he could not stop, and ate with zest.

“Well, have you loosened the foundations?” said Kolosov, ironically quoting an expression of a retrograde paper which was opposed to trial by jury. “Have you acquitted the guilty, and sentenced the innocent ? Yes ? ”

“ Loosened the foundations — loosened the foundations — ” laughingly repeated the prince, who had an unbounded confidence in the wit and learning of his liberal comrade and friend.

Nekhlyudov, at the risk of being impolite, did not answer Kolosov, and, sitting down to the plate of steaming soup which had been served to him, continued to munch his sandwich.

“ Let him eat,” Missy said, smiling ; she used the pronoun “ him ” in order to point out her intimacy with him.

Kolosov, in the meantime, proceeded, in a loud and brisk voice, to give the contents of the article attacking the trial by jury which had so exasperated him. Mikhail Sergyéevich, the nephew, agreed with him, and gave the contents of another article in the same paper.

Missy was very distinguée, as always, and well, unostentatiously well dressed.

“ You must be dreadfully tired and hungry,” she said to Nekhlyudov, when he had finished chewing.

“ No, not very. And you ? Did you go to see the pictures ? ” he asked.

“ No, we have put it off. We were out playing lawntennis with the Salamdntovs. Really, Mr. Crooks plays a marvellous game.”

Nekhlyudov had come here to divert his mind ; it was always pleasant for him in that house, not only on account of that good taste in luxury which agreeably affected his feelings, but also on account of that atmosphere of insinuating kindness with which he was imperceptibly surrounded here. But, strange to say, on that evening everything in that house was distasteful to him, everything, beginning with the porter, the broad staircase, the flowers, the lackeys, the setting of the table, to Missy herself, who now appeared unattractive and unnatural to him. He was also disgusted with that self-confident, mean, liberalizing tone of Kolosov; he was disgusted with the ox-like, self-confident, sensual figure of old Korchagin ; he was disgusted with the French phrases of the Slavophile Katerina Aleksyéevna ; he was disgusted with the repressed countenances of the governess and the tutor ; and he was particularly disgusted with the pronoun ” him,” which had been used in regard to himself.

Nekhlyudov always wavered between two relations with Missy : now he saw her as though with blinking eyes, or as if in the moonlight, and everything in her was beautiful; she seemed to him fresh, and beautiful, and clever, and natural. Then again, he saw her as though in the bright sunshine, and he could not help noticing her defects. That evening was just such an occasion. He now saw all the wrinkles on her face ; he knew that her hair was artificially puffed out ; he saw the angularity of her elbows, and, above everything else, observed the wide nail of her thumb, which reminded him of her father’s thumbnails.

” It is an exceedingly dull game,” Kolosov remarked about the tennis. “ The ball game we used to play in our childhood was much more fun.”

” You have not tried it. It is awfully attractive,” retorted Missy, pronouncing with particular unnaturalness the word ” awfully,” as Nekhlyudov thought.

And then began a discussion in which also Mikhail Sergyéevich and Katerina Aleksyéevna took part. Only the governess, the tutor, and the children were silent and, evidently, felt ennui.

“Quarrelling all the time!” exclaimed old Korchàgin, bursting out into a guffaw ; he took the napkin out from his vest, and, rattling his chair, which the lackey immediately took away, rose from table. All the others got up after him and went up to a small table, where stood the finger-bowls, filled with warm scented water ; they wiped their mouths and continued the conversation, which did not interest anybody.

“ Am I not right ? ” Missy turned to Nekhlyudov, trying to elicit a confirmation of her opinion that a man’s character is nowhere manifested so well as at a game. She had noticed in his face that concentrated and, as she thought, condemnatory expression of which she was afraid, and wanted to know what it was that had caused it.

” Really, I do not know ; I have never thought about it,” replied Nekhlyudov.

” Will you go to see mamma ? ” asked Missy.

“ Yes, yes,” he said, taking out a cigarette, and in a tone which manifestly meant that he should prefer not to go.

She looked at him in silence, with a questioning glance, and he felt ashamed. ” How mean ! To call on people in order to make them feel bad,” he thought about himself, and, trying to say something agreeable, announced that it would give him pleasure to go, if the princess would receive him.

” Yes, yes, mamma will be happy. You may smoke there. Ivén Ivànovich is there, too.”

The lady of the house, Princess Sofya Vasflevna, was a bedridden woman. For the last eight years she had received her guests while lying in bed, amidst laces and ribbons, amidst velvet, gold tinsel, ivory, bronze, lacquer, and flowers ; she did not drive out, and received only her ” own friends,” as she expressed herself ; that is, all such people as stood out from the crowd. Nekhlyudov was among these select people, because she regarded him as a clever young man, because he and his mother were near friends of the house, and because it would be well if Missy married him.

The room of Princess Sofya Vasilevna was beyond the large and small drawing-rooms. In the large drawing-room, Missy, who preceded Nekhlyudov, suddenly stopped and, holding on to the back of a gilt chair, looked straight at him.

Missy was very anxious to get married, and Nekhlyudov was a good match. Besides, she liked him, and had accustomed herself to the idea that he would belong to her (not that she would belong to him, but he to her), and she reached out for her goal with unconscious, but persistent cunning, such as the insane are possessed of. She said something to him in order to elicit an explanation from him.

” I see that something has happened to you,” she said. ” What is the matter with you ? “

He recalled the incident in the courtroom, frowned, and blushed.

” Yes, something has happened,” he said, trying to be truthful ; ” a strange, unusual, and important thing.”

” What is it ? Can’t you tell it ? ”

” Not now. Permit me not to mention it. Something has happened which I have not yet had time to reflect upon,” he said, and his face became even redder.

“And you will not tell me?” A muscle on her face quivered, and she moved the chair to which she was holding on.

” No, I cannot,” he answered, feeling that in answering her he was answering himself, and confessing that really something important had happened to him.

” Well, let us go.”

She tossed her head, as if to drive away importunate thoughts, and walked on with faster steps than usual.

It appeared to him that she compressed her lips in an unnatural manner, as though to keep back tears. He felt ashamed and pained at having grieved her, but he knew that the least weakness would ruin him, that is, it would bind him. And on that evening he was afraid of it more than ever, and so he reached the princess’s cabinet with her in silence.

XXVII.

Princess Sofya Vasilevna had finished her very refined and nourishing dinner, which she was in the habit of eating all alone, in order that she might not be seen at that unpoetical function. Near her lounge stood a small table with coffee, and she was smoking a cigarette. Princess Sofya Vasilevna was a lean, haggard brunette, with large teeth and big black eyes, who was trying to appear young.

There was a rumour about her having certain relations with her doctor. On previous occasions Nekhlyudov generally forgot about this ; on that evening he not only thought of it, but, when he saw near her chair the doctor, with his pomaded, shining forked beard, he was overcome by loathing.

At Sdfya Vasilevna’s side, on a soft low armchair, sat Kolosov near the table, stirring his coffee. On the table stood a wine-glass with liqueur.

Missy entered with Nekhlyudov, but did not remain in the room.

” When mamma gets tired and drives you away, come to me,” she said, turning to Kolosov and Nekhlyudov, in such a tone as though nothing had happened between them, and, with a merry smile, inaudibly stepping over the heavy rug, went out of the room.

” Good evening, my friend ! Sit down and tell me all about it,” said Princess Sofya Vasilevna with an artificial, feigned smile, which remarkably resembled a real smile, and showing her beautiful large teeth, which were as artistically made as though they were natural. ” I am told that you have come from court in a very gloomy mood. This must be very hard for people with a heart,” she said in French.

” Yes, that is so,” said Nekhlyudov. ” One often feels his in— One feels that one has no right to sit in judgment.”

” Comme c’est vrai,” she exclaimed, as though struck by the truth of his remark, and, as always, artfully flattering her interlocutor.

” Well, how is your picture getting on ? — it interests me very much,” she added. ” If it were not for my ailment, I should have gone long ago to see it.”

” I have given it up altogether,” dryly replied Nekhlyudov, to whom the insincerity of her flattery was now as manifest as her old age, which she was trying to conceal. He was absolutely unable to attune himself in such a way as to be pleasant.

” I am sorry. Do you know, Ryepnin himself told me that he has positive talent,” she said, turning to Kolosov.

” How unashamed of lying she is,” thought Nekhlyudov, frowning.

Having convinced herself that Nekhlyudov was not in a good humour and that it was not possible to draw him into a pleasant and clever conversation, Sofya Vasilevna turned to Kdlosov, asking for his opinion about the latest drama, in such a tone as though Kolosov’s opinion was to solve all doubts, and as though every word of that opinion was to be eternalized. Kolosov condemned the drama, and used this opportunity to expatiate on his conceptions of art. Princess Sofya Vasilevna expressed surprise at the correctness of his views, tried to defend the author of the drama, but immediately surrendered herself, or found some compromise. Nekhlyudov was looking and hearing, but he saw and heard something different from what was going on in front of him.

Listening to Sofya Vasilevna and to Kolosov, Nekhlyudov observed that neither Sofya Vasilevna nor Kolosov had the least interest in the drama, or in each other, and that they were conversing only to satisfy a physiological necessity of moving the muscles of the mouth and throat after dinner ; secondly, that Kolosov, having drunk brandy, wine, and liqueur, was a little intoxicated, — not as intoxicated as peasants are who drink at rare intervals, but as people are who make a habit of drinking wine. He did not sway, nor say foolish things, but was in an abnormal, excitedly self-satisfied condition ; in the third place, Nekhlyudov noticed that Princess Sofya Vasilevna during the conversation restlessly looked at the window, through which fell upon her the slanting rays of the sun, for fear that too strong a light might be shed on her old age.

” How true that is,” she said about a remark of Kolosov’s, and pressed a button in the wall near the lounge.

Just then the doctor arose, and, being a familiar friend, went out of the room without saying a word. Sofya Vasilevna followed him with her eyes, continuing to speak.

” Please, Filipp, let down this curtain,” she said, indicating with her eyes the curtain of the window, when the fine-looking lackey had come in in answer to the bell.

” You may say as you please, but there is something mystical in him, and without mysticism there can be no poetry,” she said, angrily watching with one black eye the movement of the lackey who was fixing the curtain.

” Mysticism without poetry is superstition, and poetry without mysticism is prose,” she said, sadly smiling, and not letting out of sight the lackey, who was still busy about the curtain.

” Filipp, not this curtain, — the one at the large window,” Sofya Vasilevna muttered, with the tone of a sufferer, evidently regretting the effort which she had to make in order to pronounce these words, and immediately, to soothe her nerves, putting the fragrant, smoking cigarette to her mouth with her ring-covered hand.

Broad-chested, muscular, handsome Filipp made a slight bow, as though to excuse himself, and, stepping softly over the rug with his strong, well-shaped legs, humbly and silently went up to the other window, and, carefully watching the princess, so arranged the curtain that not one single ray could fall upon her. But here he again did not do exactly right, and again exhausted Sofya Vasilevna was compelled to interrupt her conversation about mysticism and to correct Filipp, who was hard of understanding and who pitilessly tormented her. For a moment there was a flash in Filipp’s eyes.

” The devil can make out what it is you want, no doubt is what he said to himself,” thought Nekhlyudov, who was watching the whole game. But handsome, strong Filipp at once concealed his motion of impatience and began calmly to carry out the order of exhausted, powerless, artificial Princess Sofya Vasilevna.

” Of course, there is a larger grain of truth in Darwin’s teachings,” said Kolosov, throwing himself back in the low armchair, and looking with sleepy eyes at Princess Sdfya Vasilevna, ” but he oversteps the boundary. Yes.”

« And do you believe in heredity ? ” Princess Sofya Vasilevna asked Nekhlyudov, vexed by his silence.

“In heredity?” Nekhlyudov repeated her question. « No, I do not,” he said, being at that moment all absorbed in the strange pictures which for some reason were rising in his imagination. By the side of strong, handsome Filipp, whom he imagined to be an artist’s model, he saw Kolosov naked, with a belly in the shape of a watermelon, and a bald head, and thin, whip-like arms. Just as disconsolately he thought of Sdfya Vasilevna’s shoulders, which now were covered with silk and velvet ; he imagined them in their natural state, but this conception was so terrible that he tried to dispel it.

Sofya Vasilevna measured him with her eyes.

“ I think Missy is waiting for you,” she said. ” Go to her ; she wanted to play to you a new piece by Grieg, — it is very interesting.”

” She did not want to play anything. She is just lying for some reason,” thought Nekhlyudov, rising and pressing Sofya Vasilevna’s translucent, bony hand, covered with rings.

In the drawing-room he was met by Katerina Aleksyéevna, who at once began to speak to him.

” I see the duties of a juror have an oppressive effect upon you,” she said, speaking, as always, in French.

” Pardon me, I am not in a good humour to-day, and I have no right to make others feel bad,” said Nekhlyudov.

” Why are you out of humour ? “

” Permit me not to tell you why,” he said, trying to find his hat.

“Do you remember how you told us that one must always tell the truth, and how you then told us such cruel truths ? Why, then, do you not want to tell now ? Do you remember, Missy ? ” Katerina Aleksyéevna turned to Missy, who had come out to them.

” Because that was a game,” Nekhlyudov answered seriously. ” In a game one may, but in reality we are so bad, that is, I am so bad, that I, at least, am not able to tell the truth.”

” There is nothing worse than to confess that you are out of humour,” said Missy. ” I never acknowledge such a feeling in myself, and so I am always in a happy frame of mind. Well, won’t you come with me ? We shall try to dispel your mauvaise humeur.”

Nekhlyudov experienced a sensation such as a horse must experience when it is being patted, in order to be bridled and hitched. But on that evening it was harder for him to pull than at any previous time. He excused himself, saying that he had to be at home, and began to say goodbye. Missy held his hand longer than usual.

” Remember that what is important to you is also important to your friends,” she said. “ Will you be here tomorrow ? “

” Hardly,” said Nekhlyudov, and, feeling ashamed (he did not know whether for himself or for her), he blushed and hurriedly went away.

” What is the matter ? Comme cela m’intriguesaid Katerina Aleksyéevna, when Nekhlyudov had gone. ” I must find out. Some affaire d’amour propre, — il est très susceptible, notre cher Mitya.”

“ Plutôt, une affaire d’amour sale” Missy wanted to say, but restrained herself, with a dimmed expression which was quite different from the one her face had when speaking with him ; she did not tell that bad pun to Katerina Aleksyéevna, but merely remarked: “We all have good and bad days.”

” I wonder whether he, too, will deceive me,” she thought. ” After all that has happened, it would be very bad of him.”

If Missy had been asked to explain what she understood by the words, ” after all that has happened,” she would not have been able to say anything definite, and yet she knew beyond any doubt that he had not only given her hope, but had almost promised her. All this was done not by distinct words, but by glances, smiles, insinuations, and reticence. Withal she regarded him as her own, and it would have been hard for her to lose him.

XXVIII.

” Disgraceful and disgusting, disgusting and disgraceful,” Nekhlyudov thought in the meantime, walking home through familiar streets. The heavy feeling which he had experienced during his conversation with Missy did not leave him. He felt that formally, if one may so express oneself, he was right before her, for he had said nothing to her that would bind him, had made no proposal to her ; at the same time he was conscious of having essentially tied himself -and promised, and yet he felt with all his being that he could not marry her. ” Disgraceful and disgusting, disgusting and disgraceful,” he repeated to himself, not only in reference to his relations with Missy, but to everything. ” Everything is disgusting and disgraceful,” he repeated to himself, as he ascended the porch of his house.

” I sha’n’t eat any supper,” he said to Kornéy, who walked after him into the dining-room, where the table was set and the tea was ready. ” You may go.”

” Yes, sir,” said Kornéy ; he did not leave, but began to clear the table. Nekhlyudov looked at Kornéy and was overcome by a hostile feeling toward him. He wanted to be left alone, and it seemed to him that everybody was annoying him, as though on purpose. When Kornéy had left with the dishes, Nekhlyudov went up to the samovar, in order to pour in the tea, but upon hearing Agraféna Petrovna’s steps, he, in order not to be seen, hurriedly went into the drawing-room and closed the door behind him. This drawing-room was the one in which his mother had died three months before. Now, upon entering this room, which was illuminated by two lamps with their reflectors, one near his father’s picture, the other near his mother’s portrait, he recalled his last relations with his mother, and they seemed to him unnatural and repulsive. And this, too, was shameful and mean. He recalled how during her last illness he had simply wanted her to die. He had said to himself that he wished it in order to see her liberated from her sufferings, but in reality he had wished himself to be freed from the sight of her agony.

Wishing to evoke a good memory of her, he looked at her portrait, wliich had been painted by a famous painter for five thousand roubles. She was represented in a black velvet gown, with bared breast. The painter had evidently spared no effort in painting the bosom, the interval between her breasts, and the shoulders and neck, dazzling in their beauty. This was absolutely disgraceful and disgusting. There was something loathsomely profane in the representation of his mother in the form of a half-naked beauty, the more loathsome, since three months ago the same woman had been lying there, dried up like a mummy, and yet filling not only the room, but even the whole house with a painfully heavy odour which it was impossible to subdue. He thought he could scent it even now. And he recalled how the day before her death she had taken his strong, white hand into her bony, discoloured little one, had looked him in the eyes, and had said : ” Do not judge me, Mitya, if I have not done right,” and in her eyes, faded from suffering, stood tears. ” How disgusting ! ” he said once more to himself, looking at the half-bare woman with her superb marble shoulders and arms, and with her victorious smile. The nudity of the bosom on the portrait reminded him of another young woman, whom he had also seen décolletée a few days before. It was Missy, who had found an excuse to invite him to the house, in order that she might appear before him in the evening dress in which she was going to a ball. He thought with disgust of her beautiful shoulders and arms. And that coarse animal father, with his past, his cruelty, and that spiritual mother, with her doubtful reputation ! Disgraceful and disgusting, disgusting and disgraceful !

” No, no,” he thought, ” I must free myself ; I must free myself from all these false relations with the Korchagins, and from Mâriya Vasilevna, and from the inheritance, and from everything else — Yes, I must breathe freely. Abroad, — to Rome, to work on my picture.” He recalled his doubts in regard to his talent. ” What of it ? If only to breathe freely. First to Constantinople, then to Rome, only to get rid of all jury service. And I must arrange that matter with the lawyer.”

And suddenly the prisoner, with her black squinting eyes arose in his imagination with extraordinary vividness. How she did weep during the last words said by the defendants ! He hurriedly extinguished his finished cigarette and crushed it in the ash-tray, lighted another, and began to pace up and down in the room. And one after another the moments which he had passed with her rose in his imagination. He recalled his last meeting with her, that animal passion which then had taken possession of him, and the disenchantment which he had experienced when his passion was satisfied. He recalled the white dress with the blue ribbon, and the morning mass. ” I did love her, did sincerely love her with a good and pure love during that night ; I had loved heleven before, when I had passed my first summer with my aunts, and had been writing my thesis ! ” And he recalled himself such as he had been then. That freshness, youth, and fulness of life was wafted upon him, and he felt painfully sad.

The difference between what he had then been and what he now was was enormous ; it was just as great, if not greater, than the difference that existed between Katyusha at church and that prostitute, who had caroused with the merchant, and who had been sentenced on that very day. Then he had been a vigorous, free man, before whom endless possibilities had been open ; now he was conscious of being on all sides caught in the snare of a foolish, empty, aimless, and insignificant life, from which he saw no issue, and from which, for the greatest part, he did not wish to emerge. He recalled how formerly he had prided himself on his straightforwardness ; how he had made it his rule always to tell the truth ; and how he now was all entangled in a he, in a most terrible lie ; a lie which all the people who surrounded him regarded as the truth. And there was no way of getting out from this he, — at least he did not see any way. And he was sunk deep in it, — was used to it, and pampered himself by it.

How was he to tear asunder those relations with Mariya Vasilevna and with her husband in such a way that he should not be ashamed to look into his eyes and into the eyes of his children ? How was he to unravel his relations with Missy without lying ? How was he to extricate himself from the contradiction between the acknowledgment of the illegality of the ownership of land and the possession for life of his maternal inheritance ? How was he to atone for his sin before Katyusha ? He certainly could not leave it as it was. ” I cannot abandon a woman whom I have loved, and be satisfied with paying a lawyer and freeing her from hard labour, which she has not deserved, — that is, to settle the whole matter by giving money, just as I had thought then that I ought to do, when I gave her the money ! “

And he vividly thought of the minute when he had caught up with her in the corridor, and put the money in her bosom, and had run away again. « Ah, that money ! ” he recalled that minute with the same terror and disgust that had overcome him then. “Ah, ah ! how contemptible ! ” he said aloud, just as then. ” Only a rascal, a scoundrel, could have done that ! And I am that rascal, that scoundrel ! ” he again said aloud. ” And am I really,” he stopped in his walk, “ am I really such a scoundrel ? If not I, who is ? ” he replied to his own question. “And is this all?” he continued to upbraid himself. “ Are not your relations with Mdriya Vasilevna and her husband mean and contemptible ? And your relations with property ? Under the pretence that the money is your mother’s to make use of wealth which you regard as illegal ? And all your empty, bad life. And the crown of all, — your deed with Katyusha. Scoundrel ! rascal ! Let people judge me as they please : I can deceive them, but I shall never be able to deceive myself.”

And he suddenly comprehended that that loathing which he had of late experienced for people — and especially on that very day for the prince, and for Sdfya Vasflevna, and for Missy, and for Kornéy — was really a loathing for himself. And, strange to say, in this feeling of confessing his meanness there was something painful, and at the same time something pleasurable and soothing.

Nekhlyudov had had several times before what he called a “ cleansing of his soul.” By a cleansing of his soul he understood a condition of his soul such as when he suddenly, sometimes after a long interval of time, recognized the retardation, and sometimes the cessation of his internal work, and began to clean up all the dirt which had accumulated in his soul, and which was the cause of this retardation.

After such awakenings Nekhlyudov formed certain rules which he intended to follow henceforth : he kept a diary and began a new life, which he hoped he would never change again, — he “ turned a new leaf,” as he used to say to himself. But the temptations of the world pressed hard on him, and he fell again, without noticing it, and often lower than before.

Thus he had cleansed himself and had risen several times ; thus it had been with him the first time when he had gone to spend the summer with his aunts. That had been the most vivid, the most enthusiastic awakening, and its effects had remained for a considerable time. Then, he had another awakening when he left the civil service, and, wishing to sacrifice his life, entered the military service during the war. But here the pollution took place soon after. Then, there was another awakening when he asked for his dismissal from the army, and went abroad to study art.

Since then a long period had passed without any cleansing, and consequently he had never before reached such a pollution and such a discord between that which his conscience demanded and the life which he was leading, and he was horror-struck when he saw the distance.

That distance was so great, the pollution so strong, that at first he despaired of being able to cleanse his soul. ” I have tried often enough to perfect myself and become better, but nothing has come of it,” said in his soul the voice of the tempter, ” so what is the use trying again ? ” ” You are not the only one, — they are all like that, — such is life,” said this voice. But the free, spiritual being, which alone is true, and powerful, and eternal, was already beginning to waken in Nekhlyudov. He could not help trusting it. No matter how great the distance was between what he had been and what he wanted to be, everything was possible for the awakened spiritual being.

“ I will tear asunder the he which is binding me, at whatever cost, and I will profess the truth, and will tell the truth to everybody at all times, and will act truthfully,” he said to himself aloud, with determination. “ I will tell the truth to Missy ; I will tell her that I am a libertine and that I cannot marry her, and that I have troubled her in vain ; and I will also tell the truth to Mariya Vasilevna. Still I have nothing to tell her ; I will tell her husband that I am a scoundrel, that I have deceived him. I will make such disposition of my inheritance as to be in consonance with the truth. 1 will tell her, Katyusha, that I am a rascal, that I am guilty toward her, and I will do everything to alleviate her lot. Yes, I will see her, and will ask her to forgive me.

“ Yes, I will ask forgiveness, as children ask it.”

He stopped. ” I will marry her, if that is possible.”

He stopped, crossed his hands over his breast, as he used to do when he was a child, raised his eyes upwards, and uttered these words :

” O Lord, help me, instruct me, come and take Thy abode within me, and cleanse me of all impurity.”

He prayed to God to help him, to take up His abode within him, and to purify him, and in the meantime that which he asked for had already taken place. God, who was living within him, had awakened in his consciousness. He felt himself to be that new man, and therefore he was conscious not only of freedom, of frankness, and of the joy of life, but also of all the power of goodness. He now felt himself capable of doing everything, the very best that any human being could do.

In his eyes were tears, as he was saying that to himself, — both good and bad tears : good tears, because they were tears of joy at the awakening of the spiritual being within him ; and bad, because they were tears of pacification with himself, at his own virtue.

He was warm. He went up to the window and opened it. It faced the garden. It was a quiet, fresh moonlight night ; in the street some wheels rattled, and then all was quiet. Right under the window could be seen the shadow from the branches of the tall, leafless poplar, which with all its forked boughs lay distinctly outlined on the sand of the cleaned-up open space. On the left was the roof of a barn, which appeared white in the bright moonlight ; in front were the intertwined branches of the trees, and behind them could be seen the black shadow of the fence. Nekhlyudov looked at the moon ht garden and roof and the shadow of the poplar, and he listened, and inhaled the vivifying fresh air.

“ How good, how good, O Lord, how good ! ” he said of what was in his soul.

XXIX.

Maslova returned to her cell at six o’clock in the evening, tired and footsore from the unaccustomed fifteenverst march over the cobblestones, and besides oppressed by the unexpectedly severe sentence, and hungry.

During a recess, the guards had been eating bread and hard-boiled eggs, and her mouth had begun to water, and she had felt hungry, but had regarded it as humiliating to ask them for anything to eat. When, after that, three hours passed, she no longer felt hungry, but only weak. It was during that state that she listened to the sentence. At first she thought that she had not heard right, and was not able to believe what she had heard : she could not think of herself as sentenced to hard labour. But when she saw the quiet, businesslike countenances of the judges and the jury, who received that information as something quite natural, she felt provoked and shouted aloud that she was not guilty. When she saw that her cry, too, was received as something natural, as something expected and incapable of affecting the case, she burst out into tears, feeling that it was necessary to submit to that cruel and amazing injustice which had been committed against her.

She was particularly amazed at the fact that she had been so cruelly condemned by men, — young men, not old men, — who had always looked so favourably upon her. One of them — the prosecuting attorney — she had seen in quite a different mood. While she was sitting in the prisoners’ room, waiting for the court to begin, and during the recesses of the session, she had seen those men, pretending to be after something else, pass by the door or walk into the room in order to take a look at her. And now these same men had for some reason or other sentenced her to hard labour, notwithstanding the fact that she was not guilty of what she had been accused of. She wept, but then grew silent, and in complete stupor sat in the prisoners’ room, waiting to be taken back. She wanted only one thing, — to smoke. While in this condition, she was seen by Bochkova and Kartfnkin, who were brought into the same room after the sentence had been passed. Bochkova at once began to scold Maslova and to taunt her with the hard labour.

” Well, did you succeed ? Did you justify yourself ? You could not get off, you slut ! You have received your deserts. You will give up your fine ways at the hard labour, I am sure.”

Maslova sat with her hands stuck into the sleeves of her cloak and, bending her head low, remained motionless, looking two steps ahead of her, at the dirty floor, and only said :

” I am not bothering you, so you leave me alone. I am not bothering you,” she repeated several times, then grew entirely silent. She revived a little when Bochkova and Kartinkin were led away, and the janitor came in and brought her three roubles.

“ Are you Mdslova ? ” he asked.

“ Here, take it ; a lady has sent it for you,” he said, handing her the money.

” What lady ? “

” Take it, and don’t get into discussions with us ! ”

Kitdeva had sent the money. Upon leaving the courtroom she asked the bailiff whether she could give Mdslova some money. The bailiff said she could. Upon receiving this permission, she pulled the three-button chamois glove off her plump white hand, took a fashionable pocketbook out of the back folds of her silk skirt, and selecting from a fairly large heap of coupons, which had been cut from bank-bills earned by her, one of the denomination of two roubles and fifty kopeks, added to this two twenty-kopek pieces and one ten-kopek piece, and handed the sum over to the bailiff. He called the janitor, and gave him the money in the presence of the donor.

” Please, give it to her in full,” Karolina Albértovna said to the janitor.

The janitor felt insulted by the suspicion, and that was why he was so brusque with Maslova.

Maslova was glad to get the money, because it would furnish her with what she now wanted.

” If I could only get cigarettes, and have a puff at one,” she thought, and all her thoughts were centred on this one desire to smoke. She was so anxious for it that she eagerly inhaled the air if there was a whiff of tobacco smoke in it, as it found its way into the corridor through the doors of a cabinet. But she had to wait for quite awhile, because the secretary, who had to release her, having forgotten about the defendants, was busy discussing a prohibited article with one of the lawyers.

Finally, at about five o’clock, she was permitted to leave, and the two soldiers of the guard — the Nizhni-No vgorodian and the Chuvash — took her away from the courthouse by a back door. While in the vestibule of the courthouse, she gave them twenty kopeks, asking them to buy her two rolls and cigarettes. The Chuvash laughed, took the money, and said, “All right, we will buy it for you,” and really honestly bought the cigarettes and rolls, and gave her the change. On the way she could not smoke, so that she reached the prison with the same unsatisfied desire to smoke. As she was brought to the door, about one hundred prisoners were being delivered from the railroad train. She fell in with them at the entrance.

The prisoners, — bearded, shaven, old, young, Russians and of other nationalities, — some of them with half their heads shaven, clanking their leg-fetters, filled the entrancehall with the noise of their steps, their voices, and the pungent odour of their sweat. Passing by Maslova, the prisoners looked at her, and some went up to her, and teased her.

” Oh, a fine girl,” said one. ” My regards to aunty,” said another, blinking with one eye.

A swarthy fellow, with a blue shaven occiput and with a moustache on his shaven face, tripping in his fetters and clanking them, rushed up to her and embraced her.

“ Did you not recognize your friend ? Stop putting on airs ! ” he cried, grinning and flashing his eyes upon her, as she pushed him away.

“ Rascal, what are you doing there ? ” cried the assistant superintendent, coming up to him.

The prisoner crouched and swiftly ran away. The assistant began to scold Mdslova.

. ” What are you doing here ? “

Mdslova wanted to tell him that she was brought back from court, but she was too tired to talk.

” From court, your honour,” said the elder guard, coming out of the throng of prisoners, and putting his hand to his cap.

” Well, transfer her, then, to the officer, and don’t keep her in this crowd ! ”

” Yes, your honour ! “

” 8okol6v ! Receive her,” cried the assistant superintendent.

The officer came up, and, giving Maslova an angry push on the shoulder and indicating the direction to her by a motion of his head, led her to the women’s corridor. There she was examined and fingered all over, and, as nothing was found (the cigarette box had been stuck into a roll), she was admitted to the same cell which she had left in the morning.

XXX.

The cell in which Maslova was kept was a long room, nine arshins long and seven wide, with two windows, a protruding, worn-out stove, and sleeping-benches with warped boards, which occupied two thirds of the space. In the middle, opposite the door, was a dark holy image, with a wax taper stuck to it, and with a dusty wreath of immortelles hanging underneath it. Behind the door, and to the left, was a black spot on the floor, and on it stood a stink-vat. The roll had just been called, and the women were locked up for the night.

There were in all fifteen inmates in that cell : twelve women and three children.

It was quite light yet, and only two women were lying on the benches: one of them, whose head was covered with her cloak, was a demented woman, who was locked up for having no passport ; she was asleep most of the time ; and the other, — a consumptive woman, — was serving a sentence for theft. She was not asleep, but lay, with her cloak under her head, with her eyes wide open, with difficulty keeping back the tickling and oozing moisture in her throat, in order not to cough.

The other women, all of them with bare heads, in nothing but shirts of a coarse texture, were either sitting on the benches and sewing, or standing at the window and looking at the prisoners who were passing through the yard. Of the three women who were sewing, one was the same old woman who had seen Maslova off, Korabléva by name ; she was a sullen, scowling, wrinkled, tall, strong woman, with skin hanging in a loose bag under her chin, a short braid of blond hair that was streaked with gray over her temples, and a hirsute wart on her cheek. The woman had been sentenced to hard labour for having killed her husband with an axe. She had committed that murder because he had been making improper advances to her daughter. Korabléva was the forewoman of the cell, and trafficked in liquor. She was sewing in spectacles, and holding the needle in her large working hands in peasant fashion, with three fingers and the point towards her.

Next to her sat a snub-nosed, swarthy little woman, with small black eyes, good-hearted and talkative, also sewing bags of sail-cloth. She was a flagwoman at a railroad hut, sentenced to three months in jail for having failed to flag a train, a failure by which an accident was caused.

The third woman who was sewing, was Fedosya, — Fé-nichka her companions called her, — a white, red-checked, very young, sweet-faced woman, with clear, childish eyes, and two long blond braids circling around a small head, who was imprisoned for an attempt to poison her husband. She tried to poison him soon after her marriage, which had taken place when she was barely sixteen years old. In the eight months which she had been detained awaiting the court’s session, she not only made up with her husband, but became so fond of him that the court found the two living in the greatest concord. Notwithstanding the fact that her husband and her father-in-law, and especially the mother-in-law, who had become exceedingly fond of her, tried to exculpate her, she was sentenced to hard labour in Siberia. Good, merry, frequently smiling Feddsya was Maslova’s neighbour on the bench, and she not only liked Mdslova very much, but regarded it as her duty to care for her and attend to her.

Two other women were sitting on the benches, without any work ; one of them, about forty years of age, with a pale, haggard face, had evidently once been very beautiful, but now was pale and lean, — she was holding a babe in her arms, and suckling it from her white, long breast. Her crime consisted in this : a recruit was taken away from their village, who, according to the peasants’ understanding, bad been unlawfully drafted ; the people stopped the country judge and took away the recruit ; this woman, the unlawfully seized recruit’s aunt, was the first to lay hands on the reins of the horse which was to take away the recruit. The other was a short, wrinkled, good-natured old woman, with gray hair, and a hump on her back. The old woman sat on a bench near the stove and pretended to be catching the four-year-old, close-cropped, chubby little boy who was running past her and laughing loudly. He was clad in nothing but a shirt, and kept running past and repeating all the time, ” You see, you did not catch me ! “

This old woman, who with her son was accused of arson, bore her incarceration with the greatest good nature, feeling sorry, not for herself, but for her son, who was also in jail, and still more for her old husband, who, she was afraid, would be all covered with vermin, because the daughter-in-law had left, and there was no one at home to wash him.

In addition to these seven women, four others were standing at one of the open windows, and, holding on to the iron grating, were with signs and shouts conversing with those prisoners with whom Maslova had fallen in at the entrance. One of these, who was serving for theft, was a large, heavy, flabby, red-haired woman, with sallow and freckled face, hands, and neck, which stuck out from her untied, open collar. She loudly shouted indecent words in a hoarse voice.

Next to her stood a swarthy, misshapen woman, with a long spine and very short legs, looking not larger than a ten-year-old girl. Her face was red, and all spotted, and had widely separated black eyes, and short, stout lips, which did not cover up her protruding white teeth. She was laughing with a whine and fitfully at what was going on in the yard. This prisoner, nicknamed Beauty for her foppishness, was under trial for theft and arson.

Back of them stood, in a very dirty gray shirt, a miserable-looking, haggard, venous, pregnant woman, with an immense abdomen, who was under trial for receiving stolen goods. This woman was silent, but all the time smiled approvingly and rapturously at what was going on without.

The fourth woman at the window, who was serving a sentence for illicit traffic in liquor, was a short, thick-set peasant woman, with very bulging eyes and a good-natured face. This woman, the mother of the boy who was playing with the old woman, and of a seven-year-old girl, both of which children were with her in the prison because she had no place to leave them in, was looking through the window like the rest, but continued to knit a stocking, and kept frowning disapprovingly and closing her ears to what the transient prisoners in the yard were saying. Her daughter, the seven-year-old girl, with white, loose hair, was standing in nothing but a shirt near the red-haired woman, and, holding on with her thin little hand to her skirt, was, with arrested eyes, listening attentively to the vulgar words which the women were exchanging with the prisoners, and repeating them in a whisper, as though to learn them by heart.

The twelfth prisoner was the daughter of a sexton, who had drowned her child in a well. She was a tall, stately girl, with tangled hair, which stuck out from her thick short blond braid, and with motionless protruding eyes. She did not pay the least attention to what was going on around her, was barefoot and clad in a dirty gray shirt, and was pacing to and fro in the free space of the cell, abruptly and rapidly turning around whenever she reached the wall.

XXXI.

When the lock clicked, and Maslova was let into the cell, all turned to her. Even the sexton’s daughter stopped for a minute, and looked at the newcomer with uplifted brows, but without saying anything immediately proceeded to walk up and down with her long, determined steps. Korabléva* stuck her needle into the coarse cloth, and questioningly turned her eyes, through her spectacles, upon Maslova.

” I declare! You are back. And I thought you would be acquitted,” she said, in her hoarse, deep, almost masculine voice. ” Evidently they have sent you up.”

She took off her spectacles, and put her sewing down on the bench.

” Aunty and I have been talking about you, dear ; we thought they would release you at once. Such things do happen. And if you strike it right, you get money, too,” began the flagwoman, in her singing voice. “And just the opposite has happened. Evidently our guessing was wrong. The Lord evidently has decided differently, my dear,” she chattered without cessation in her kind and melodious voice.

“Have they really sentenced you?” asked Fedosya, with compassionate tenderness, looking at Maslova with her childish, light blue eyes ; her whole cheerful, young face was changed, as though she were ready to weep.

Maslova did not make any reply, and silently went up to her place, the second from the end, near Korabléva, and sat down on the boards of the bench.

“ I suppose you have not had anything to eat,” said Fedosya, getting up and walking over to Maslova.

Maslova put the rolls at the head of the bench, without saying a word, and began to undress herself : she took off her dusty cloak, and the kerchief from her curly black hair, and sat down.

The humpbacked old woman who had been playing with the little fellow at the other end of the benches went up and stopped in front of Maslova.

“ Tss, tss, tss ! ” she hissed out, sympathetically shaking her head.

The little boy also came up with the old woman, and opening his eyes wide, and pursing his upper lip in one corner, did not take them off the rolls which Maslova had brought. Upon seeing all these sympathetic faces after all that had happened during that day, Maslova felt like weeping, and her lips began to quiver. But she tried to restrain herself, and succeeded in doing so until the old woman and little boy came up to her. But when she heard the kindly, compassionate ” tss ” of the old woman, and especially when her eyes met those of the boy, who had now transferred his serious eyes from the rolls to her, she no longer could hold back. Her whole face trembled, and she sobbed out loud.

“ I told you to get the right kind of a counsel,” said Korabléva. “ Well, what is it, transportation ? ” she asked.

Maslova wanted to answer but could not ; sobbing, she took out of the roll the box of cigarettes, on which was represented a ruddy woman in a very high head-dress and with a triangular bare spot over her bosom, and handed it to Korabléva. Korabléva glanced at the picture, disapprovingly shook her head, particularly because Maslova had so badly spent her money, and, taking out a cigarette, lighted it at the lamp, took herself a puff, and then put it into Màslova’s hand. Maslova, without interrupting her weeping, eagerly began to puff the tobacco smoke in quick succession.

” Hard labour,” she muttered through sobs.

” They are not afraid of God, spongers and accursed bloodsuckers,” muttered Korabléva. ” They have sentenced a girl for nothing.”

Just then a roar of laughter was heard among the women who were standing at the window. The little girl was laughing, too, and her thin, childish laugh mingled with the hoarse and whining laughter of the grown people. A prisoner on the outside had done something that affected the women who were looking through the window.

” Ah, shaven dog ! See what he is doing,” said the red-haired woman, and, shaking her whole fat body and pressing her face against the grating, she shouted some senseless and indecent words.

” Stop, you skin of a drum ! What are you yelling about ? ” said Korabléva, shaking her head at the red-haired woman, and again turning to Maslova. ” How many years ? ”

” Four,” said Maslova, and the tears flowed so copiously from her eyes that one fell on the cigarette.

Maslova angrily crushed it, threw it away, and took another.

The flagwoman, though she did not smoke, immediately picked it up and began to straighten it out, speaking all the time.

« I must say, my dear,” she said, ” the wild boar must have chewed up all the truth. They now do as they please. And here we bad been guessing that you would be released. Matvyéevna said that you would be, and I said, ‘No!’ says I, ‘my heart feels that they will undo her,’ and so it is,” she said, evidently finding pleasure in listening to the sound of her own voice.

By that time all the prisoners had crossed the yard, and the women who had been conversing with them had left the window and had come over to Maslova. The first to come up was the staring dram-shopkeeper with her little girl.

“Well, were they very severe?” she asked, sitting down near Maslova, and continuing rapidly to knit at the stocking.

“ They were severe because there was no money. If she had had money and had hired a first-class lawyer, 1 am sure she would have been acquitted,” said Korabléva. “ That fellow, what is his name ? that shaggy, big-nosed fellow, — he will take a man dry through the water. She ought to have had him.”

“That’s easily said,” retorted Beauty, who had seated herself near them, and was grinning. “He won’t as much as spit out for less than one thousand.”

“Yes, it is evidently your fate,” remarked the old woman who was confined for arson. “It is no small matter they have done to me : they have taken the wife away from the young fellow, and have put him where he only breeds vermin, and me, too, in my old age,” she began for the hundredth time to tell her story. “Evidently you can’t - get away from the prison and from the beggar’s wallet. If not the wallet, it is the prison.”

“ It seems it is always that way with them,” said the dram-shopkeeper, looking at her daughter’s head. She put down the stocking near her, drew the girl between her legs, and began with swift fingers to search through her head. “Then, why do you traffic in liquor? — How are you otherwise going to feed your children ? ” she said, continuing her customary work.

These words of the dram-shopkeeper reminded Maslova of liquor.

“ Let me have some liquor,” she said to Korabléva, drying her tears with her shirt-sleeve, and sobbing now and then.

“Any dough? Very well, hand it to me,” said Korabléva.

XXXII.

Maslova took the money out of the roll and gave Korabléva the coupon. Korabléva took it, looked at it, and, though she could not read herself, trusted Beauty, who knew everything, that the paper was worth two roubles and a half, and so she* moved over to the ventilator and took out from it the jar with the liquor, which was concealed there. Maslova, in the meantime, shook the dust out of her cloak and kerchief, climbed on her bench, and began to eat her roll.

” I have kept some tea for you, but I am afraid it is cold now,” Feddsya said to her, taking down from the shelf a rag-covered tin pot and a cup.

The drink was quite cold and tasted more of the tin than of the tea, but Maslova filled the cup and drank it with her roll.

” Finàshka, here,” she called out, and, breaking off a piece of the roll, gave it to the boy, who was looking straight into her mouth.

Korabléva in the meantime handed her the liquor bottle and the cup. Màslova offered some to Korabléva and Beauty. These three prisoners formed the aristocracy of the cell, because they had money and shared what they had.

In a few minutes Maslova was herself again and started to tell about the court, imitating the prosecuting attorney and everything which had especially impressed her in the courtroom. She was particularly struck by the fact that wherever she happened to be, the men, according to her observation, ran after her. In the courtroom they all looked at her, she said, and they kept all the time filing into the prisoners’ room.

” The guard kept telling me, ‘ They come to see you.’ Now and then one would come in, pretending to be looking for a paper, or something else, but I saw that he did not want any paper, and only came to devour me with his eyes,” she said, smiling and shaking her head as though in surprise. ” They are great.”

” That’s the way,” chimed in the flagwoman, and her singsong speech began at once to ripple. ” Like flies on sugar. For other things they are not there, but for this they are always ready. Not with bread are they to be fed — “

” But even here,” Maslova interrupted her, “ here I had the same trouble. When I was brought in, there was a party here from the train. They annoyed me so much that I did not know how to get rid of them. Fortunately, the assistant drove them off. One of them stuck to me so that I had the hardest time to keep him off.”

” What kind of a fellow was he ? ” Beauty asked.

” Swarthy, with moustache.”

” That must be he.”

« Who ? “

” Shcheglov. The one that has just passed.”

” Who is that Shcheglov ? ”

” You do not know who Shchegldv is ? Shchegldv twice ran away from hard labour. They have just caught him, but he will get away again. The warders even are afraid of him,” said Beauty, who carried notes to prisoners, and who knew everything that was going on in the prison. ” He certainly will get away.”

“ And if he does, he will not take us with him,” said Korabléva. ” You had better tell me,” she addressed Maslova, ” what did the lawyer say about the petition which you will have to hand in ? “

Maslova said that she did not know anything about that.

Just then the red-haired woman, having put both her freckled hands in her tangled, thick, red hair, and scratching her head with her nails, went up to the drinking prisoners.

” I will tell you everything, Katerina,” she began. ” First of all, you must write, ‘ I am not satisfied with the judgment,’ and then you must announce it to the prosecuting attorney.”

“ What is that to you ? ” Korabléva turned to her, in an angry bass. ” You have smelled the liquor, but you need not wheedle. We know without you what is to be done ; we do not need you.”

” I am not talking to you. Don’t get so excited ! ”

” You want some liquor, that’s why you have come up.”

” Give her some,” said Maslova, who always gave away everything she had.

” I will give her such — ”

” Come, come,” said the red-haired woman, moving up to Korabléva. ” I am not afraid of you.”

” Jailbird ! ”

” I hear this from a jailbird ! ”

” Flabby tripes ! ”

” You call me tripes? You convict, destroyer of souls ! ” cried the red-haired woman.

” Go away, I say,” gloomily muttered Korabléva.

But the red-haired woman moved up closer, and Korabléva struck her in the open fat breast. That was exactly what the red-haired woman seemed to have been waiting for, and suddenly she, with a swift motion, put one hand into Korabléva’s hair, and with the other was about to strike her face, but Korabléva grasped that hand. Maslova and Beauty caught hold of the red-haired woman’s hands, trying to tear her away, but the hand which had hold of the hair would not unbend. She let it go for a second, but only to wind it around her wrist. Korabléva, with her head bent down, struck with one hand at the red-haired woman’s body and tried to bite her arm. The women gathered about the two who were fighting, trying to separate them, and shouting. Even the consumptive woman walked up to them, and, coughing, watched the fight. The children pressed close to each other and wept. At the noise the warden and matron came in. The fighting women were separated, and Korabléva unbraided her gray hair, in order to take out the torn tufts, while the , red-haired woman held her ripped-up shirt against her yellow chest ; both cried, explaining and complaining.

“ 1 know, it is all on account of the liquor ; I shall tell the superintendent tomorrow, — and he will settle you. I can smell it,” said the matron. ” Take it all away, or else it will go hard with you. I have no time to make it all out. To your places, and keep quiet ! ”

But silence did not reign for quite awhile. The women continued to quarrel for a long time, telling each other how it had all begun, and who was to blame. Finally the warden and matron went away, and the women slowly quieted down and went to bed. The old woman stood before the image and began to pray.

” Two convicts have come together,” the red-haired woman suddenly said from the other end of the benches, in a hoarse voice, accompanying each word with fantastic curses.

” Look out, or you will catch some more,” immediately replied Korabléva, joining similar curses to her speech. Both grew silent.

” If they had not interfered, I should have gouged out your eye — ” again said the red-haired woman, and again Korabléva was not behind with an answer.

Then there was a longer interval of quiet, and again curses. The intervals grew ever longer, and finally everything died down.

All were lying on their benches, and some were already snoring ; but the old woman, who always prayed long, was still making her obeisances before the image, and the sexton’s daughter got up the moment the matron left, and once more started pacing up and down in the cell.

Maslova did not sleep. She was thinking all the time that she was a convict, and that she had been twice called so, once by Bochkova and the other time by the red-haired woman, and she could not get used to the idea. Korabléva, who was lying with her back toward her, turned around.

” I had never expected this,” softly said Maslova. ” Others do terrible things, and they get off, and I am suffering for nothing at all.”

” Don’t lose courage, girl. There are people in Siberia, too. You will not be lost there,” Korabléva consoled her.

” I know that I sha’n’t be lost, but it is disgraceful all the same. I ought to have had a different fate. I am so used to an easy life ! ”

“ You can’t go against God,” Korabléva said, with a sigh. ” You can’t go against Him.”

” I know, aunty, but it is hard.”

They were silent for awhile.

” Do you hear that blubberer ? ” said Korabléva, directing Maslova’s attention to the strange sounds which proceeded from the other end of the benches.

These sounds were the checked sobs of the red-haired woman. She was weeping because she had just been cursed and beaten, and had not received any liquor, which she wanted so much. She wept also because all her life she had seen nothing but scoldings, ridicule, affronts, and blows. She wanted to find consolation in thinking of her first love for Fédka Molodénkov, a factory hand ; but upon recalling this love, she also recalled its end : Molodénkov, while drunk, had for a joke smeared some vitriol on her in a most sensitive spot, and then had roared in company with his friends at the sight of her, contorted from pain. She recalled this, and she felt sorry for herself, and, thinking that no one heard her, burst out into tears, and wept, as only children weep, — groaning and snuffling and swallowing her bitter tears. -

” I am sorry for her,” said Màslova.

” Of course it is a pity, but she ought not to push herself forward.”

XXXIII.

The first sensation which Nekhlyudov experienced on the following morning, upon awakening, was the consciousness that something had happened to him, and even before he recalled what it was that had happened to him, he knew that something important and good had taken place. ” Katyusha, the court. I must stop lying, and tell the whole truth.” And, like a remarkable coincidence, that very morning arrived the long-expected letter from Mdriya Vasilevna, the marshal’s wife, the letter which he now needed so very much. It gave him full liberty, and wished him happiness in his proposed marriage.

“Marriage!” he muttered ironically. “How far I am now from it ! “

He recalled his determination of the day before to tell everything to her husband, to humble himself before him, and to be ready for any satisfaction. But on that morning it did not appear as easy to him as it had seemed the evening before. “ Besides, why should I make the man unhappy, if he does not know it ? If he should ask me, I would tell him. But to go on purpose to him to tell about it ? No, that is not necessary.”

Just as difficult it seemed to him now to tell the whole truth to Missy. Here again, it was impossible to begin telling her, — it would simply be an insult. It had unavoidably to remain, as in many affairs of life, untold and merely suspected. There was, however, one thing which he decided on that morning he would do : he would not visit them, and would tell them the truth if they asked him.

But there was to be nothing unsaid in his relations with Katyusha.

“ I -will go to the prison, will speak with her, and will ask her to forgive me. And if it is necessary, yes, if it is necessary, I will marry her,” he thought.

The thought that for the sake of a moral satisfaction he would sacrifice everything and would marry her, was very soothing to him on that morning.

For a long time he had not met day with such energy. To Agraféna Petrovna, who had come in, he immediately announced, with a decision which he had not expected of himself, that he no longer needed these apartments and her service. It had been established by silent consent that he kept these commodious and expensive quarters in order to get married in them. Consequently giving up the rooms had a special significance. Agraféna Petrovna looked at him with surprise.

“lam very thankful to you, Agraféna Petrovna, for all the care you have taken of me, but I no longer need such large apartments and the servants. If you are willing to help me, I shall ask you kindly to look after things and to put them away for the time being, as was done during mamma’s lifetime. When Natasha arrives, she will attend to the rest.” (Natasha was Nekhlyudov’s sister.)

Agraféna Petrovna shook her head.

” But why put them away ? You will need them,” she said.

“No, I sha’n’t need them, Agraféna Petrovna, I shall certainly not need them,” said Nekhlyudov, in reply to that which she had meant by her headshake. “ Please, tell Kornéy also that I will pay him for two months in advance, but that I no longer need his services.”

“ You do not do right, Dmitri Ivàuovich,” she said. “Suppose even that you will go abroad, — you will need the apartments later.”

“You are mistaken, Agraféna Petrovna. I sha’n’t go abroad ; if I leave here it will be for a different place.”

He suddenly grew red in his face.

” Yes, I must tell her,” he thought. ” There is no reason for concealing it. I must tell everything to everybody.”

” A very strange and important thing happened to me yesterday. Do you remember Katyusha at Aunt Marya Ivanovna’s ? ”

“ Of course I do ; I taught her how to sew.”

“Well, Katyusha was yesterday tried in court, and I was on the jury.”

” 0 Lord, what a pity ! ” said Agraféna Petrovna. ” What was she tried for ? ”

” For murder, and it was I who have done it all.”

” How could you have done it ? You are speaking so strangely,” said Agraféna Petrovna, and fire flashed in her old eyes.

She knew Katyusha’s history.

” Yes, I am the cause of everything. And it is this which has entirely changed my plans.”

” What change can that have caused in you ? ” said Agraféna Petrovna, keeping back a smile.

” It is this : if it is I who am the cause of her having gone on that path, I must do everything in my power in order to help her.”

” Such is your kindness, — but there is no particular guilt of yours in that. Such things have happened to others ; and if they have the proper understanding, these things are smoothed over and forgotten, and they live on,” Agraféna Petrovna said, sternly and seriously, ” and there is no reason why you should shoulder it. I have heard before that she had departed from the right path : but who is to blame for it ? ”

” I am. And therefore I wish to mend it.”

” Well, this will be hard to mend.”

“ That is my affair. And if you are thinking of yourself, that which mamma had desired — ”

” I am not thinking of myself. Your deceased mother has provided for me so well that I do not want anything. Lizanka wants me to stay with her ” (that was her married niece), “and so 1 shall go to her house when I am no longer needed. But there is no reason for your taking it so to heart, — such things happen with everybody.”

“ Well, I think differently about that. And I again repeat my request for you to help me give up the apartments and put things away. Don’t be angered at me. I am very, very thankful to you for everything.”

A strange thing had happened : ever since Nekhlyudov comprehended that he was bad and contemptible himself, others ceased being contemptible to him ; on the contrary, he had a kind and respectful feeling even for Agraféna Petrovna and for Kornéy. He wanted to humble himself also before Kornéy, but his attitude was so impressively respectful that he could not make up his mind to do so.

On his way to the courthouse, passing through the same streets and riding in the same cab, Nekhlyudov was marvelling at himself, for he felt such an entirely different man.

His marriage to Missy, which but yesterday had seemed so near, now appeared to him as entirely impossible. The day before he had been so sure of his position that there was no doubt but that she would have been very happy to marry him ; but now he felt himself to be unworthy of marrying her, and even of being near her. “ If she only knew what I am, she would never receive me. How could I have had the courage to reproach her with coquetting with that gentleman ? Suppose even she should marry me, how could I be happy, or even satisfied, since the other was in the prison and in a day or two would leave for Siberia on foot ? The woman whom I have ruined will go to hard labour, and I shall be receiving congratulations and making calls with my young wife. Or I shall be with the marshal of the nobility, whom I have so disgracefully deceived in regard to his wife, and counting up with him at the meeting the votes for and against the proposed County Council inspection of the schools, and so forth, and then I shall be appointing a try sting-place for his wife (how detestable !) ; or I shall go on with my picture, which will manifestly never be finished, because I have no business to occupy myself with such trifles, and anyhow I can’t do anything of the kind now,” he said to himself, incessantly rejoicing at the internal change which he was conscious of.

” Above everything else,” he thought, ” I must now see the lawyer and find out his decision, and then — then I must see her in the prison, her, yesterday’s prisoner, and tell her everything.”

As he presented to himself the picture of his meeting her, of telling her everything, of repenting of his sin before her, of announcing to her that he would do everything he could for her, of marrying her in order to atone for his guilt, — an ecstatic feeling took possession of him, and tears stood in his eyes.

XXXIV.

Upon arriving in the courthouse, Nekhlyudov met the bailiff of the day before in the corridor ; he asked him where the prisoners who had been sentenced by the court were kept, and who it was that would grant permission to see them. The bailiff explained to him that the prisoners were kept in different places, and that previous to the announcement of the sentence in its final form the permission depended on the prosecuting attorney.

” I will tell you when, and will take you myself to him after the session. The prosecuting attorney is not yet here. After the session he will be. And now please go to the courtroom, — it will begin at once.”

Nekhlyudov thanked the bailiff for his kindness, though he seemed to him particularly wretched now, and went into the jury-room.

As he went up to it, the jurors were coming out of it in order to go to the courtroom. The merchant was as jolly, and had had as good a lunch and potation as on the previous day, and he met Nekhlyudov as an old friend. Nor did Peter Gerasimovich provoke any disagreeable feeling in Nekhlyudov by Ins familiarity and laughter.

Nekhlyudov felt like telling all the jurors about his relations to yesterday’s defendant. ” In reality,” he thought, ” I ought to have got up yesterday and have publicly announced my guilt.” But when he came into the courtroom with the other jurors, and the procedure of the day before was repeated, — again ” The court is coming,” again three men on the platform in their collars, again silence, and the sitting down of the jury on the high-backed chairs, the gendarmes, the priest, — he felt that, although he ought to have done so, he could not have had the heart on the previous day to have broken this solemnity.

The preparations for the court were the same as the day before (with the exception of the swearing in the jury, and the speech of the presiding judge to them).

The case on trial was for burglary. The defendant, guarded by two gendarmes with unsheathed swords, was a haggard, narrow-shouldered, twenty-year-old boy, in a gray cloak, and with a gray, bloodless face. He sat all alone on the defendants’ bench, and looked with upturned eyes on all who came in. The lad was accused of having, with a companion of his, broken a barn lock, and having stolen from the barn old foot-mats worth about three roubles and sixty-seven kopeks. It appeared from the indictment that a policeman stopped the boy as he was walking with his companion, who was carrying the mats on his shoulders. The lad and his friend at once confessed, and both were confined in jail. The boy’s comrade, a locksmith, had died in prison, and now he was being tried by himself. The old mats lay on the table of the exhibits.

The case was conducted just like the one the day before, with the whole arsenal of proofs, evidence, witnesses, their swearing in, inquests, experts, and cross-examinations. The policeman, who was the witness, to all the questions of the presiding judge, of the prosecutor, and of the prisoner’s counsel lifelessly retorted, ” Yes, sir,” ” Don’t know, sir,” and again, “ Yes, sir.” Still, in spite of his soldierlike stupidity and mechanicalness, it was evident that he was sorry for the lad, and reluctantly told of his arrest.

Another witness, the old man who had suffered the loss, the proprietor of the house and owner of the mats, obviously a bilious man, to the question whether he identified his mats, very reluctantly answered that he did ; but when the assistant prosecuting attorney began to ask him to what use lie intended to put the mats, and whether he needed them very much, he grew angry and replied : ” Hay these mats go to — I do not need them at all. If 1 had known how much bother I should have through them, 1 should not have tried to find them ; on the contrary, I should willingly have given a ten-rouble bill, or two, to be delivered from these questions. I have spent something like five roubles on cabs alone. And I am not well : I have a rupture and rheumatism.”

Thus spoke the witnesses ; but the defendant himself accused himself of everything, and, looking senselessly around, like a trapped animal, in a broken voice told all that had happened.

It was a clear case ; but the assistant prosecuting attorney kept raising his shoulders as on the day before, and putting cunning questions with which to catch the criminal.

In his speech he pointed out that the burglary had been committed in an occupied building ; that consequently the lad ought to be subjected to a very severe punishment.

The counsel appointed by the court proved that the theft was not committed in an occupied building, and that therefore, although the crime could not be denied, the criminal was not yet as dangerous to society as the assistant prosecuting attorney had made him out to be.

The presiding judge, just as on the day before, looked dispassionateness and justice themselves, and explained to the jury in detail and impressed upon them what they already knew and could not help knowing. Just as on the previous day, recesses were made; and just so they smoked ; and just so the bailiff cried, “ The court is coming ! ” and just so, trying not to fall asleep, the two gendarmes sat with their unsheathed swords, threatening the prisoner.

The case revealed that the lad had been apprenticed to a tobacco factory while still a boy, and that he had lived there five years. This last year he had been discharged by his master during some unpleasantness which had taken place between the master and his workmen, and, being without any occupation, he walked aimlessly through the city, spending his last money in drinks. In an inn he fell in with a locksmith, who, like him, had lost his place quite awhile ago, and who had been drinking heavily. In the night, while under the influence of liquor, they broke open the lock and took the first thing that fell into their hands. They were caught. They confessed everything. They were confined in jail, awaiting trial, and here the locksmith died. Now the lad was being tried as a dangerous creature against whom society must be protected.

” Just as dangerous a creature as the criminal of yesterday,” thought Nekhlyudov, listening to everything which was going on before him. ” They are dangerous. And are we not ? — I, a libertine, a cheat ; and all of us, all those who, knowing me such as I was, not only did not despise me, but even respected me ?

” It is evident that this boy is not a peculiar criminal, but a simple man (all see that), and if he has turned out to be what he is, it is due to the conditions which breed such men. And therefore it is obvious that, in order not to have such boys, one must try and do away with the conditions under which such unfortunate creatures are produced. If only a man had been found,” thought Nekhlyudov, looking at the lad’s sickly, frightened face, ” who would have taken care of him when from want he was taken from the village to the city, and would have attended to his want; or even when in the city, after twelve hours’ work in the factory, he went with his older companions to the inn, — if a man had been found then, who would have said to him, * Don’t go, Vanya, it is not good ! ’ the lad would not have gone, would not have got mixed up, and would not have done anything wrong.

” But no such man, who would have pitied him, was found, not a single one, when he, like a little animal, passed his apprenticeship in the city, and, closely cropped in order not to breed vermin, ran his master’s errands ; on the contrary, everything he heard from his master and companions, during his sojourn in the city, was that clever is he who cheats, who drinks, who curses, who strikes, and who is dissolute.

” And when he, sick and deteriorated by his unhealthy work, by drunkenness and debauch, in a stupor and beside himself, as though in a dream, walked aimlessly through the city, and in his foolishness made his way into a barn and took perfectly worthless mats away from there, we did not try to destroy the causes which had led the boy to his present condition, but expect to improve matters by punishing this boy ! —

” Terrible ! ”

Nekhlyudov thought all that, and no longer listened to what was going on before him. And he was horror-struck by what was revealed to him. lie was amazed at the fact that he had not seen this before, even as others had not seen it.

XXXV.

When the first recess was made, Nekhlyudov arose and went into the corridor, with the intention of not returning to the courtroom. Let them do what they would, he could no longer take part in such a comedy.

Upon finding out where the prosecuting attorney’s office was, Nekhlyudov went to it. The messenger did not wish to admit him, saying that the prosecuting attorney was busy now ; but Nekhlyudov paid no attention to him, walked through the door, and asked an official whom he met inside to announce to the prosecuting attorney that he was a juror, and that he must see him on some very important business. Nekhlyudov’s title and fine apparel helped him. The official announced him to the prosecuting attorney, and Nekhlyudov was admitted. The prosecuting attorney received him standing, manifestly dissatisfied with Nekhlyudov’s insistence to get an interview with him.

” What do you wish ? ” the prosecuting attorney asked him, sternly.

” I am a juror, my name is Nekhlyudov, and I must by all means see the defendant Maslova,” Nekhlyudov spoke rapidly and with determination, blushing and feeling that he was committing a deed that would have a decisive influence on his whole life.

The prosecuting attorney was a small, swarthy man, with short hair streaked with gray, quick, shining eyes, and a thick, clipped beard on a protruding lower jaw.

” Maslova ? Ÿes, I know her. She was accused of poisoning,” the prosecuting attorney said, calmly. ” Why must you see her?” And then, as though wishing to be less harsh, he added, ” I cannot give you the permission without knowing why you need it.”

“I need it for something which is of great importance to me,” Nekhlyudov said, flaming up.

“Very well,” said the prosecuting attorney, and, raising his eyes, ” Has her case been tried ? “

” She was tried yesterday and quite irregularly sentenced to four years of hard labour. She is innocent.”

” Very well. If she was sentenced yesterday,” said the prosecuting attorney, not paying the slightest attention to Nekhlyudov’s announcement that Maslova was innocent, ” she will be kept, until the promulgation of the sentence in its final form, in the house of detention. Visitors are permitted there only on certain days. I advise you to apply there.”

” But I must see her as soon as possible,” said Nekhlyudov, with trembling lower jaw, feeling the approach of the decisive moment.

” But why must you ? ” asked the prosecuting attorney, raising his eyebrows with some misgiving.

” Because she is innocent and sentenced to hard labour. I am the cause of everything,” said Nekhlyudov, in a quivering voice, feeling all the time that he was saying what he ought not to mention.

” How is that ? ” asked the prosecuting attorney.

” Because I have deceived her and brought her to the condition in which she now is. If she had not been what I have made her to be, she would not now have been subjected to such an accusation.”

” Still I do not see what connection that has with your visit.”

“It is this: I wish to follow her — marry her,” Nekhlyudov said, and, as always when he spoke of it, tears stood in his eyes.

” Yes ? I say ! ” remarked the prosecuting attorney.

« This is indeed an exceptional case. You are, I think, a voter in the County Council of Krasndpersk County ? ” asked the prosecuting attorney, recalling the fact that he had heard before about this Nekhlyudov, who now was expressing such a strange determination.

” Pardon me, but I do not think that this can have anything to do with my request,” angrily answered Nekhlyudov, flaming.

” Of course not,” said the prosecuting attorney, with a hardly perceptible smile, and not in the least embarrassed, ” but your wish is so unusual and so transcends all customary forms — ”

“Well, shall I get the permission ?”

” The permission ? Yes, I shall give you the permit at once. Please be seated.”

He went up to the table, sat down, and began to write.

“ Please be seated.”

Nekhlyudov remained standing.

Having written the permit, the prosecuting attorney gave the note to Nekhlyudov, looking at him with curiosity.

” I must also inform you,” said Nekhlyudov, ” that I cannot continue to be present at the session of the court.”

“ For this, you know, you must present good cause to the court.”

” The cause is that I regard every court not only as useless, but even as immoral.”

“Very well,” said the prosecuting attorney, with the same hardly perceptible smile, as though to say with this smile that he had heard such statements before, and that they belonged to a well-known funny category. “Very well, but you, no doubt, understand that, as the prosecuting attorney of the court, I cannot agree with you ; therefore I advise you to announce it in court, and the court will pass on your information, and will find it sufficient or insufficient, and in the latter case will impose a fine upon you. Address the court ! ”

” I have informed you, and sha’n’t go elsewhere,” Nekhlyudov replied, angrily.

“ Your servant, sir,” said the prosecuting attorney, bending his head, evidently wishing to be rid of that strange visitor.

“ Who was here ? ” asked the member of the court, who came into the prosecuting attorney’s office as soon as Nekhlyudov had left.

“Nekhlyudov, you know, who has been making all kinds of strange proposals in the County Council of Krasnopersk County. Think of it, he is a juror,-and among the defendants there was a woman, or girl, who has been sentenced to hard labour, who, he says, was deceived by him, and whom he now wants to marry.”

” Impossible ! ”

“ He told me so. He was strangely excited.”

“There is a certain abnormality in modern young men.”

“ But he is not so very young.”

« Ob, how your famous Ivashenkov has tired me out. He vanquishes by exhaustion ; he talks and talks without end.”

“ They simply have to be stopped, — they are nothing but obstructionists — ”

XXXVI.

From the prosecuting attorney Nekhlyudov drove directly to the house of detention. But it turned out that there was no Maslova there, and the superintendent told Nekhlyudov that she must be in the old transportation jail. Nekhlyudov drove thither.

Katerina Maslova was actually there.

The distance from the house of detention to the transportation jail was very great, and Nekhlyudov reached the prison only toward evening. He wanted to walk up to the door of the huge, gloomy building, but the sentry did not let him in, and only rang a bell. A warden came out in reply to the bell. Nekhlyudov showed him his permit, but the warden said that he could not let him in without his seeing the superintendent. Nekhlyudov went to the superintendent’s apartments. While ascending the staircase, Nekhlyudov heard behind the door the sounds of a complicated, florid piece performed on the piano. When an angry chambermaid, with an eye tied up, opened the door for him, the sounds seemed to burst from the room and to strike his ears. It was a tiresome rhapsody by Liszt, well played, but only to a certain point. Whenever this point was reached, the same thing was repeated. Nekhlyudov asked the tied-up chambermaid whether the superintendent was at home.

The chambermaid said he was not.

” Will he soon be here ? ”

The rhapsody again stopped, and was again repeated brilliantly and noisily up to the enchanted place.

” 1 will ask.”

The chambermaid went out.

The rhapsody again started on its mad rush, but, before reaching the enchanted place, it broke off, and a voice was heard.

” Tell him that he is not here and will not be to-day. He is out calling, — and what makes them so persistent ? ” was heard a woman’s voice behind the door, and again the rhapsody ; but it stopped once more, and the sound of a chair’s being removed was heard. Evidently the angered performer wanted to give a piece of her mind to the persistent visitor, who had come at such an unseasonable time.

“Papa is not here,” angrily spoke a puny, pale girl, with puffed-up hair and blue rings under her gloomy eyes, upon coming up. But when she saw a young man in a fine overcoat, she relented. ” Come in, if you please. What do you wish ? ”

“ I wish to see a prisoner.”

” A political prisoner ? ”

” No, not a political prisoner. I have a permit from the prosecuting attorney.”

“ I can’t help you ; papa is away. Please, come in,” she again called him away from the small antechamber. ” You had better see his assistant, who is in the office, and speak with him. What is your name ? ”

“ Thank you,” said Nekhlyudov, without answering the question, and went out.

The door was hardly closed behind him, when the same brisk, lively tune was heard ; it was badly out of place, considering the surroundings and the face of the miserable-looking girl who was trying to learn it by heart. In the yard Nekhlyudov met a young officer with stiffly pomaded moustache, dyed black, and asked him for the superintendent’s assistant. It was he. He took the permit, looked at it, and said that he could not take it upon himself to admit on a permit for the house of detention. ” Besides, it is late. Please come tomorrow. Tomorrow at ten o’clock anybody may visit. You come tomorrow, and you will find the superintendent at home. Then you may see her in the general visiting-room, or, if the superintendent gives you permission, in the office.”

Thus, without having obtained an interview, Nekhlyudov drove home again. Agitated by the thought of seeing her, Nekhlyudov walked through the streets, thinking not of the court, but of his conversations with the prosecuting attorney and the superintendents. His endeavour to get an interview with her, and his telling the prosecuting attorney of his intention, and his visit to two prisons so excited him that he was not able for a long time to compose himself. Upon arriving at home, he took out his long neglected diaries, read a few passages in them, and wrote down the following :

” For two years I have not kept my diary, and I thought I should never return to this childish occupation. It was, however, not a childish thing, but a converse with myself, with that genuine, divine self, which lives in every man. All this time my ego has been asleep, and I had no one to talk to. It was awakened by an unusual incident on the twenty-eighth of April, in court, while I was on the jury. I saw her on the defendants’ bench, her, Katyusha, seduced by me, in a prison cloak. By a strange misunderstanding, and by my mistake, she has been sentenced to hard labour. I have just come back from the prosecuting attorney and from the jail. I was not permitted to see her, but I have determined to do everything in order to see her, to repent before her, and to atone for my guilt, even by marrying her. Lord, aid me ! My heart is light and rejoicing.”

XXXVII.

Maslova could not for a long time fall asleep on that night ; she lay with open eyes, and, looking for a long time at the door, which was now and then shaded by the sexton’s daughter, who was pacing to and fro, was lost in thought.

She was thinking that she would under no condition marry a convict on the island of Sakhalin, but that she would arrange things differently. She would enter into relations with some official, with a scribe, or with a warden, or with some assistant. They were all prone to such things. ” Only I must not be worn out, for then all is lost.” And she recalled how the counsel looked at her, and the presiding judge, and all the people in the courthouse, who met her or purposely came to see her. She recalled what Bérta, who had visited her in the jail, had told her about the student, whom she had liked while living at Kitàeva’s, and who, upon calling there, had asked for her, and was sorry for her. She recalled the brawl with the red-haired woman, and she was sorry for her ; she recalled the baker, who had sent her out an additional roll. She recalled many persons, but not Nekhlyudov. She never thought of her childhood and youth, and especially of her love for Nekhlyudov. That was too painful. Those recollections lay somewhere deep and untouched in her soul. Even in her sleep had she never seen Nekhlyudov. She had not recognized him that morning at court, not so much because when she had seen him the last time he had been a military man, without a beard, with short moustache, and with short, thick, waving hair, whereas now he was a man of middle age, with a beard, as because she never thought of him. She had buried all her recollections of her past with him on that terrible, dark night, when he did not stop over at his aunts’ upon his way from the army.

Up to that night, while she had hoped that he would come to see them, she not only did not feel the burden of the child which she was carrying under her heart, but often with rapturous surprise watched its soft and frequently impetuous motion within her. But with that night everything was changed. The future child from then on was only a hindrance.

The aunts expected Nekhlyudov and had asked him to stop over, but he telegraphed to them that he could not because he had to be in St. Petersburg on time. When Katyusha learned this, she determined to go to the station in order to see him. The train was to pass there in the night, at two o’clock. Katyusha saw the ladies off to bed ; she asked the cook’s daughter, Mashka, to accompany her, put on some old shoes, covered herself with a kerchief, tucked up her skirt, and ran down to the station.

It was a dark, rainy, windy autumn night. The rain now splashed its large warm drops, now stopped. In the field, the road could not be seen underfoot, and in the forest everything was dark as in a stove, and Katyusha, who knew the road well, lost her way in the woods, and reached the small station, where the train stopped only three minutes, not ahead of time, as she had expected to do, but after the second bell. Upon running out on the platform, Katyusha immediately noticed him in the window of a car of the First Class. There was a very bright light in that car. Two officers were sitting opposite each other on the velvet seats, and playing cards. On the little table near the window two stout, guttering candles were burning. He was sitting, in tightly fitting riding breeches and white shirt, on the arm of the seat, leaning against the back, and laughing at something.

The moment she recognized him, she knocked at the window with her frosted hand. But just then the third bell rang out, and the train began slowly to move, — first backwards, — then one after another the carriages began to move forwards in jerks. One of the card-players rose with his cards and looked through the window. She knocked a second time, and put her face to the pane. Just then the car at which she stood gave a jerk and began to move. She walked along with it, and looked through the window. The officer wanted to let down the window but could not do it. Nekhlyudov pushed him aside, and started to let down the window. The train was increasing its speed, so that Katyusha had to run along. The, train went faster still, and the window at last was let down. Just then the conductor pushed her aside and jumped into the car. She fell behind, but still continued to run over the wet boards of the platform : then the platform came to an end, and Katyusha had to exert all her strength to keep herself from falling as she ran down the steps to the ground. She was still running, though the car of the First Class was already far beyond her. Past her raced the cars of the Second Class ; and then, faster still, the cars of the Third Class, but she still ran. When the last car with the lamps rushed by her, she was already beyond the water-tower, beyond protection, and the wind struck her and carried off the kerchief from her head, and on one side blew her garments against her running feet. The kerchief was borne away by the wind, but she still ran.

“Aunty Mikhaylovna!” cried the girl, barely catching up with her, ” you have lost your kerchief! “

Katyusha stopped and, throwing back her head and clasping it with both her hands, sobbed out aloud.

” He is gone ! ” she cried.

” He, seated in a gaily lighted car, on a velvet seat, is playing and drinking, — and I am standing here, in the mud and darkness, in the rain and wind, and weeping,” she thought to herself, and sat down on the ground and wept so loud that the girl was frightened and embraced her damp clothes.

” Aunty, let us go home ! “

” A train will pass, — under the wheels, and the end of it,” Katyusha thought in the meantime, without answering the girl.

She decided she would do so. But just then, as always happens in the first quiet moment after agitation, the child, his cliild, which was within her, suddenly jerked, and thumped, and then moved more softly, and then again thumped with something thin, tender, and sharp. And suddenly all that which a minute ago had so tormented her, so that it seemed impossible to continue to live thus, all her anger at him and her desire to have her revenge upon him, even though through death, all that was suddenly removed from her. She calmed down, got up, put on her kerchief, and walked home.

Fatigued, wet, soiled, she returned home, and from that day began that spiritual change, from the consequences of which she became what she now was. From that terrible night she ceased to believe in God and goodness. Ere this she had believed in God and had believed that others believed in Him ; but from that night on she was convinced that nobody believed in Him, and that everything which was said of God and His Law was deception and injustice. He, whom she had loved, and who had loved her, — she knew that, — had abandoned her, making light of her feelings. And yet he was the best man she had ever known. All the others were worse still. Everything which happened to her confirmed her at every step in her view. His aunts, who were pious old women, sent her away when she was not able to serve them as before. All people with whom she came in contact wanted to get some advantage from her : women tried to gain money through her, while men, beginning with the country judge, coming down to the wardens of the prison, looked upon her as an object of pleasure. Nobody in the world cared for anything else. She was still more confirmed in this by the old author, with whom she lived in the second year of her free life. He told her straight out that in this — he called it poetry and aesthetics — consisted all happiness.

Everybody lived only for himself, for his pleasure, and all words about God and goodness were only a deception. If ever questions arose such as why everything in the world was so bad that everybody harmed everybody else and everybody suffered, one ought not to think of them. If you feel lonely, you smoke a cigarette or take a drink, or, still better, you make love to a man, and it all disappears.

XXXVIII.

On the following day, it being a Sunday, at five o’clock in the morning, when the customary whistle was blown in the women’s corridor of the prison, Korabléva, who was not sleeping, awoke Maslova.

” Convict,” Maslova thought in terror, rubbing her eyes and involuntarily inhaling the terribly stinking air of the morning; she wanted to fall asleep again, to pass into the realm of unconsciousness, but the habit of fear was stronger than sleep, and she got up, drew up her legs, and began to look around. The women were all up, but the children were still asleep. The dram-shopkeeper with the bulging eyes softly pulled the cloak from underneath the children, so as not to wake them. The riotous woman was hanging out near the stove some rags that served as diapers, while the baby was yelling in the arms of blue-eyed Fedosya, who was swaying with it and singing to it in her gentle voice.

The consumptive woman, holding her chest, and with suffused face, was coughing and, in the intervals, breathing heavily, and almost crying. The red-haired woman lay awake, with her abdomen upwards, and bending under her stout legs, and in a loud and merry voice told the dream which she had had. The old incendiary again stood before the image and, continually repeating the same words in an undertone, crossed herself and made low obeisances. The sexton’s daughter sat motionless on the bench and gazed in front of her with her sleepy, dull eyes. Beauty was curling her coarse, oily black hair about her finger.

In the corridor were heard steps of plashing prison shoes ; the keys rattled, and there entered two convict privy-cleaners, in blouses and gray trousers that did not reach down to their ankles, and, with serious, angry looks, raising the stink-vat on the yoke, carried it out of the cell. The women went into the corridor, to the faucets, to wash themselves. At the water-basin the red-haired woman started a quarrel with a woman who had come out from another, a neighbouring, cell. Again curses, shouts, complaints —

” Do you want the career ? ” cried the warden, striking the red-haired women on her fat bare back in such a manner that the blow reechoed through the corridor. ” Don’t let me hear your voice again ! ”

” I declare, the old fellow is a little wild to-day,” said the red-haired woman, looking upon that treatment of her as a special favour.

“ Lively there ! Get ready for the mass ! “

Maslova had not had a chance to comb her hair when the superintendent arrived with his suite.

“Roll-call!” cried the warden. From the other cells came other prisoners, and they all stationed themselves in two rows along the corridor, the women in the rear placing their hands on the shoulders of those in the front row. They were all counted.

After the roll-call the matron came and led the prisoners to church. Maslova and Fedosya were in the middle of the column, which consisted of more than one hundred women from all the cells. They all wore white kerchiefs, bodices, and skirts, but now and then there was a woman in coloured garments. Those were women with their children, who were following their husbands. The whole staircase was taken up by that procession. There was heard the soft tread of the feet in the prison shoes, and conversation, and at times laughter. At the turning, Maslova caught sight of the angry face of her enemy, Bochkova, who was walking in front, and she pointed her out to Feddsya. On arriving down-stairs, the women grew silent and, making the sign of the cross and bowing, walked through the open door into the empty church, sparkling with its gold. Their places were on the right, and they, crowding and pressing each other, took up their positions. Soon after the women, entered the men in gray cloaks ; they were transport convicts, or those who were serving time in the prison, or who were transported by the decree of Communes ; they cleared their throats, and placed themselves in compact masses on the left and in the middle of the church. Above, in the choir, stood the prisoners who had been brought there before; on one side, with half their heads shaven, the hard-labour convicts, who betrayed their presence by the clanking of their chains ; and on the other, unshaven and without fetters, those who were confined pending trial.

The prison church had been newly erected and furnished by a rich merchant, who had spent for tins purpose several tens of thousands of roubles, and it was all agleam with bright colours and gold.

For some time silence reigned in the church, and one could hear only the clearing of noses and throats, the cries of infants, and occasionally the clanking of the chains. But now the prisoners who stood in the middle began to move and, pressing against each other, left a path along which the superintendent walked up to the front, where he stationed himself in the middle.

XXXIX.

The divine service began.

The divine service consisted in this : the priest, having donned a peculiar, strange, and very inconvenient cloth garment, cut small pieces of bread, which he placed in a vessel, and then into a bowl of wine, all the while pronouncing various names and prayers. In the meantime the sexton, without interruption, first read and then sang, in rotation with the choir of the prisoners, all kinds of Church-Slavic songs, which were unintelligible in themselves, but could be grasped even less on account of the rapidity with which they were read and sung. The contents of the prayers consisted mainly in wishing prosperity to the Emperor and his family. The prayers which referred to this were repeated several times, in conjunction with other prayers, or alone, while kneeling.

In addition, the sexton read several verses from the Acts of the Apostles in such a strange and tense voice that it was not possible to comprehend a thing ; then the priest read very distinctly the passage from the Gospel of St. Mark, where it says how Christ, upon being raised from the dead, and before flying to heaven in order to be seated on the right hand of His Father, appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils, and then to his eleven disciples; and how he enjoined them to preach the Gospel to all creatures, proclaiming at the same time that he who would not believe should be damned, but that he who would believe and would be baptized should be saved, and, besides, should cast out devils, heal the sick by the laying on of hands, speak with new tongues, take up serpents, and not die, but remain alive, if they should drink deadly things.

The essence of ‘ the divine service consisted in the supposition that the pieces cut up by the priest and placed by him in the wine, with certain manipulations and prayers, were changed into the body and blood of God. These manipulations consisted in the priest’s evenly raising his hands, although the cloth bag, which he had on, very much interfered with this motion, then holding them in this attitude, kneeling down, and kissing the table and that which was on the table. But the chief action was when the priest picked up a napkin with both his hands and evenly and gently swayed it over the dish and golden bowl. The supposition was that simultaneously with this the bread and wine were changed into the body and blood ; consequently this part of the divine service was surrounded with special solemnity.

” Praise the most holy, most pure, and most blessed Mother of God,” thereupon loudly proclaimed the priest behind the partition, and the choir sang out solemnly that it was very good to glorify Her who had borne Christ without impairing Iler virginity, — the Virgin Mary, who, on that account, deserves greater honour than all the cherubim, and greater glory than all the seraphim. After that the transformation was thought to be complete, and the priest, taking off the napkin from the dish, cut the middle piece into four parts, and placed it first in the wine and then in his mouth. The idea was that he had eaten a piece of God’s body and had drunk a swallow of His blood. After that the priest drew aside the curtain, opened the middle doors, and, taking the gilt bowl into his hands, went with it through the middle door and invited those who wished also to partake of the body and blood of God, which was contained in the bowl.

There were several children who wished to do so.

First asking the children their names, the priest carefully drew out the bread from the bowl with a small spoon, then stuck deep down the mouth of each child a piece of wine-sopped bread ; after which the sexton wiped the children’s mouths and in a merry voice sang a song about the children’s eating God’s body and drinking His blood. Then the priest carried the bowl behind the partition, and, drinking all the blood left in the bowl and eating all the pieces of God’s body, carefully licking his moustache, and drying his mouth and the bowl, with brisk steps marched out from behind the partition, in the happiest frame of mind and creaking with the thin heels of his calfskin boots.

This ended the main part of the Christian service. But the priest, wishing to console the unfortunate prisoners, added a special service to what had preceded. This special service consisted in the priest’s taking up a position before the black-faced and black-handed, brass and gilt supposed representation of that very God whom he had been eating, a representation illuminated by a dozen or so of wax tapers, and beginning in a strange and false voice to chant the following words : ” Sweetest Jesus, glory of the apostles, Jesus, the martyrs’ praise, almighty ruler, save me, Jesus my Saviour, Jesus mine, most beautiful, me taking refuge in Thee, Saviour Jesus, have mercy on me, on those who have borne Thee with prayers, on all, O Jesus, on Thy saints, and on all Thy prophets, my Saviour Jesus, and give us the joys of heaven, Jesus, lover of men ! “

Thereupon he stopped, drew his breath, crossed himself, and made a low obeisance, and all did the same. Obeisances were made by the superintendent, the wardens, the prisoners, and in the balcony the chains clanked very frequently. “ Creator of the angels and Lord of hosts,” he continued, “ Jesus most marvellous, the angels’ wonder, Jesus most strong, the ancestors’ redemption, Jesus most sweet, the patriarchs’ majesty, Jesus most glorious, the kings’ support, Jesus most blessed, the prophets’ fulfilment, Jesus most wonderful, the martyrs’ strength, Jesus most gentle, the monks’ joy, Jesus most merciful, the presbyters’ sweetness, Jesus most pitiful, the fasters’ restraint, Jesus most suave, the delight of the sainted, Jesus most pure, the virgins’ chastity, Jesus from eternity, the sinners’ salvation, Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me,” he finally reached a stop, repeating the word Jesus in an ever shriller voice ; he held his silk-lined vestment with his hand, and, letting himself down on one knee, bowed to the ground, whereupon the choir sang the last words, ” Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me,” and the prisoners fell down and rose again, tossing the hair that was left on the unshaven half, and clattering with the fetters which chafed their lean legs.

Thus it lasted for a long time. First came the praises, which ended with the words, ” Have mercy on me ! ” and then came new praises, which ended with the word ” Hallelujah.” And the prisoners crossed themselves and bowed at every stop ; then they began to bow only every second time and even less, and all were happy when the praises were ended, and the priest, heaving a sigh of relief, closed his little book and went back of the partition. There was but one final action left : the priest took a gilt cross with enamelled medallions at its ends, winch was lying on the large table, and walked with it into the middle of the church. First the superintendent came up and kissed the cross, then the wardens, then, pressing against each other and cursing in whispers, the prisoners came up to it. The priest, talking all the while with the superintendent, was sticking the cross and his hand into the mouths, and sometimes even into the noses, of the prisoners who were coming up, while the prisoners were anxious to kiss both the cross and the priest’s hand. Thus ended the Christian divine service, which was held for the consolation and edification of the erring fellow men.

XL.

It did not occur to one of those present, beginning with the priest and the superintendent and ending with Maslova, that the same Jesus, whose name the priest had repeated an endless number of times in a shrill voice, praising Him with all kinds of outlandish words, had forbidden all that which was done there ; that He had forbidden not only such a meaningless wordiness and blasphemous mystification of the priestly teachers over the bread and wine, but that He had also in a most emphatic manner forbidden one class of people to call another their teachers ; that He had forbidden prayers in temples, and had commanded each to pray in solitude; that He had forbidden the temples themselves, saying that He came to destroy them, and that one should pray not in temples, but in the spirit and in truth ; and, above everything else, that He had forbidden not only judging people and holding them under restraint, torturing, disgracing, punishing them, as was done here, but even doing any violence to people, saying that He came to set the captives at liberty.

It never occurred to any one present that that which was going on there was the greatest blasphemy and mockery upon that very Christ in the name of whom all this was done. It did not occur to any one that the gilt cross, with the enamelled medallions at the ends, which the priest brought out and gave the people to kiss, was nothing else but the representation of the gibbet on which Christ had been hung for prohibiting those very things which were done here in His name. It did not occur to any one that the priests, who imagined that in the form

of the faith consisted in, and what all this meant which was going on in the church, believed that one must believe in this faith because the higher authorities and the Tsar himself believed in it. Besides, they dimly felt, though they would not have been able to explain why, that this faith justified their cruel duties. If it were not for this faith, it not only would have been harder for them, but even impossible to employ all their powers in order to torment people, as they Were now doing with an entirely clear conscience. The superintendent was such a good-hearted man that he would never have been able to live that way if he had not found a support in his faith. It was for this reason that he stood motionless and straight, zealously made his obeisances and the signs of the cross, and tried to feel contrite as they sang ” The Cherubim ; ” and as they began to give the communion to the children, he stepped forward, and with his own hands lifted a boy who was receiving the communion, and held him up that way.

The majority of the prisoners, — with the exception of a few who saw through the deception practised on the people of this faith, and who in their hearts laughed at it, — the majority believed that in these gilt images, candles, bowls, vestments, crosses, and repetitions of incomprehensible words, “Jesus most sweet,” “Have mercy,” lay a mysterious power, by means of which one could obtain great comforts in this life and in the one to come. Although the majority of them had made several efforts to obtain the comforts of life by means of prayers, supplications, and tapers, without getting them, — their prayers had remained unfulfilled, — yet each of them was firmly convinced that this was only an accidental failure, and that this institution, approved by learned men and by metropolitans, was important and necessary for the life to come, if not for this.

Maslova believed the same way. Like the rest, she

experienced during the divine service a mixed feeling of awe and tedium. She was standing in the middle of the throng before the bar, and could not see any one but her companions ; when the communicants moved forward, she advanced with Fedosya and saw the superintendent, and behind the superintendent and between the wardens she spied a peasant with a white beard and blond hair,— Fedosya’s husband, — who was looking at his wife with motionless eyes. All during the singing Maslova was busy watching him and whispering to Fedosya ; she crossed herself and made the obeisances only when the rest did so.

XLI.

NekiilyÛdov left the house early. A peasant was still driving in a side street, and crying in a strange voice :

” Milk, milk, milk ! “

The day before there had fallen the first warm spring rain. Wherever there was no pavement the grass had suddenly sprouted, the birches in the gardens were covered with a green down, and the bird-cherries and poplars were spreading out their long, fragrant leaves ; and in the houses and shops the double windows were being removed and cleaned. In the second-hand market, past which Nekhlyudov had to ride, a dense throng of people was swarming near the booths, which were built in a row, and tattered people were moving about with boots under their arms and smoothly ironed pantaloons and waistcoats thrown over their shoulders.

Near the inns there were crowds of people who were now free from their factory work: men in clean sleeveless coats and shining boots, and women in brightly coloured silk kerchiefs over their heads and in overcoats with huge glass beads. Policemen, with the yellow cords of their pistols, stood on their beats, watching for some disorder to dispel the ennui which was oppressing them. Along the paths of the boulevard and over the fresh green sod children and dogs were romping, while the gay nurses were talking to each other, sitting on the benches.

In the streets, which were still cool and damp on the left hand, in the shade, but dry in the middle, the heavy freight wagons constantly rumbled over the pavement, and light vehicles clattered, and tramways tinkled. On

all sides the air was shaken by the various sounds and the dins of the bells calling the people to attend services similar to the one that was taking place in the prison. The dressed-up people were all going to their parish churches.

The cabman took Nekhlyudov not to the jail itself, but to the turn that led to it.

A number of men and women, mostly with bundles, were standing there, at the turn, about one hundred paces from the prison. On the right were low wooden buildings, and on the left a two-story house, with some kind of a sign. The immense stone structure of the jail was ahead, but the visitors were not admitted there. A sentry with his gun was walking up and down, calling out angrily at those who tried to pass beyond him.

At the gate of the wooden buildings, on the right-hand side, opposite the sentry, a warden, in a uniform with galloons, was sitting on a bench, with a note-book in his hand. Nekhlyudov also went up to him and gave the name of Katerina Maslova. The warden with the galloons wrote down the name.

” Why don’t they admit yet ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” They are holding divine service now. As soon as it is over, you will be admitted.”

Nekhlyudov went up to the throng of the persons waiting. A man in a tattered garment and crushed cap, with torn shoes on his bare feet, and with red stripes all over his face, pushed himself forward and started toward the jail.

” Where are you going ? ” the soldier with the gun shouted to him.

” Don’t yell so ! ” answered the ragged fellow, not in the least intimidated by the sentry’s call. He went back. ” If you won’t let me, I can wait. But don’t yell as though you were a general ! “

There was an approving laugh in the crowd. The visitors were mostly poorly clad people, some of them simply in tatters, but there were also, to all appearances, decent people, both men and women. Next to Nekhlyudov stood a well-dressed, clean-shaven, plump, ruddy man, with a bundle, apparently of underwear, in his hand. Nekhlyudov asked him whether he was there for the first time. The man with the bundle answered that he came every Sunday, and they started a conversation. He was a porter in a bank ; he came to see his brother, who was to be tried for forgery. The good-natured man told Nekhlyudov his whole history, and was on the point of asking him for his, when their attention was distracted by a student and a veiled lady, in a light rubber-tired vehicle, drawn by a large, thoroughbred black horse. The student was carrying a large bundle in his hands. He went up to Nekhlyudov and asked him whether it was permitted to distribute alms, — bread-rolls which he had brought with him, — and how he was to do it. “ I am doing it at the request of my fiancée. This is my fiancée. Her parents advised us to take it down to the convicts.”

” I am here for the first time, and I do not know, but I think you ought to ask that man,” said Nekhlyudov, pointing to the warden with the galloons, who was sitting with his note-book on the right.

Just as Nekhlyudov was conversing with the student, the heavy iron door, with a small window in the middle, was opened, and there emerged from it a uniformed officer with a warden, and the warden with the note-book announced that the visitors would now be admitted. The sentry stepped aside, and all the visitors, as though fearing to be late, started with rapid steps toward the door ; some of them even rushed forward on a run. At the door stood a warden, who kept counting the visitors as they passed him, saying aloud, ” Sixteen, seventeen,” and so on. Another warden, inside the building, touched

each with his hand and counted them as they passed through the next door, in order that upon leaving the number should tally, and no visitor be left in the prison, and no person confined be allowed to escape. This teller slapped Nekhlyudov’s shoulder, without looking to see who it was that passed by, and this touch of the warden’s hand at first offended Nekhlyudov, but he recalled at once what had brought him here, and he felt ashamed of his feeling of dissatisfaction and affront.

The first apartment they reached beyond the door was a large room with a vaulted ceiling and iron gratings in tiny windows. In this room, called the assembly-room, Nekhlyudov quite unexpectedly saw a large representation of the crucifixion in a niche.

” What is this for? ” he thought, involuntarily connecting in his imagination the representation of Christ with liberated and not with confined people.

Nekhlyudov walked slowly, letting the hurrying visitors pass by him, experiencing mixed feelings of terror before the evil-doers who were locked up here, of compassion for those innocent people who, like the boy of yesterday and like Katyusha, must be confined in it, and of timidity and contrition before the meeting which awaited him. Upon leaving this first room, the warden at the other end was saying something ; but Nekhlyudov was lost in thought and did not pay any attention to what he was saying ; he continued to go in the direction where most visitors were going, that is, to the men’s department, and not to the women’s, whither he was bound.

He allowed those who were in a hurry to walk ahead of him, and was the last to enter the hall which was used as the visiting-room. The first thing that struck him, when, upon opening the door, he entered the hall, was the deafening roar of hundreds of voices merging into one. Only when he came nearer to the people who, like flies upon sugar, were clinging to the screen that divided the room into two parts, he understood what the matter was. The room, with the windows in the back, was divided into two, not by one, but by two wire screens that ran from the ceiling down to the floor. Between the screens walked the wardens. Beyond the screens were the prisoners, and on this side, the visitors. Between the two parties were the two screens, and about eight feet of space, so that it was not only impossible to transmit any information, but even to recognize a face, especially if one were near-sighted. It was even difficult to speak, for one had to cry at the top of one’s voice in order to be heard. On both sides the faces were closely pressed against the screens : here were wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, children, trying to see each other and to say what was necessary. But as each tried to speakin such a way as to be heard by his interlocutor, and the neighbours were trying to do the same, their voices interfered, and they had to shout so much the louder. It was this that caused the roar, interrupted by shouts, which had so struck Nekhlyudov as he entered the room.

There was not the slightest possibility of making out what was said. It was only possible by their faces to guess what they were talking about, and what their relations to each other were. Next to Nekhlyudov was an old woman in a small shawl, who, pressing against the screen, with quivering chin cried something to a pale young man with half of his hair shaven off. The prisoner, raising his eyebrows and frowning, listened attentively to what she was saying. Next to the old woman was a young man in a sleeveless coat, who, with shaking head, was listening to what a prisoner, with an agonized face and grayish beard, who resembled him, was saying. Farther away stood a ragged fellow, who was moving his hands as he spoke, and laughing. Next to him a woman, in a good woollen kerchief, with a babe in her arms, was sitting on the floor, and weeping, evidently for the first time

seeing that gray-haired man, who was on the other side, in a prison blouse, and with a shaven head and in fetters. Beyond this woman stood the porter, with whom Nekhlyudov had spoken ; he was shouting at the top of his voice to a bald-headed prisoner, with sparkling eyes, on the other side.

When Neklyudov understood that he would have to speak under these conditions, there arose within him a feeling of indignation against the people who could have arranged and maintained such a thing. lie wondered how it was that such a terrible state of affairs, such a contempt for all human feelings bad not offended anybody. The soldiers, the superintendent, the visitors, and the prisoners acted as though they admitted that it could not be otherwise.

Nekhlyudov remained about five minutes in that room, experiencing a terrible feeling of melancholy, of powerlessness, and of being out with the whole world. A moral sensation of nausea, resembling seasickness, took possession of him.

XLII.

* Still I must do that for which I have come,” he said, urging himself on. ” What must I do now ? ” He began to look for somebody in authority, and, upon noticing a short, lean man with a moustache, in officer’s stripes, who was walking back of the crowd, he turned to him.

” Can you not, dear sir, tell me,” he said, with exceedingly strained civility, ” where the women are kept, and where one may talk to them ? ”

” Do you want the women’s department ? ”

” Yes ; I should like to see one of the prisoners,” Nekhlyudov replied, with the same strained civility.

“You ought to have said so when you were in the assembly-room. Whom do you want to see ? ”

” I want to see Katerina Maslova.”

“ Is she a political prisoner ? ” asked the assistant superintendent.

“ No, she is simply — “

” Has she been sentenced ? ”

” Yes, two days ago she was sentenced,” humbly replied Nekhlyudov, fearing lest he spoil the disposition of the superintendent, who apparently had taken interest in him.

” If you wish to go to the women’s department, please, this way,” said the superintendent, having manifestly concluded from Nekhlyudov’s appearance that he deserved consideration. “Sidorov,” he addressed a mustachioed under-officer with medals, ” take this gentleman to the women’s department.”

“ Yes, sir.”

Just then heartrending sobs were heard at the screen.

Everything seemed strange to Nekhlyudov, but strangest of all was it that he should be thankful and under obligations to the superintendent and chief warden, to people who were doing all the cruel things which were committed in that house.

The warden led Nekhlyudov out of the men’s visiting-room into the corridor, and through the opposite door took him into the women’s visitors’ hall.

This room, like that of the men, was divided into three parts by the two screens, but it was considerably smaller, and there were fewer visitors and prisoners in it; the noise and din was the same as in the male department. The officer here also walked around between the screens. The officer was the matron, in a uniform with galloons on her sleeves and with blue binding, and a similar belt. Just as in the men’s room, the faces on both sides clung closely to the screens: on this side, city people in all kinds of attires, and on the other, the prisoners, — some in white, others in their own garments. The whole screen was occupied by people. Some rose on tiptoe, in order to be heard above the heads of the others ; others sat on the floor, conversing.

Most noticeable of all the prisoners, both by her striking voice and appearance, was a tattered, haggard gipsy, with the kerchief falling down from her curly hair, who was standing in the middle of the room on the other side of the screen, near a post, and with rapid gestures shouting to a gipsy in a blue coat with a tight, low belt. Next to the gipsy, a soldier was sitting on the ground, and talking to a prisoner ; then stood, clinging to the screen, a young peasant with a light-coloured beard, in bast shoes, with flushed face, evidently with difficulty restraining his tears. He was talking to a sweet-faced blond prisoner, who was gazing at him with her bright, blue eyes. This was Feddsya and her husband. Near them stood a tattered fellow, who was talking to a slatternly, broadfaced woman ; then two women, a man, again a woman, — and opposite each a prisoner. Maslova was not among them. But back of the prisoners, on the other side, stood another woman, and Nekhlyudov at once knew that it was she, and he felt his heart beating more strongly and his breath stopping. The decisive minute was approaching. He went up to the screen, and recognized her. She was standing back of blue-eyed Feddsya, and, smiling, was listening to what she was saying. She was not in her cloak, as two days ago, but in a white bodice, tightly girded with a belt, and with high swelling bosom. From under the kerchief, just as in the courtroom, peeped her flowing black hair.

“It will be decided at once,” he thought. ” How am I to call her ? Or will she come up herself ? “

But she did not come up. She was waiting for Klara and did not suspect that this man came to see her.

” Whom do you want ? ” the matron who was walking between the screens, asked, coming up to Nekhlyudov.

” Katerina Maslova,” Nekhlyudov said, with difficulty.

“ Maslova, you are wanted ! ” cried the matron.

Maslova looked about her, and, raising her head and thrusting forward her bosom, with her expression of readi-/ ness, so familiar to Nekhlyudov, went up to the screen, pushing her way between two prisoners, and with a questioning glance of surprise gazed at Nekhlyudov, without recognizing him.

But, seeing by his attire that he was a rich man, she smiled.

” Do you want me ? ” she said, putting her smiling face, with its squinting eyes, to the screen.

“ I wanted to see — ” Nekhlyudov did not know whether to say ” thee ” or ” you,” and decided to say ” you.” He was not speaking louder than usual. ” I wanted to see you — I — “

” Don’t pull the wool over my eyes,” cried the tattered fellow near him. ” Did you take it or not ? ”

” I tell you he is dying, — what more ? ” somebody shouted from the other side.

Maslova could not make out what Nekhlyudov was saying, but the expression of his face, as he was talking, suddenly reminded her of him. But she did not believe her eyes. Still, the smile disappeared from her face, and her brow began to be furrowed in an agonizing way.

” I did not hear what you said,” she cried, blinking, and frowning more than before.

” I came — ”

” Yes, I am doing what I ought to do, and am repenting of my sin,” thought Nekhlyudov.

The moment he thought that, the tears stood in his eyes and choked him ; he held on to the screen with his fingers, and grew silent, making an effort to keep from sobbing.

“ I say : keep away from where you have no business — ” somebody cried on one side.

” Believe me for God’s sake, for I tell you I do not know,” cried a prisoner on the other side.

Upon noticing his agitation, Mdslova recognized him.

“ You have changed, but I recognize you,” she cried, without looking at him, and her Hushed face suddenly looked gloomier still.

” I have come to ask forgiveness of you,” he cried in a loud voice, without intonations, like a lesson learned by rote.

Having called out these words, he felt ashamed, and looked around. But immediately it occurred to him that if he was ashamed, so much the better, because he must bear shame. And he continued in a loud voice.

” Forgive me ; I am terribly guilty toward you — ” he shouted again.

She stood motionless, and did not take her squinting eyes away from him.

He was unable to proceed, and went away from the screen, trying to check the sobs which were agitating his breast.

The superintendent, the one who had directed Nekhlyudov to the women’s department, apparently interested in him, came in and, seeing Nekhlyudov standing away from the screen, asked him why he did not speak with the one he had asked for. Nekhlyudov cleared his nose and, straightening himself and trying to assume an unconcerned look, said :

” I can’t speak through the screen, — I can’t hear a word.”

The superintendent thought for awhile.

” Well, we shall have her brought out for a short time.”

” Marya Karlovna,” he turned to the matron. ” Bring Mdslova out here ! ”

XLIIL

A minute later Maslova came out of the side door. Walking up with her soft tread close to Nekhlyudov, she stopped and looked at him with an upward glance. Her black hair, just as two days before, stood out in curling ringlets ; her unhealthy, swollen, and white face was sweet and very calm ; only the sparkling, black, squinting eyes gleamed with unusual brilliancy from out her swollen lids.

“ You may speak here to her,” said the superintendent, stepping aside. Nekhlyudov moved up to the bench which stood against the wall.

Maslova cast a questioning glance at the assistant superintendent, and then, as though shrugging her shoulders in surprise, followed Nekhlyudov up to the bench and sat down at his side, adjusting her skirt.

” I know it is hard for you to forgive me,” began Nekhlyudov, but again stopped, feeling that his tears impeded him, ” but if it is not possible to correct the past, I wish now to do all I can. Say — “

” How did you find me ? ” she asked, without replying to his question, and hardly glancing at him with her squinting eyes.

“ 0 Lord, aid me ! Teach me what to do ! ” Nekhlyudov kept saying to himself, looking at her changed, bad face.

“Two days ago I was a juror,” he said, ” when you were tried. Did you not recognize me ? “

” No, I did not. I had no time to recognize people. And I did not look, either,” she said.

” Was there not a child ? ” he asked, and felt his face being flushed.

” Thank the Lord, it died at once,” she answered curtly and angrily, turning her eyes away.

” Why so ? What did it die of ? “

“ I was ill myself, and almost died,” she said, without raising her eyes.

” How is it my aunts let you go ? ”

“Who would want to keep a chambermaid with a baby ? When they noticed what the matter was, they sent me away. What is the use of mentioning it, — I do not remember anything, — I have forgotten it. That is all ended.”

“No, not ended. I cannot leave it so. 1 now want to expiate my sin.”

“There is nothing to expiate. What has been, is a thing of the past,” she said, and — a thing he had not expected — she suddenly looked at him and gave him a disagreeable, insinuating, and pitiable smile.

Maslova had not expected to see him, especially then and there, and therefore his appearance at first startled her and made her think of what she had never thought before. In the first moment she dimly recalled that new charming world of feelings and thoughts which had been revealed to her by that attractive young man who loved her and who was loved by her, and then of his incomprehensible cruelty and of the whole series of humiliations and suffering which followed that magic happiness and which was its direct consequence. And she was pained. But not having the strength to analyze it all, she acted as she always did : she dispelled those recollections and tried to shroud them with the special mist of her dissolute life. In the first moment she connected the man who was sitting at her side with the young man whom she had once loved, but upon observing that that caused her pain, she stopped connecting him with that youth.

Now this neatly dressed, well-fed gentleman, with the perfumed beard, was for her not that Nekhlyudov, whom she had loved, but only one of those men who, when they needed it, made use of such creatures as she was, and whom a creature like her had to make use of for her greatest advantage. It was for this reason that she gave him that insinuating smile.

She was silent, reflecting in what manner to use him.

” That is all ended,” she said. ” Now I am sentenced to hard labour.” And her lips quivered as she pronounced that terrible word.

” I knew, I was convinced that you were not guilty,” said Nekhlyudov.

” Of course I am not. Am I a thief, a robber ? “

” They say in our cell that everything depends on a lawyer,” she continued. ” They say that a petition has to be handed in. Only they ask a lot of money for it — ”

” Yes, by all means,” said Nekhlyudov. “ I have already talked to a lawyer.”

” You must not spare money, and get a good one,” she said.

“ I will do everything in my power.”

A silence ensued.

She again smiled in the same way.

” I want to ask you — for some money, if you can let me have it. Not much — ten roubles. That is all I want,” she suddenly said.

” Yes, yes,” Nekhlyudov said in confusion, and taking out his pocketbook.

She threw a rapid glance at the superintendent, who was walking up and down the room.

” Don’t give it to me in his presence, or they will take it away from me.”

Nekhlyudov opened the pocketbook the moment the superintendent turned away, but before he succeeded in banding her the ten-rouble bill, the superintendent again turned his face to him. He crumpled it in his hand.

” This is a dead woman,” Nekhlyudov thought, looking at her once sweet, now defiled and swollen face, and at the sparkling, evil gleam of her black, squinting eyes, which were watching both the superintendent and his hand with the crumpled bill. A moment of hesitation came over him.

Again the tempter who had been speaking to him in the night spoke up in Nekhlyudov’s soul, as ever trying to lead him away from the question as to what he ought to do, to the question of what would result from his actions, questions of what was useful.

” You won’t be able to do anything with this woman,” that voice said. ” You are only hanging a rock around your neck, which will drown you and will keep you from being useful to others. Give her money, all you have; bid her farewell, and make an end of it once and for all ! ” he thought.

But just then he felt that something exceedingly important was going on in his soul, that his inner life was, as it were, placed on a swaying balance, which by the least effort could be drawn over in one or the other direction. He made that effort, and acknowledged that God whom he had felt within him the day before ; and that God raised His voice in his soul. He decided to tell her everything at once.

“Katyusha, I have come to ask thy forgiveness in everything, but thou hast not answered me whether thou hast forgiven me, or whether thou wilt ever forgive me,” he said, suddenly passing over to ” thou.”

She was not listening to him, and only looked at his hand and at the superintendent. The moment the superintendent turned away, she swiftly stretched her hand out to him, grasped the money, and stuck it behind her belt.

” You are saying strange things,” she said, smiling contemptuously, as he thought.

Nekhlyudov felt that there was in her something directly hostile to him, which kept her in her present attitude, and which prevented his penetrating into her soul.

Strange to say, this did not repel him, but attracted him to her with a greater, a special and new force. He felt that he must wake her spiritually, that this was terribly hard, — but this very difficulty attracted him. He now experienced a feeling toward her such as he had never before experienced toward her or toward anybody else. There was nothing personal in it: he did not wish anything of her for himself, but only that she should cease being what she was, that she awaken and become what she had been before.

” Katyusha, what makes you talk that way ? I know you and remember you such as you were in Pdnov— ”

“What is the use recalling the past?” she said, drily. “

“ I recall it in order to smooth over and expiate my sin, Katyusha,” he began, and was on the point of saying that he wanted to marry her, but he met her glance and read in it something so terrible, and coarse, and repulsive, that he could not finish his sentence.

Just then the visitors were beginning to leave. The superintendent went up to Nekhlyudov and told him that the time for the interview was up. Maslova arose, waiting submissively to be dismissed.

“ Goodbye ! I have to tell you many more things, but you see I cannot now,” said Nekhlyudov, and stretched out his hand. “ I shall come again — ”

” It seems you have said everything — “

She gave him her hand, but did not press his.

“No. I shall try to see you again where I may have a talk with you, and then I shall tell you something very important, which must be told to you,” said Nekhlyudov.

” Very well, come, then,” she said, smiling as she was in the habit of smiling to men whom she wished to please.

“ You are nearer to me than a sister,” said Nekhlyudov.

” Strange,” she repeated, and went behind the screen, shaking her head.

XLIV.

At his first meeting, Nekhlyudov expected that the moment Katyusha should see him and should hear of his intention of serving her and of his repentance, she would rejoice and be contrite, and would be Katyusha again ; to his terror he saw that there was no Katyusha, but only a Maslova. This surprised and horrified him.

He was particularly surprised to find that Mdslova not only was not ashamed of her situation, — not as a prisoner, for of that she was ashamed, but as a prostitute,— but that she seemed to be satisfied with it, and even to pride herself on it. This could not have been otherwise. Every person, to act, must consider his or her activity to be important and good. Consequently, whatever the position of a man may be, he cannot help but form such a view of human life in general as will make his activity appear important and good.

It is generally supposed that a thief, a murderer, a spy, a prostitute, acknowledging his profession to be bad must be ashamed of it. But the very opposite takes place. People, who by fate and by their own sins — by error — are put in a certain condition, however irregular it may be, form such a view of life in general that their position appears to them good and respectable. In order to support such a view, people instinctively cling to that circle in which the conception which they have formed of life, and of their place in it, is accepted. We are surprised to find this in the case of thieves bragging of their agility, prostitutes of their debauch, murderers of their cruelty. But we are surprised only because the circle, the atmosphere of these people, is limited, and, chiefly, because we live outside that circle ; but does not the same thing take place in the case of rich men bragging of their wealth, that is, of robbery, of generals bragging of their victories, that is, of murder, and of rulers bragging of their power, that is, of violence? We do not see in these people a corrupted conception of life, of good and evil, in order to justify their position, because the circle of people with such corrupt conceptions is larger, and we ourselves belong to it.

Just such a view of life and of her position in the world had been formed by Maslova. She was a prostitute who was condemned to enforced labour, and yet she had formed such a world conception that she was able to justify herself and even pride herself before people on her situation.

This world conception consisted in the conviction that the chief good of men, of all without exception, — of old and young men, of gymnasiasts, generals, uneducated and educated men,— lay in sexual intercourse with attractive women, and for this reason all men, though they pretended to be busy with other affairs, in reality desired only this. She was an attractive woman, who could satisfy or not satisfy their desire, — consequently she was an important and necessary factor. All her past and present life had been a confirmation of the justice of this view.

For ten years, she had everywhere seen, wherever she had been, beginning with Nekhlyudov and the old country judge, and ending with the wardens of the prisons, that all men needed her; she neither saw, nor noticed the men who did not need her. Consequently the whole world presented itself to her as a collection of people swayed by passion, who watched her on all sides, and who with all means, with deception, with violence, purchase, cunning, tried to get possession of her.

Thus Maslova understood life, and, with such a comprehension of the world, she was not only not the least, but even an important, person. Maslova valued this conception of life more than anything else in the world ; nor could she help valuing it, because if she had changed this conception of life she would have lost the importance which this conception gave her among men. And in order not to lose her significance in life, she instinctively clung to the circle of people who looked upon life just as she did. When she noticed that Nekhlyudov wished to take her into another world, she set herself against this, for she foresaw that in the world into which he was enticing her she would have to lose that place in life which gave her confidence and self-respect. For this same reason she warded off every recollection of her first youth and of her first relations with Nekhlyudov. These recollections did not harmonize with her present world conception, and so they had been entirely obliterated from her memory, or, to be more correct, they lay somewhere untouched in her memory, but they were shut up and immured as bees immure the nests of the worms which are likely to destroy their whole labour, so that there should be no getting to them. Therefore, the present Nekhlyudov was for her not the man whom she had once loved with a pure love, but only a rich gentleman who could and must be made use off, and with whom she could have the same relations as with all men.

“No, I could not tell her the main thing,” thought Nekhlyudov, walking with the throng to the entrance. “ I have not told her that I want to marry her. I have not yet told her, but I will,” he thought.

The wardens, standing at the doors, again counted the people twice, as they passed out, lest a superfluous person leave the prison or be left behind. He not only was not offended by the slap on his shoulder, but did not even notice it.

XLV.

Nekhlyûdov wanted to change his external life: to give up his large quarters, send away the servants, and move to a hotel. But Agraféna Petrdvna proved to him that there was no sense in making any change in his manner of life before winter ; no one would hire his quarters in the summer, and in the meantime one had to live and keep the furniture and things somewhere. Thus, all efforts of Nekhlyudov to change his external life (he wanted to arrange things simply, in student fashion) came to naught. Not only was everything left as of old, but in the house began an intensified activity of airing the rooms, of hanging out and beating all kinds of woollen and fur things, in which the janitor and his assistant, and the cook, and even Koméy himself took part. First they brought out and hung up on ropes all kinds of uniforms and strange fur things, which were never used by anybody ; then they carried out the rugs and furniture, and the janitor and his assistant, rolling up their sleeves over their muscular arms, began to beat these in even measure, and an odour of naphthalene was spread through all the rooms.

Walking through the yard and looking out of the window, Nekhlyudov marvelled at the mass of all these things, and how most of them were unquestionably useless. The only use and purpose of these things, so Nekhlyudov thought, was to give a chance for physical exercise to Agraféna Petrovna, Kornéy, the janitor, and his assistant.

“ It is not worth while to change the form of life now, while Maslova’s case has not yet been passed upon,” thought Nekhlyudov. “ Besides, that would be too difficult a matter. Everything will change of itself, when she is released, or transported, in which case I will follow her.”

On the day appointed by lawyer Fandrin, Nekhlyudov drove to his house. Upon entering the magnificent apartments of the lawyer’s own house, with immense plants and wonderful curtains in the windows, and, in general, with those expensive furnishings which testify to money earned without labour, such as is found only with people who have suddenly grown rich, Nekhlyudov met in the waiting-room a number of clients who, as in a physician’s office, were waiting for their turns, sitting gloomily around tables with their illustrated magazines, which were to help them while away their time. The lawyer’s assistant, who was sitting there too, at a high desk, upon recognizing Nekhlyudov, came up to him, greeted him, and told him that he would at once announce him to his chief. But he had barely walked up to the door of the office, when it was opened, and there could be heard the loud, animated conversation of a middle-aged, stocky man, with a red face and thick moustache, in an entirely new attire, and of Fandrin himself. On the faces of both was an expression such as one sees in the countenances of people who have transacted a very profitable, but not very clean business.

” It is your own fault, my friend,” said Fanarin, smiling.

” I should like to find my way into paradise, but my sins won’t let me git there.”

“Very well, very well, I know.”

And both laughed an unnatural laugh.

“ Ah, prince, please come in,” said Fanarin, upon noticing Nekhlyudov, and, nodding once more to the departing merchant, he led Nekhlyudov into his office, which was furnished in severe style. ” Please, have a cigarette,” said the lawyer, seating himself opposite Nekhlyudov and repressing a smile provoked by the success of his previous affair.

” Thank you, I have come to find out about Maslova.”

“ Yes, yes, in a minute. Oh, what rascals these fatpurses are ! ” he said. “ You have seen the fellow ? He has twelve millions, — and yet he says ‘git.’ But if he can pull a twenty-five-rouble bill out of you, he will pull it out with his teeth.”

“He says, ‘git,’ and you say, ‘twenty-five-rouble bill,’” Nekhlyudov thought in the meantime, feeling an uncontrollable disgust for this glib man, who by his tone wished to show him that he was of the same camp with Nekhlyudov, but entirely apart from the rest of the clients who were waiting for him, and from all other people.

“ He has tired me out dreadfully, — he is a worthless chap. I wanted to have a breathing spell,” said the lawyer, as though to justify himself for not talking business. “Well, your affair—I have read it carefully and ‘ have not approved of its contents,’ as Turgénev says ; that is, he was a miserable lawyer, — he has omitted all the causes for annulment.”

“ So what is your decision ? ”

“ In a minute. Tell him,” he turned to the assistant, who had just entered, “ that it will be as I told him. If he can, it is all right ; if not, he does not have to.”

“ But he does not agree to it.”

“ He does not have to,” said the lawyer, and his gay and gracious face suddenly became gloomy and mean.

“ And they say that lawyers take money for nothing,” he said, the previous suavity overspreading his face. “ I saved a bankrupt debtor from an entirely irregular accusation, and now they all crawl to me. But every such case means an immense amount of labour. As some author has said, we leave a piece of our flesh in the inkstand.

” Well, as I said, your case, or the case in which you are interested,” he continued, ” has been miserably conducted ; there are no good causes for annulment ; still we shall try, and here is what I have written.”

He took a sheet of paper covered with writing, and, rapidly swallowing some formal words and pronouncing others with particular emphasis, began to read : “ To the Criminal Department of Cassation, etc., such and such a one, etc., complaining. By the decree of the verdict, etc., of etc., a certain Maslova was declared guilty of having deprived Merchant Smyelkov of his life by means of poison, and by force of art. 1,454 of the Code she has been sentenced to, etc., enforced labour, etc.”

He stopped. In spite of being accustomed to it, he evidently listened with pleasure to his own production. ” This sentence is the result of so many important judicial mistakes and errors,” he continued, with emphasis, ” that it is subject to reversal. In the first place, the reading of the report of the investigation of Smyelkov’s internal organs was, in the very beginning of the trial, interrupted by the presiding judge, — that is one.”

” But the prosecuting attorney asked for the reading of it,” Nekhlyudov said, in surprise.

” Makes no difference. The defence might have had cause to ask for it.”

” But there was no earthly use in it.”

“Still, this is a cause. Further: In the second place, Maslova’s counsel,” he continued to read, ” was interrupted during his speech by the presiding judge, just as he, desiring to characterize Maslova’s personality, was touching on the internal causes of her fall, on the ground that the counsel’s words were not relevant to the case, whereas in criminal cases, as has repeatedly been passed upon by the Senate, the elucidation of the defendant’s character and of his moral traits in general are of prime importance, if for nothing else than the correct determination of the question of imputation, — that is two,” he said, glancing at Nekhlyudov.

” But he spoke so wretchedly that it was impossible to understand him,” said Nekhlyudov, even more astonished than before.

“The fellow is stupid, and, of course, could not say anything sensible,” Fanarin said, laughing, “ but still it is a cause. Well, next : In the third place, in his final charge, the presiding judge, contrary to the categorical demand of par. 1, art. 801 of the Code of Crim, dur., did not explain to the jury of what juridical elements the concept of culpability is composed, and did not tell them that they had the right, in assuming as proven the fact that Maslova had administered the poison to Smyelkov, not to ascribe to her any guilt in the act, if intent of murder was absent, and thus to find her guilty, not of the criminal intent, but of the act, as the result of carelessness, from the consequences of which, contrary to Maslova’s intent, ensued the merchant’s death. This is the main thing.”

“ But we ought to have understood that ourselves. It was our error.”

” And, finally, in the fourth place,” continued the lawyer, “the question of Maslova’s guilt was given to the jury in a form which contained a palpable contradiction. Mdslova was accused of premeditated murder of Smyelkdv for purely selfish purposes, which appeared as the only motive for the murder ; whereas the jury in their answer rejected the purpose of robbery and Mdslova’s participation in the theft of the valuables,—from which it is manifest that it was their intention to refute the defendant’s premeditation in the murder, and only by misunderstanding, caused by the incomplete wording in the charge of the presiding judge, did they not express it iu proper form in their answer, and therefore such an answer of the jury unconditionally required the application of arts. 816 and 808 of the Code of Crim, dur., that is, the explanation by the presiding judge of the error which had been committed, and their return for a new consultation in regard to the question of defendant’s guilt,” read Fandrin.

” Why, then, did the presiding judge not do so?”

” I should myself like to know why,” said Fanarin, laughing.

” Then, you think, the Senate will rectify the error ? “

” That depends upon who will be in the chair at the given moment. So here it is. Further I say: Such a verdict did not give the court any right,” he continued, in a rapid tone, ” to subject Maslova to criminal punishment, and the application in her case of par. 3, art. 771 of the Code of Crim. Jur. forms a distinct and important violation of the fundamental principles of our criminal procedure. On the basis of the facts herein described I have the honour of asking, etc., to set aside, in accordance with arts. 909, 910, par. 2 of 912, and 928 of the Code of Crim. Jur. etc., and to transfer the case into another division of the same court for retrial. — So, you see, everythin” has been done that can be done. But I shall be frank with you, — therq is little probability of any success. However, everything depends on the composition of the Department of the Senate. If you have any influence, make a personal appeal.”

” I know some people there.”

” Do it at once, for they will soon leave to cure their piles, and then you will have to wait three months. In case of a failure, there is still left an appeal to his Majesty. This also depends on wirepulling. In that case I am ready to serve you, that is, not in the wirepulling, but in composing the petition.”

” I thank you. And your fee — “

“ My assistant will give you a clean copy of the appeal, and he will tell you.”

“ I wanted to ask you another thing. The prosecuting attorney has given me a permit to see that person in prison ; but there 1 was told that 1 should need a special permission from the governor, if 1 wished to sec her at any other than the regular time and place. Is that necessary ?”

” Yes, I think so. But now the governor is not here, and the vice-governor is performing his duties. He is such an all-around fool that you will scarcely get anything out of him.”

“ Is it Maslennikov ? “

« Yes.”

” I know him,” said Nekhlyudov, rising, in order to leave.

Just then there glided into the room, with a swift motion, a fearfully homely, snub-nosed, bony, sallow woman,— the lawyer’s wife, who apparently was not in the least abashed by her ugliness. She was clad in a most original manner, — she was rigged up in something velvety, and silky, and bright yellow, and green, and her thin hair was all puffed up ; she victoriously sailed into the waiting-room, accompanied by a lank, smiling man with an earthen hue on his face, in a coat with silk lapels, and a white tie. It was an author, whom Nekhlyudov knew by sight.

” Anatdl,” she proclaimed, opening the door. “ Come to my apartment. Semén Ivanovich has promised to read his poem, and you must by all means read about Garshin.”

” Please, prince, — I know you and consider an introduction superfluous, — come to our literary matinée ! It will be very interesting. Anatol reads beautifully.”

” You see how many different things I have to do,” said Anatol, waving his hands, smiling, and pointing to his wife, meaning to say that it was impossible to withstand such an enchantress.

Nekhlyudov thanked the lawyer’s wife, with a sad and stern expression and with the greatest civility, for the honour of the invitation, but excused himself for lack of time, and went into the waiting-room.

” How finical,” the lawyer’s wife said of him, when he left.

In the waiting-room, the assistant handed Nekhlyudov the prepared petition, and, to the question about the fee, he said that Anatoli Petrovich had put it at one thousand roubles, adding that Anatoli Petrdvich did not generally take such cases, but he had done so to accommodate him.

” Who must sign the petition ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” The defendant herself may ; but if her signature is difficult to get, Anatoli Petrdvich will do so, after getting her power of attorney.”

” I will go down myself and get her signature,” said Nekhlyudov, happy to have a chance of seeing her before the appointed day.

XLVI.

At the usual time the whistles of the wardens were sounded along the corridors ; clanking the iron, the doors of the corridors and cells were opened ; there was a plashing of bare feet and of the heels of the prison shoes ; the privy-cleaners passed along the corridors, filling the air with a nauseating stench ; the prisoners washed and dressed themselves, and came out into the corridors for the roll-call, after wliich they went for the boiling water to make tea with.

During the tea, animated conversations were held in all the cells of the prison in regard to the two prisoners who on that day were to be flogged with switches. One of these was an intelligent young man, clerk Vasilev, who had killed his sweetheart in a fit of jealousy. The fellow prisoners of Iris cell liked him for his jollity, generosity, and firmness in respect to the authorities. He knew the laws and demanded their execution. For this the prison officials did not like him. Three weeks before, a warden had struck a privy-cleaner for having spilled the liquid on his new uniform. Vasilev took the privy-cleaner’s part, saying that there was no law which permitted him to strike a prisoner. ” I will show you a law,” said the warden, and called Vasilev names. Vasilev paid him back in the same coin. The warden wanted to strike him, but Vasilev caught hold of his hands, holding them thus for about three minutes, when he turned him around and kicked him out. The warden entered a complaint, and the superintendent ordered Vasilev to be placed in a career.

The careers were a series of dark store-rooms, which were locked from the outside by iron bars. In the dark, cold career there was neither a bed, nor table, nor chair, so that the person confined there had to sit or lie on the dirty floor, where he was overrun by rats, of which there were a large number, which were so bold that it was impossible in the darkness to save the bread. They ate it out of the hands of the prisoners, and even attacked them, the moment they ceased to stir. Vasilev said that he would not go to the career, because he was not guilty of anything. He was taken there by force. He offered resistance, and two prisoners helped him to get away from the wardens. The wardens came together, and among them Petrov, famous for his strength. The prisoners were subdued and placed in the careers. A report was immediately made to the governor that something like a riot had taken place. A reply was received, in which it was decreed that the two instigators, Vasilev and vagabond Nepdmnyashchi, should get thirty blows with switches.

The castigation was to be administered in the women’s visiting-room. All the inmates of the prison had known of this since the previous evening, and the impending castigation formed the subject of animated discussions.

Korableva, Beauty, Fedosya, and Maslova were sitting in their corner, and all of them, red in their faces and agitated, having drunk brandy, which now was continually imbibed by Maslova, and to which she liberally treated her companions, were drinking tea and discussing the same matter.

“He has not been riotous,” said Korabléva of Vasilev, biting off tiny pieces of sugar with all her sound teeth. ” He only took his comrade’s part, because it is against the law now to strike a person.”

” They say he is a good fellow,” added Fedosya, with her long braids uncovered, who was sitting on a piece of wood near the bench on which the teapot was standing.

” You ought to tell him, Mikhaylovna,” the flagwoman addressed Maslova, meaning Nekhlyudov by “ him.”

“ I will tell him. He will do anything for me,” replied Maslova, smiling and tossing her head.

“ But it will be a while before he conies, and they say they have just gone for them,” said Fedosya. ” It is terrible,” she added, with a sigh.

” I once saw them flogging a peasant in the office of the township. Father-in-law had sent me to the village elder ; when I arrived there, behold — ” and the flagwoman began a long story.

The flagwoman’s story was interrupted by the sound of voices and steps in the upper corridor.

The women grew quiet and listened.

” They have dragged him away, the devils,” said Beauty. ” They will give him a terrible flogging, for the wardens are dreadfully angry at him; he gives them no rest.”

Everything quieted down up-stairs, and the flagwoman ended her story, how she had been frightened in the township office, as they were flogging a peasant in the barn, and how all her entrails had felt like leaping out. Beauty then told how Shcheglov had been flogged with whips, and how he had not uttered a sound. Then Fedosya took the tea away, and Korabléva and the flag woman began to sew, while Maslova sat up on the bench, embracing her knees, and pining away from ennui. She was on the point of lying down to take a nap, when the matron called her to the office to see a visitor.

” Do tell him about us,” said old woman Menshov to her, while Mrislova was arranging her kerchief before the mirror, of which half the quicksilver was worn off. “ We did not commit the arson, but he himself, the scoundrel, and the labourer saw it ; he would not kill a soul. Tell him to call out Mi tri. Mitri will make it as plain to him as if it were in the palm of his hand. Here we are locked up, whereas we know nothing about it, while he, the scoundrel, is disporting with another man’s wife, and staying all the time in an inn.”

” This is against the law,” Korabléva confirmed her.

” I will tell him, I certainly will,” replied Maslova. ” Let me have a drink to brace me up,” she added, winking with one eye. Korabléva filled half a cup for her. Maslova drained it, wiped her lips, and in the happiest frame of mind, repeating the words, ” To brace me up,” shaking her head, and smiling, followed the matron into the corridor.

XLVII.

NekhlyÛdov had long been waiting for her in the vestibule. Upon arriving at the prison, he rang the bell at the entrance door, and handed the warden of the day the prosecuting attorney’s permit.

” Whom do you want to see ? ”

“ Prisoner Maslova.”

« You can’t now ; the superintendent is busy.”

“Is he in the office?” asked Nekhlyudov.

” No, here in the visitors’ room,” the warden replied with embarrassment, as Nekhlyudov thought.

” Is to-day reception-day ? ”

“ No, there is some special business,” he said.

” How, then, can I see him ? ”

« When he comes out, you may speak to him. Wait awhile.”

Just then a sergeant, in sparkling galloons and with a beaming, shining face and a moustache saturated with tobacco smoke, came in through a side door and sternly addressed the warden.

” Why did you let him in here ? To the office — ”

“ I was told that the superintendent was here,” Nekhlyudov said, wondering at the unrest which was perceptible in the sergeant, too.

Just then the inner door was opened, and perspiring, excited Petrdv came in.

“ He will remember this,” he said, turning to the sergeant. The sergeant indicated Nekhlyudov by a glance, and Petrdv grew silent, frowned, and passed out through the back door.

« Who will remember ? Why are they all so embarrassed? Why did the sergeant make such a sign to him ? ” thought Nekhlyudov.

« You cannot wait here. Please, come to the office,” the sergeant again addressed Nekhlyudov, and Nekhlyudov was about to go, when the superintendent entered through the back door, even more embarrassed than his subordinates. He was sighing all the time. Upon noticing Nekhlyudov, he turned to the warden.

“ Fedotov, bring Maslova from the fifth of the women to the office,” he said.

” Please, follow me,” he said to Nekhlyudov. They went over a steep staircase to a small room with one window, with a writing-desk, and a few chairs. The superintendent sat down. “ Hard, hard duties,” he said, turning to Nekhlyudov, and taking out a fat cigarette.

“ You are evidently tired,” said Nekhlyudov.

” I am tired of this whole service, — the duties are very hard. You try to alleviate their lot, and it turns out worse. All I am thinking of is how to get away. Hard, hard duties.”

Nekhlyudov did not know what that difficulty of the superintendent’s was, but on that day he noticed in him a peculiar, gloomy, and hopeless mood, which evoked his sympathy.

” Yes, I suppose it is very hard,” he said. ” But why do you execute this duty ? ”

” I have no other means, and I have a family.”

“ But if it is hard for you — ”

« Still, I must tell you, I am doing some good, so far as in my power lies ; I alleviate wherever I can. Many a man would do differently in my place. It is not an easy matter to take care of two thousand people, and such people ! One must know how to treat them. I feel like pitying them. And yet I dare not be too indulgent.” The superintendent told of a recent brawl between the prisoners, which had ended in murder.

His story was interrupted by the arrival of Maslova, preceded by a warden.

Nekhlyudov saw her in the door, before she noticed the superintendent. Her face was red. She walked briskly back of the warden, and kept smiling and shaking her head. Upon observing the superintendent, she glanced at him with a frightened expression, but immediately regained her composure, and boldly and cheerfully addressed Nekhlyudov.

” Good morning,” she said, in a singsong voice, and smiling ; she shook his hand firmly, not as at the previous meeting.

” I have brought you a petition to sign,” said Nekhlyudov, somewhat surprised at the bolder manner with which she now met him. ” The lawyer has written this petition, and now you have to sign it before it is sent to St. Petersburg.”

” Very well, I shall sign it. One may do anything,” she said, blinking with one eye, and smiling.

Nekhlyudov drew the folded sheet out of his pocket and went up to the table.

” May she sign it here? ” Nekhlyudov asked the superintendent.

” Gome here and sit down,” said the superintendent. ” Here is a pen. Gan you write? ”

” I once knew how,” she said, and, smiling and adjusting her skirt and the sleeve of her bodice, sat down at the table, awkwardly took up the pen with her small, energetic hand, and, laughing, glanced at Nekhlyudov.

He showed her where and what to write. Carefully dipping and shaking off the pen, she signed her name.

” Is tins all ? ” she asked, glancing now at Nekhlyudov, now at the superintendent, and placing the pen now on the inkstand and now on some papers.

“I have something to tell you,” said Nekhlyudov, taking the pen out of her hand.

” Very well, tell it,” she said, suddenly becoming serious, as though meditating about something, or wanting to fall asleep.

The superintendent arose and went out, and Nekhlyudov was left alone with her.

XL VIII.

The warden who had brought Maslova sat down on the windowsill, at a distance from the table. For Nekhlyudov the decisive moment had arrived. lie was continually reproaching himself for not having told her the main thing at their first meeting, namely, that he wished to marry her, and so he decided to tell her now. She was sitting at one side of the table, and Nekhlyudov sat down opposite her, on the other side. The room was light, and Nekhlyudov for the first time clearly saw her face, close to him ; he saw the wrinkles near her eyes and lips and swollen eyelids, and he felt even more pity for her than before.

Leaning over the table, so as not to be heard by the warden, a man of Jewish type, with grayish sidewhiskers, who was sitting at the window, — the only one in the room, — he said :

“ If the petition does not bear fruit, we shall appeal to his Majesty. We shall do all that can be done.”

“ The main thing would be to have a good lawyer — ” she interrupted him. ” My counsel was an all-around fool. He did nothing but make me compliments,” she said, smiling. “If they had known then that 1 was acquainted with you, things would have gone differently. But as things are, everybody thinks that I am a thief.”

“How strange she is to-day,” thought Nekhlyudov, and was on the point of saying something when she began to speak again.

“ This is what I have to say. There is an old woman confined with us, and all, you know, are marvelling at

her. Such a hue old woman, and yet she is imprisoned for nothing, and so is her son, and all know that they are not guilty ; they are accused of incendiarism. She heard, you know, that I am acquainted with you,” said Maslova, turning her head and looking at him, ” so she said, * Tell him about it, that he may call out my son, who will tell him the fact.’ Menshov is their name. Well, will you do it ? You know, she is such a charming old woman : anybody can see that she is innocent. My dear, do something for them,” she said, glancing at him, lowering her eyes, and smiling.

” Very well, I shall find out and do what I can,” said Nekhlyudov, wondering ever more at her ease. ” But I want to speak to you about my affair. Do you remember what I told you the last time ? ” he said.

« You said many things. What did you say then ? ” she said, smiling all the time, and turning her head now to one side and now to another.

« I said that I came to ask your forgiveness,” he said.

” What is the use all the time asking to be forgiven ? What good will that do? You had better — ”

« That I want to atone for my guilt,” continued Nekhlyudov, “ and to atone not in words, but in deeds. I have decided to marry you — ”

Her face suddenly expressed affright. Her squinting eyes stood motionless and gazed at him.

“ What do you want that for? ” she said, with a scowl.

” I feel that I ought to do so before God.”

” What God have you found there ? You are not talking the right thing. God? What God? You ought to have thought of God then — ” she said, and, opening her mouth, stopped.

Nekhlyudov only now smelled her strong breath of liquor, and understood the cause of her agitation.

“ Calm yourself,” he said.

” There is nothing to calm myself about ; you think that I am drunk. So I am, but I know what I am saying ! ” she spoke rapidly, with a purple blush. “ I am a convict, a whore, but you are a gentleman, a prince, and you have no business soiling yourself with me. Go to your princesses; my price is a red bank-note.”

” However cruelly you may speak, you cannot say all that I feel,” Nekhlyudov said, softly, all in a tremble. ” You cannot imagine to what extent I feel my guilt toward you ! ”

“Feel my guilt — “she mocked him, with malice. ” Then you did not feel, but stuck one hundred roubles in my bosom. That is your price — ”

” I know, I know, but what is to be done now ? ” said Nekhlyudov. ” I have made up my mind that I will not leave you. I will do what I have told you I would.”

“ And I say you will not do so,” she cried, laughing out loud.

” Katyusha ! ” he began, touching her hand.

” Go away from me. I am a convict, and you are a prince, and you have no business here,” she exclaimed, all transformed by her anger, and pulling her hand away from him.

” You want to save yourself through me,” she continued, hastening to utter everything that was rising in her soul. ” You have enjoyed me in this world, and you want to get your salvation through me in the world to come ! I loathe you, and your glasses, and your fat, accursed mug. Go away, go away ! ” she cried, springing to her feet with an energetic motion.

The warden walked up to them.

” Don’t make such a scandal. It will not do — ”

” Leave her alone, if you please,” said Nekhlyudov.

” I just wanted her not to forget herself,” said the warden.

” No, just wait awhile, if you please,” said Nekhlyudov.

The warden walked back to the window.

Maslova sat down again, lowering her eyes and tightly clasping her small hands with their fingers crossed.

Nekhlyudov was standing over her, not knowing what to do.

” You do not believe me,” he said.

” That you will marry me ? That will never happen. I will hang myself rather than marry you ! So there you have it.”

” Still I will serve you.”

” That is your affair. Only I do not need anything from you. I am telling you the truth,” she said.

” Why did I not die then ? ” she added, bursting out into pitiful tears.

Nekhlyudov could not speak, for her tears were communicated to him.

She raised her head, looked at him, as though in surprise, and began with her kerchief to dry the tears that were coursing down her cheeks.

The warden now came up and reminded them that the time had expired.

Maslova got up.

” You are excited now. If 1 can, I shall be here tomorrow. In the meantime think it over,” said Nekhlyudov.

She did not reply, and, without looking at him, went out with the warden.

” Well, girl, you will have a fine time now,” Karabléva said to Maslova, when she returned to the cell. ” He is evidently dreadfully stuck on you. Be on the lookout while he comes to see you. He will release you. Rich people can do everything.”

” That’s so,” said the flagwoman, in her singsong voice. ” Let a poor man marry, and-the night is too short ; but a rich man, — let him make up his mind for anything, and everything will happen as he wishes. My darling, we once had such a respectable gentleman who — ”

” Well, did you speak to him about my affair ? ” the old woman asked.

Maslova did not reply to her companions, but lay down on the bench and, fixing her squinting eyes upon the corner, lay thus until evening. An agonizing work was going on within her. That which Nekhlyudov had told her brought her back to the world, in which she had suffered, and which she had left, without understanding it, and hating it. She now lost the oblivion in which she had been living, and yet it was too painful to live with a clear memory of what had happened.

XLIX.

” So this it is, this it is,” thought Nekhlyudov, upon coming away from the jail, and now for the first time grasping his whole guilt. If he had not tried to atone, to expiate his deed, he would never have felt the extent of Iris crime; moreover, she would not have become conscious of the whole wrong which was done her. Only now everything had come to the surface, in all its terror. He now saw for the first time what it was he had done with the soul of that woman, and she saw and comprehended what had been done to her. Before this, Nekhlyudov had been playing with his sentiment of self-adulation and of repentance, and now he simply felt terribly. To cast her off, that, he felt, he never could do, and yet he could not imagine what would come of his relations with her.

At the entrance, Nekhlyudov was approached by a warden, with crosses and decorations, who, with a disagreeable and insinuating face and in a mysterious manner, handed him a note.

” Here is a note to your Serenity from a person — ” he said, giving Nekhlyudov an envelope.

” What person ? “

” Read it, and you will see. A political prisoner. I am a warden of that division, — so she asked me to give it to you. Although this is not permitted, yet humanity — ” the warden said, in an unnatural voice.

Nekhlyudov was amazed to see a warden of the political division handing him a note, in the prison itself, almost in view of everybody. He did not yet know that this warden was also a spy, but he took the note and read it as he came out of the jail. The note was written with a pencil, in a bold hand, in reformed orthography, and ran as follows :

” Having learned that you are visiting the prison in interest of a criminal prisoner, I wanted to meet you. Ask for an interview with me. You will get the permission, and I will tell you many important things, both for your protégée and for our group. Ever grateful

“Vyéra Bogodukhovski.”

Vyéra Bogodukhovski had been a teacher in the wildernesses of the Government of Novgorod, whither Nekhlyudov had gone to hunt with some comrades of his. This teacher had turned to him with the request to give her money with which to attend the higher courses. Nekhlyudov had given her the money and had forgotten all about it. Now it turned out that this lady was a political criminal, and in prison, where, no doubt, she had heard of his affair, and now proposed her services to him.

How easy and simple everything had been then. And how hard and complicated everything was now. Nekhlyudov vividly and with pleasure thought of that time and of his acquaintance with Vyéra Bogodukhovski. That happened before the Butter-week, in the wilderness, about sixty versts from the nearest railroad. The chase had been successful ; they had killed two bears, and were at dinner, before their departure, when the proprietor of the cabin in which they were stopping came in and announced that the deacon’s daughter had come to see Prince Nekhlyudov. ” Is she pretty ? ” somebody asked. “ Please, don’t,” said Nekhlyudov, looking serious ; he rose from table, wiped Iris mouth, and wondering what the deacon’s daughter could wish of him, went into the landlord’s room.

The girl was there. She wore a felt hat and a fur coat ; she was venous, and had a thin, homely face, but her eyes, with the brows arching upwards, were beautiful.

” Vyéra Efrémovua, speak with him,” said the old hostess ; ” this is the prince. I shall go out.”

” What can I do for you ? ” said Nekhlyiidov.

“I — I — You see, you are rich, you squander money on trifles, on the chase, I know,” began the girl, dreadfully embarrassed, ” and 1 want only one thing, — I want to be useful to people, and I can’t because I know nothing.”

Her eyes were sincere and kindly, and the whole expression, both of her determination and timidity, was so pathetic that Nekhlyiidov, as sometimes happened with him, at once put himself in her place, and he understood and pitied her.

” What can I do for you ? “

” I am a teacher, but should like to attend the higher courses. They won’t let me. Not exactly they won’t let me, but they have no means. Oive me the necessary money, and 1 will pay you back when I am through with my studies. I have been thinking that rich people bait bears and give peasants to drink, — and that all that is bad. Why could they not do some good, too? All I need is eighty roubles. And if you do not wish to do me the favour, well and good,” she said, angrily.

” On the contrary, I am very much obliged to you for giving me this opportunity — I shall bring it to you in a minute,” said Nekhlyiidov.

He went into the vestibule, and there met his companion, who had heard the whole conversation. Without replying to the jokes of his comrades, he took the money out of his pouch, and brought it out to her.

” Please, please, don’t thank me for it. It is I who must be thankful.”

It now gave Nekhlyiidov pleasure to think of all that ; it gave him pleasure to think how he came very near quarrelling with an oflicer who wanted to make a bad joke about it; and how another comrade defended him; and how, on account of that, he became a close friend of his ; and how the whole chase had been successful and happy ; and how good he felt as they were returning in the night to the railroad station. The procession of two-horse sleighs moved in single file, noiselessly trotting along the narrow road through the forest, with its tall trees here and its bushes there, and its firs shrouded in thick layers of snow. Somebody, flashing a red fire in the darkness, lighted a fragrant cigarette. Osip, the bear driver, ran from sleigh to sleigh, knee-deep in the snow, straightening things out, and telling about the elks that now walked over the deep snow, gnawing at the aspen bark, and about the bears that now lay in their hidden lairs, exhaling their warm breath through the air-holes. Nekhlyiidov thought of all that, and, above all else, of the blissful consciousness of his health and strength and a life free from cares. His lungs, expanding against the fur coat, inhaled the frosty air ; upon his face dropped the snowflakes from the branches which were touched by the horses’ arches ; and on his soul there were no cares, no regrets, no fear, no desires. How good it all was ! And now ? 0 Lord, how painful and oppressive !

Obviously Vyéra Efrémovna was a revolutionist, and now confined in prison for revolutionist affairs. He ought to see her, especially since she promised to advise him how to improve Maslova’s situation.

L.

Upon awakening the next morning, Nekhlyudov recalled everything that had happened the day before, and he was horrified.

Still, notwithstanding his terror, he decided, more firmly than ever before, to continue the work which he had begun.

With this feeling of the consciousness of his duty, he left the house, and rode to Maslénnikov, to ask for the permission to visit in the jail, not only Maslova, but also the old woman Menshov and her son, for whom Maslova had interceded. He also wished to be permitted to see Vyéra Bogodukhovski, who might be useful to Maslova.

Nekhlyudov used to know Maslénnikov in the army. Maslennikov was then the regiment’s treasurer. He was a very good-hearted, most obedient officer, who knew nothing and wanted to know nothing but the regiment and the imperial family. Now Nekhlyudov found him as an administrator, who had exchanged the regiment for a Government and its office. He was married to a rich and vivacious woman, who compelled him to leave his military service for a civil appointment.

She made fun of him and petted him like a docile animal. Nekhlyudov had once been at their house the winter before, but he found the couple so uninteresting that he never called again.

Maslennikov beamed with joy when he saw Nekhlyudov. He had the same fat, red face, and the same corpulence, and the same gorgeous attire that distinguished him in the army. There it had been an ever clean uniform, which fitted over his shoulders and breast according to the latest demands of fashion, or a fatigue coat. Here it was a civil officer’s dress, of the latest fashion, which fitted just as snugly over his well-fed body and displayed a broad chest. He was clad in his vice-uniform. Notwithstanding the disparity of their years (Masléuni-kov was about forty), they spoke ” thou ” to each other.

“Well, I am glad you have come. Let us go to my wife. I have just ten minutes free before the meeting. My chief is away, and so I rule the Government,” he said with a pleasure which he could not conceal.

” I have come on business to you.”

“What is it?” Maslénnikov said, as though on his guard, in a frightened and somewhat severe tone.

“ In the jail there is a person in whom I am very much interested ” (at the word “ jail ” Maslénnikov’s face looked sterner still), “ and I should like to meet that person, not in the general reception-room, but in the office, and not only on stated days, but oftener. I was told that this depended on you.”

“ Of course, mon cher, I am ready to do anything I can for you,” said Maslennikov, touching his knees with both hands, as though to mollify his majesty. “ I can do that, but, you see, I am caliph only for an hour.”

“ So you will give me a permit to see her ? ”

” It is a woman ? “

“ Yes.”

” What is she there for ? ”

“ For poisoning. But she is irregularly condemned.”

“ So there you have a just court ; ils rien font point d’autres,” he said, for some reason in French. “I know you do not agree with me, but what is to be done ? e’est mon opinion lien arrêtée” he added, expressing an opinion which he had for a year been reading in various forms in the retrograde conservative papers. “ I know you are a liberal”

” I do not know whether I am a liberal or anything else,” Nekhlyudov said, smiling ; he was always surprised to find that he was supposed to belong to some party and to be called a liberal because, in judging a man, he used to say that all are equal before the law, that people ought not to be tortured and flogged, especially if they had not been tried. ” I do not know whether I am a liberal or not, but I am sure that the courts we now have, whatever their faults may be, are better than those we used to have.”

” Who is your lawyer ? “

” I have applied to Fanarin.”

” Ah, Fanarin ! ” said Maslennikov, frowning, recalling how, the year before, that Fandrin had examined him as a witness at court, and how for half an hour he had with the greatest politeness subjected him to ridicule.

” I should advise you not to have anything to do with him. Fandrin est un homme taré.”

” 1 have also another request to make of you,” Nekhlyudov said, without answering him. ” 1 used to know a girl, a school-teacher, — she is a very pitiable creature, and she also is now in jail and wants to see me. Can you give me a permit to see her, too ? “

Maslénnikov bent his head a little sidewise and fell to musing.

” Is she a political ? ”

” So I was told.”

” You see, interviews with political prisoners are allowed only to relatives, but I will give you a general permit. Je sais que vous ri abuserez pas —

” What is her name? Your protégée — Bogodùkhov-ski ? Elle est jolie ? “

” Hideuse.”

Maslénnikov shook his head in disapproval, went up to the table, and upon a sheet of paper with a printed heading wrote in a bold hand : ” The bearer of this, Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, is herewith permitted to see in the prison office the inmate of the castle Burgess Maslova, and also Assistant Surgeon Bogodukhovski,” he added, and finished with a sweeping flourish.

” You will see what order they keep there. It is very difficult to keep order there, because everything is crowded, especially with transport convicts ; but I watch the whole business carefully, and I love it. You will find them all in good condition, and they are satisfied. One must know how to treat them. The other day there was an unpleasant affair, — a case of disobedience. Anybody else would have at once declared it to be a conspiracy, and would have made it hard for many. But with us everything passed quite well. One must show, on the one hand, great care, and on the other, a firm hand,” he said, compressing his white, plump hand, which stuck out from the white, stiff shirt-sleeve with its gold cuff-button, and displaying a turquoise ring, ” care and a firm hand.”

” I don’t know about that,” said Nekhlyudov. ” I was there twice, and I felt dreadfully oppressed.”

“Do you know what? You ought to meet Countess Passek,” continued talkative Maslénnikov; ” she has devoted herself entirely to this matter. Elle fait beaucoup de bien. Thanks to her, and, perhaps, to me, 1 may say so without false modesty, it was possible to change everything, and to change it in such a way that the terrible things that were there before have been removed, and that the prisoners are quite comfortable there. You will see for yourself. But here is Fanàrin, I do not know him personally, and in my public position our paths diverge, — he is positively a bad man, and he takes the liberty of saying such things in court, such things — ”

” I thank you,” said Nekhlyudov, taking the paper ; without listening to the end of what he had to say, he bade his former comrade goodbye.

” Won’t you go to see my wife ? “

” No, you must pardon me, but I am busy now.”

” How is that ? She will not forgive me,” said Maslénnikov, accompanying his former companion as far as the first landing of the staircase, just as he did with people not of the first, but of the second importance, such as he considered Nekhlyudov to be. ” Do go in for a minute ’ ”

But Nekhlyudov remained firm, and just as the lackey and porter rushed up to Nekhlyudov and, handing him his overcoat and cane, opened for him the door, in front of which stood a policeman, he said that he could not under any circumstances just now.

” Well, then, come on Thursday, if you please. That is her reception-day. I shall tell her you are coming,” Maslennikov cried down the stairs to him.

LI.

Having on that day gone from Maslénnikov straight to the prison, Nekhlyudov directed his steps to the familiar apartments of the superintendent. Again, as before, the sounds of the miserable piano were heard ; now it was not the rhapsody that was being played, but Clementi’s études, again with unusual power, distinctness, and rapidity. The chambermaid with the bandaged eye, who opened the door, said that the captain was at home, and led Nekhlyudov into a small drawing-room, with a divan, a table, and a large lamp with a rose-coloured paper shade burnt on one side, which was standing on a woollen embroidered napkin. The superintendent, with a careworn, gloomy face, entered the room.

” What is it, if you please ? ” he said, buttoning the middle button of his uniform.

” I saw the vice-governor, and here is the permit,” said Nekhlyudov, handing him the paper. ” I should like to see Maslova.”

” Markova ? ” asked the superintendent, not being able to hear well through the sounds of the music.

“ Maslova.”

” Oh, yes ! Oh, yes ! “

The superintendent arose and walked up to the door, from which were heard Clementi’s roulades.

” Marusya, stop for just a minute,” he said, in a voice which showed that the music was the cross of his life, ” for I can’t hear a word.”

The piano was silenced ; dissatisfied steps were heard, and somebody peeped through the door.

The superintendent seemed to feel a relief from the cessation of that music: he lighted a cigarette of weak tobacco, and offered one to Nekhlyudov, who declined it.

” So, as I said, I should like to see Maslova.”

” That you may,” said the superintendent.

“ What are you doing there ? ” he addressed a little girl of five or six years of age, who had entered the room and was walking toward her father, turning all the time in such a way as not to take her eyes off Nekhlyudov. ” If you don’t look out, you will fall,” said the superintendent, smiling as he saw the child, who was not looking ahead of her, catch her foot in the rug, and run to him.

” If I may, I should like to go there.”

” It is not convenient to see Mdslova to-day,” said the superintendent.

“ Why ? “

” It is your own fault,” said the superintendent, with a slight smile. ” Prince, don’t give her any money. If you wish, give it to me for her. Everything will belong to her. But you, no doubt, gave her money yesterday, and she got liquor, — it is impossible to root out this evil, — and she has been so drunk to-day that she is in a riotous mood.”

“ Is it possible ? ”

” Truly. I had even to use severe measures, and to transfer her to another cell. She is otherwise a peaceful woman, but don’t give her any money. They are such a lot — ”

Nekhlyudov vividly recalled yesterday’s scene, and be again felt terrible.

“And may I see Vyéra Bogodukhov ski, a political prisoner ? ” asked Nekhlyudov, after a moment’s silence.

” Yes, you may,” said the superintendent, embracing the little girl, who was all the time watching Nekhlyudov ; he rose, and, gently pushing the girl aside, went into the antechamber.

The superintendent had not yet succeeded in putting on his overcoat, which was handed to him by the servant with the bandaged eye, and getting out of the door, when Clementi’s clear-cut roulades began to ripple once more.

“ She was in the conservatory, but there were disorders there. She has great talent,” said the superintendent, descending the staircase. “ She wants to appear in concerts.”

The superintendent and Nekhlyudov walked over to the jail. The gate immediately opened at the approach of the superintendent. The wardens, saluting him by putting their hands to their visors, followed him with their eyes. Four men, with heads halfshaven, and carrying some vats with something or other, met them in the anteroom, and they all pressed against the wall when they saw him. One especially crouched and scowled, his black eyes sparkling.

” Of course the talent has to be developed and must not be buried ; but in a small house it is pretty hard,” the superintendent continued the conversation, not paying the slightest attention to the prisoners; dragging along his weary legs, he passed, accompanied by Nekhlyudov, into the assembly-room.

” Who is it you wish to see ? “

” Vyéra Bogodukhovski.”

” Is she in the tower ? You will have to wait a little,” he turned to Nekhlyudov.

“And can I not in the meantime see the prisoners Menshdv, — mother and son, accused of arson ? “

“That is from cell twenty-one. Very well, I shall have them come out.”

“ May I not see Menshdv in his cell ? ”

“ You will be more comfortable in the assembly-room.”

« No, it would interest me more there.”

” What interest can you find there ? ”

Just then the dandyish assistant came out of the side door.

” Please, take the prince to Menshov’s cell. Cell twenty-one,” the superintendent said to his assistant, ” and then I shall have her out in the office ; I shall have her out. What is her name ? ”

” Vyéra Bogodukhovski,” said Nekhlyudov.

The assistant superintendent was a blond young officer, with blackened moustache, who was spreading around him an atmosphere of eau de Cologne.

” Please, follow me,” he turned to Nekhlyudov with a pleasant smile. ” Are you interested in our establishment ? “

” Yes ; and I am also interested in that man, who, so I was told, is quite innocent.”

The assistant shrugged his shoulders.

“ Yes, such things happen,” he answered calmly, politely letting the visitor pass before him into the stinking corridor. ” Often they lie. If you please ! “

The doors of some cells were open, and a few prisoners were in the corridor. Barely nodding to the wardens and looking askance at the prisoners, who hugged the wall and went into their cells, or stopped at the door and, holding their arms down their legs, in soldier fashion followed the officer with their eyes, the assistant took Nekhlyudov through one corridor, then to another on the left, which was barred by an iron door.

This corridor was darker and more malodorous than the first. Padlocked doors shut off this corridor at both ends. In these doors there were little loopholes, called ” eyelets,” about an inch in diameter. There was no one in the corridor but an old warden with a sad, wrinkled face.

” Where is Menshov ? ” the assistant asked the warden.

” The eighth on the left.”

” And are these occupied ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” They are all occupied but one.”

LI I.

” May I look in ?” asked Nekhlyudov.

” If you please,” the assistant said, with a pleasant smile, and turned to the warden to ask him something.

Nekhlyudov looked into one loophole: a tall young man, with a small black beard, wearing nothing but his underclothes, was rapidly walking up and down ; upon hearing a rustling sound at the door, he looked up, frowned, and proceeded to walk.

Nekhlyudov peeped into another loophole. IIis eye met another large frightened eye, which was looking through the hole, and he hurriedly stepped aside. Upon looking through a third loophole, he saw a man of diminutive size, with his head covered by a cloak, all rolled up in a heap and asleep. In a fourth cell sat a broadfaced, pale man, with his head drooping low, and his elbows resting upon his knees. When he heard the steps, he raised his head and looked toward the door. In his whole countenance, but especially in his large eyes, was an expression of hopeless pining. Evidently it did not interest him to know who it was that was peeping into his cell. Whoever it may have been, he did not expect anything good from him. Nekhlyudov felt terribly ill at ease ; he ceased looking in, and went up to cell twenty-one, where Menshov was confined. The warden turned the key and opened the door. A young, venous fellow, with a long neck, with kindly round eyes and a small beard, was standing near his cot ; he hurriedly put on his cloak and, with a frightened face, looked at those who had entered. Nekhlyudov was particularly struck by his kindly round eyes, that glided with an interrogative and frightened glance from him to the warden, to the assistant, and back again.

” This gentleman wants to ask you about your case.”

” I thank you most humbly.”

” I have been told about your case,” said Nekhlyudov, walking to the back of the cell and stopping near the dirty, latticed window, ” and should like to hear about it from you.”

Menshov also walked up to the window and began at once to talk, at first looking timidly at the assistant, but then with ever increasing boldness. When the assistant superintendent left the cell for the corridor, to give some orders there, he regained his courage altogether. To judge from the language and manner, it was the story of a most simple-minded and honest peasant lad, and it seemed especially out of place to Nekhlyudov to hear it from the mouth of a prisoner in prison garb and in jail. Nekhlyudov listened to him, and at the same time looked at the low cot with its straw mattress, at the window with the strong iron grating, at the dirty, moist, and daubed walls, at the pitiable face and form of the unfortunate, disgraced peasant in prison shoes and cloak, — and he grew sadder and sadder ; he tried to make himself believe that what the good-hearted man was telling him was not true, — so terrible it seemed to him to think that a man could be seized for being insulted, and clad in prison garb, and be put in such a horrible place. And still more terrible it was to think that this truthful story, and the peasant’s kindly face, should be a deception and a lie. According to the story, the village dram-shopkeeper soon after the peasant’s marriage had alienated his wife’s affections. He invoked the law. But the drain-shopkeeper bribed the authorities, and he was everywhere acquitted. He took his wife back by force, but she ran away the following day. Then he came and demanded his wife. The dram-shopkeeper said that she was not there (he had, however, seen her as he came in), and told him to leave at once. He did not go. The dram-shopkeeper and his labourer beat him until blood flowed, and on the following day the dram-shopkeeper’s house and outbuildings were consumed by fire. He and his mother were accused of incendiarism, whereas he was then at the house of a friend.

” And you have really not committed the arson ? “

” I did not as much as think of it, sir. He, the scoundrel, must have done it himself. They said that he had but lately insured his property. He said that I and mother had threatened him. It is true, I did call him names, for my heart gave way, but I did not set fire to the house. I was not near it when the fire started. He purposely did it on the day after I and mother had been there. He set fire to it for the sake of the insurance, and then he accused us of it.”

” Is it possible? ”

” I am telling you the truth, before God, sir. Be in place of my own father ! ” he wanted to bow to the ground, and Nekhlyudov with difficulty kept him from doing so. ” Get my release, for I am being ruined for no cause whatsoever,” he continued. Suddenly his cheeks began to twitch, and he burst into tears ; he rolled up the sleeve of his cloak and began to dry his eyes with the sleeve of his dirty shirt.

” Are you through ? ” asked the assistant superintendent.

” Yes. Don’t lose courage. I shall do what I can,” said Nekhlyudov, and went out.

Menshdv was standing in the door, so that the warden pushed it against him, as he closed it. While the warden was locking the door, he kept looking through the peephole.

LUI.

Walking back through the broad corridor (it was dinner-time and all the cells were open), through crowds of men dressed in light yellow cloaks, short, wide trousers, and prison shoes, who were watching him with curiosity, Nekhlyudov experienced strange feelings of compassion for the people who were confined, and of terror and dismay before those who had placed them there and held them in restraint, and of a certain degree of shame at himself for looking so calmly at them.

In one corridor somebody rushed up to a cell and there struck the door with his shoes, and its inmates rushed out and barred Nekhlyüdov’s way, bowing to him.

“Your Honour, I do not know what to name you, please, try and get a decision in our case.”

” I am not an officer, I know nothing.”

” It makes no difference. Tell somebody,— the authorities,” said he, with provocation. “ We have committed no crime, and here we have been nearly two months.”

” How is that ? Why ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” We have simply been locked up. This is the second month we have been in jail, and we do not know why.”

” That is so,” said the assistant superintendent. “ These people were arrested for not having any passports. They were to be sent to their Government ; but the prison there was burnt, so the Governmental office asked us not to send them. We have despatched all the others to their respective Governments, but these we are keeping.”

” Only for this ? ” said Nekhlyudov, stopping at the door.

A throng of some forty men, all of them in prison cloaks, surrounded Nekhlyudov and the assistant. Several voices began to speak at once. The assistant stopped them :

” Let one of you speak.”

From the crowd stood out a tall, respectable-looking peasant, of about fifty years of age. He explained to Nekhlyudov that they had all been taken up and confined in prison for having no passports, that is, they had passports, but they were about two weeks overdue. Such oversight happened every year, and they usually were left unmolested ; but this year they had been arrested, and this was the second month they had been kept as criminals.

“We are all stone-masons, — all of us of the same artél.1 They say that the Governmental prison has burnt down, but what have we to do with it ? Do us the favour in the name of God ! ”

Nekhlyudov listened, but he hardly understood what the respectable old man was telling him, because all his attention was arrested by a large, dark gray, many-legged louse that was creeping through the hair down the cheek of the respectable stone-mason.

“ Is it possible ? Only for this ? ” said Nekhlyudov, addressing the assistant.

” Yes, they ought to be sent away and restored to their places of residence,” said the assistant.

The assistant had just finished his sentence, when a small man, also in a prison cloak, pushed himself forward through the crowd and, strangely contorting his mouth, began to say that they were tortured’ here for nothing.

“ Worse than dogs — ” he began.

” Well, you had better not say anything superfluous. Keep quiet, or, you know — ”

“ What have I to know ? ” retorted the small man, in desperation. ” We are not guilty of anything.”

* A partnership of working men.

” Shut up ! ” cried the superior officer, and the small man grew silent.

” What is this, indeed ? ” Nekhlyudov said to himself, as he left the cells, accompanied by the hundreds of eyes of those who were looking out of the doors, and of the prisoners in the corridor, as though he were driven through two lines of castigating men.

” Is it possible entirely innocent people are kept here ? ” said Nekhlyudov, upon coming out of the corridor.

“ What is to be done ? But, of course, they lie a great deal. Hearing them, one might think that they were all innocent,” said the assistant superintendent.

” But these are not guilty of anything.”

” I shall admit that these are not. But they are all a pretty bad lot. It is impossible to get along with them, without severity. There are such desperate people among them, that it will not do to put a linger into their mouths. Thus, for example, we were compelled yesterday to punish two of them.”

” How to punish ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” They were flogged with switches, according to instruction — ”

” But corporal punishment has been abolished.”

” Not for those who are deprived of their rights. They are subject to it.”

Nekhlyudov recalled everything he had seen the day before, and he understood that the punishment had been inflicted just at the time that he had been waiting, and he was overcome with unusual force by that mixed feeling of curiosity, pining, dismay, and moral nausea, which was passing into a physical state, and by which he had been overcome on previous occasions, but never so powerfully as now.

Without listening to the assistant superintendent or looking around him, he hastened to leave the corridors and to go to the office. The superintendent was in the corridor, and, being busy with something else, had forgotten to call Vydra Bogodukhovski. He did not think of it until Nekhlyudov entered the office.

” I shall send for her at once, while you, please, be seated,” he said.

LIV.

The office consisted of two rooms. In the first, which had a large, protruding, dilapidated stove and two dirty windows, stood in one corner a black apparatus for the measurement of the prisoners’ height, and in the other hung the customary appurtenance of a place of torture, — a large image of Christ. In this first room stood several wardens. In the other room, some twenty men and women were sitting along the walls and in groups, and talking in an undertone. Near the window stood a writing-desk.

The superintendent sat down at the desk and offered Nekhlyudov a chair which was standing near it. Nekhlyudov sat down and began to watch the people in the room.

First of all his attention was attracted by a young man in a short jacket, with a pleasant face, who, standing before a middle-aged woman with black eyebrows, was speaking to her excitedly and gesturing with his hands. Near by sat an old man in blue spectacles and listened motionless to what a young woman in prison garb was telling him, while he held her hand. A boy, a student of the Real-Gymnasium, with an arrested and frightened expression on his face, looked at the old man, without taking his eyes off. Not far from them, in the corner, sat two lovers : she wore short hair and had an energetic face, — a blond, sweet-faced, very young girl in a fashionable dress ; he, with delicate features and wavy hair, was a beautiful youth in a rubber blouse. They were seated in the corner, whispering and evidently melting in love. Nearest to the table sat a gray-haired woman, in a black dress, — apparently a mother : she had her eyes riveted on a consumptive-looking young man in the same kind of a blouse, and wanted to say something to him, but could not speak a word for tears : she began and stopped again. The young man held a piece of paper in his hand, and, evidently not knowing what to do, with an angry face now bent and now crumpled it. Near them sat a plump, ruddy, beautiful girl, with very bulging eyes, in a gray dress and pelerine. She was seated next to the weeping mother and tenderly stroked her shoulder. Everything about that girl was beautiful : her large, white hands, her wavy, short-cut hair, her strong nose and lips ; but the chief charm lay in her kindly, truthful, sheep-like, hazel eyes. Her beautiful eyes were deflected from her mother’s face just as Nekhlyudov entered, and met his glance.’ But she immediately turned them away, and began to tell her mother something. Not far from the loving pair sat a swarthy, shaggy man with a gloomy face, who was in an angry voice saying something to a beardless visitor, resembling a Castrate Sectarian.

Nekhlyudov sat down near the superintendent and looked around him with tense curiosity.

His attention was distracted by a close-cropped little boy, who came up to him and in a thin voice asked him :

” Whom are you waiting for ? ”

Nekhlyudov was surprised at the question, but upon looking at the child and seeing his serious, thoughtful face, with his attentive, lively eyes, seriously replied to him that he was waiting for a lady he knew.

” Is she your sister ? ” asked the boy.

” No, not my sister,” Nekhlyudov answered, surprised. “ But with whom are you here ? ” he questioned the boy.

” I am with mamma. She is a political prisoner,” said the boy.

” Mdriya Pavlovna, take Kolya,” said the superintendent, apparently finding Nekhlyudov’s conversation with the boy to be illegal.

Mariya Pâvlovna, that same beautiful girl with the sheep-like eyes, who had attracted Nekhlyudov’s attention, arose to her full, tall stature, and with a strong, broad, almost manly gait, walked over to Nekhlyudov and the child.

“ Has he been asking you who you are ? ” she asked Nekhlyudov, slightly smiling and trustfully looking into his eyes in such a simple manner as though there could be no doubt but that she always had been, now was, and always ought to be in the simplest and kindliest fraternal relations with everybody.

” He wants to know everything,” she said, smiling in the boy’s face with such a kind, sweet smile that both the boy and Nekhlyudov smiled at her smile.

” Yes, he asked me whom I came to see.”

” Mariya Pdvlovna, it is not allowed to speak with strangers. You know that,” said the superintendent.

“ All right, all right,” she said, and, with her large white hand taking hold of Kolya’s tiny hand, while he did not take his eyes off her face, returned to the mother of the consumptive man.

” Whose boy is this ? ” Nekhlyudov asked the superintendent.

“ The son of a political prisoner. He was born here in the prison,” said the superintendent, with a certain satisfaction, as though displaying a rarity of bis institution.

“ Is it possible ? ”

” Now he and his mother are leaving for Siberia.”

“ And this girl ? ”

” I can’t answer you,” said the superintendent, shrugging his shoulders. ” Here is Vyéra Bogodukhovski.”

LV.

Through the back door, with a nervous gait, entered short-haired, haggard, sallow little Vyéra Efremovna, with her immense, kindly eyes.

” Thank you for coming,” she said, pressing Nekhlyudov’s hand. ” Did you remember me ? Let us sit down.”

” I did not expect to find you thus.”

” Oh, I feel so happy, so happy, that I do not even wish for anything better,” said Vyéra Efrémovna, as always, looking with her immense, kindly, round eyes at Nekhlyudov, and turning her yellow, dreadfully thin, and venous neck, which stuck out from the miserable-looking, crumpled, and dirty collar of her bodice.

Nekhlyudov asked her how she had gotten into such a plight. She told him with great animation about her case. Her speech was interlarded with foreign words about the propaganda, about disorganization, about groups and sections and sub-sections, of which she was apparently quite sure everybody knew, whereas Nekhlyudov had never heard of them before.

She spoke to him, evidently fully convinced that it was very interesting and agreeable for him to hear all the secrets of the popular cause. But Nekhlyudov looked at her miserable neck and at her scanty dishevelled hair, and wondered why she was doing all that and telling him about it. He pitied her, but in an entirely different manner from that in which he pitied peasant Menshov, who was locked up in a stinking prison for no cause whatsoever. He pitied her more especially on account of the evident confusion which existed in her mind. She obviously considered herself a heroine, ready to sacrifice her life for the success of her cause, and yet she would have found it hard to explain what her cause consisted in, and what its success would be.

The affair of which Vyéra Efréniovna wished to speak to Nekhlyudov was this : her companion, Shustova, who did not even belong to her sub-group, as she expressed herself, had been arrested five months before at the same time with her, and had been confined in the Petropavlovsk fortress because at her room books and papers which had been given into her safe-keeping had been found. Vyéra Efrémovna considered herself in part guilty of Shustova’s incarceration, and so she begged Nekhlyudov, who had influence, to do everything in his power to obtain her release. The other thing for which she asked him was that he should obtain a permission for Gurévich, who was confined in the Petropavlovsk fortress, to see his parents and provide himself with scientific books, which he needed for his learned labours.

Nekhlyudov promised he would endeavour to do all in his power, as soon as he should be in St. Petersburg.

Vyéra Efrémovna told her story as follows : upon finishing a course in midwifery, she had fallen in with the party of the « Popular Will,” and worked with them. At first everything went well : they wrote proclamations and made propaganda at factories ; later, a prominent member was seized ; documents were discovered, and they began to arrest everybody.

” I was taken, too, and now we are being deported — ” she finished her story. ” But that is nothing. I feel in excellent spirits, — in Olympic transport,” she said, smiling a pitiable smile.

Nekhlyudov asked about the girl with the sheep-like eyes. Vyéra Efréniovna told him that she was the daughter of a general, that she had long been a member of the revolutionary party, and that she was arrested for claiming to have shot a gendarme.

She had been living in conspirators’ quarters, where there was a typographic machine. When they were searched at night, the inmates of the quarters decided to defend themselves, whereupon they put out the lights and began to destroy the compromising matter. The police forced an entrance, when one of the conspirators shot and mortally wounded a gendarme. At the inquest she said that she had fired the shot, notwithstanding the fact that she had never held a pistol in her hand and would not have killed a spider. And thus it remained. Now she was being deported to hard labour.

” An altruistic, a good soul,” Vyéra Efréniovna said, approvingly.

The third thing that Vyéra Efrémovna wanted to talk about was concerning Maslova. She knew, as everybody else in the prison knew, Maslova’s history and Nekhlyudov’s relations with her, and advised him to try to obtain her transfer to the political prisoners, or to a position, at least, as attendant in the hospital, where now a large number of sick people were confined and workers were needed.

Nekhlyudov thanked her for her advice and told her that he would try and make use of it.

LVI.

Their conversation was interrupted by the superintendent, who arose and announced that the time for the interviews was up, and that people had to leave. Nekhlyudov got up, bade Vyéra Efrémovna goodbye, and walked over to the door, where he stopped to see what was going on before him.

” Gentlemen, it is time,” said the superintendent, now rising, and now sitting down again.

The superintendent’s demand only evoked a greater animation in all those who were in the room, both prisoners and visitors, but nobody even thought of leaving. Some remained sitting and conversing. Others began to say farewell and to weep. The leave-taking of the mother from her consumptive son was especially touching. The young man kept twisting a piece of paper, and his face grew ever more stern, so great was the effort which he was making not to be infected by his mother’s feeling. But the mother, hearing that it was time to leave, lay on his shoulder and sobbed, s null ling with her nose. The girl with the sheep-like eyes — Nekhlyudov involuntarily followed her — stood before the weeping mother and was telling her some consoling words. The old man in the blue spectacles was standing and holding his daughter’s hand, nodding his head to what she was saying. The young lovers arose and, holding bands, were long looking into each others’ eyes.

” These alone are happy,” pointing to the lovers, said the young man in the short jacket, who was standing near Nekhlyudov and like him watching those who were taking leave.

Being conscious of the looks of Nekhlyudov and of the young man, the lovers, — the young man in the rubber blouse and the blond sweet-faced girl, — extended their linked hands, bent back, and began to circle around, while laughing.

” They will be married this evening, here in the jail, and then she will go with him to Siberia,” said the young man.

” Who is he ? ”

“A hard labour convict. Though they are making merry now, it is too painful to listen,” added the young man in the jacket, hearing the sobs of the consumptive man’s mother.

” Gentlemen ! Please, please. Do not compel me to take severe measures,” said the superintendent, repeating one and the same thing several times. ” Please, please now,” he said, in a feeble and undecided voice. ” How is this? Time has long been up. This won’t do. I am telling you for the last time,” he repeated, reluctantly, now putting, and now putting out his Maryland cigarette. It was evident that, however artful and old and habitual the proofs were which permitted people to do wrong to others, without feeling themselves responsible for it, the superintendent could not help noticing that he was one of the causes of that sorrow which was manifested in this room ; and this obviously weighed heavily upon him.

Finally the prisoners and visitors began to depart : some through the inner, others through the outer door. The men in the rubber blouses, and the consumptive man, and the swarthy and shaggy man passed out ; and then Mâriya Pàvlovna, with the boy who had been born in the prison.

The visitors, too, began to leave. With heavy tread the old man in the blue spectacles went out, and Nekhlyudov followed him.

“Yes, those are marvellous conditions,” said the talkative young man, as though continuing the interrupted conversation, while he descended the staircase with Nekhlyudov. ” Luckily, the captain is a good man, and does not stick to rules. At least they get a chance to talk to each other and ease their souls.”

When Nekhlyudov, conversing with Medÿntsev, — so the talkative young man introduced liimself to him, — reached the vestibule, the superintendent, with a wearied face, accosted him.

” If you wish to see Maslova, please come tomorrow,” he said, apparently wishing to be kind to Nekhlyudov.

“Very well,” said Nekhlyudov, hastening to get out.

Terrible, it was evident, was the innocent suffering of Menshov, and not so much the physical suffering as the dismay, the distrust of goodness and of God, which he must experience, seeing the cruelty of men who tormented him without cause ; terrible were the disgrace and torments imposed upon the hundreds of people, innocent of crime, simply because their papers were not properly written ; terrible were these befogged wardens, who were occupied with torturing their fellow men and were convinced that they were doing a good and important work. But more terrible yet was that aging and enfeebled, kind superintendent, who had to separate mother from son, father from daughter, — people who were just like him and his children.

“What is this for?” Nekhlyudov asked himself, experiencing more than ever that sensation of moral nausea, passing into a physical feeling, which overcame him in prison, and finding no answer.

LVIL

On the following day Nekhlyudov went to the lawyer, to whom he communicated Menshov’s affair, asking him to take the defence. The lawyer listened to him and said that he would look into the case, and if everything was as Nekhlyudov told him, which was very probable, he would take the defence without any remuneration. Nekhlyudov also told him of the 130 men who were held there by misunderstanding, and asked him on whom the matter depended, and who was to blame for it. The lawyer was silent for a moment, evidently wishing to give an exact answer.

“ Who is to blame ? Nobody,” he said, with determination. “ Ask the prosecuting attorney, and he will tell you that the governor is to blame ; ask the governor, and he will tell you that it is the prosecuting attorney. Nobody is to blame.”

“ I will go at once to Maslénnikov and tell him.”

“ Well, that is useless,” the lawyer retorted, smiling. “He is such a — he is not a relative or friend of yours? — such a, with your permission, such a stick and, at the same time, such a cunning beast.”

Recalling what Maslénnikov had said about the lawyer, he did not reply ; bidding him goodbye, he drove to Maslennikov’s house.

Nekhlyudov had to ask Maslennikov for two things : for Maslova’s transfer to the hospital, and for the 130 passportless people who were innocently confined in jail. No matter how hard it was for him to ask from a man whom he did not respect, it was the only means of reaching his aim, and he had to employ it.

As he drove up to Maslénnikov’s house, he saw several carriages at the entrance: there were buggies, calashes and barouches, and he recalled that this was the reception-day of Maslénnikov’s wife, to which Maslénnikov had asked him to come. As Nekhlyudov approached the house, he saw a barouche at the entrance, and a lackey, in a hat with a cockade and in a pelerine, helping a lady from the threshold of the porch into it, while she caught the train of her dress in her arm and displayed her black thin ankles in low shoes. Among the other carriages which were standing there, he recognized the covered landau of the Korchagins. The gray-haired, ruddy-faced coachman respectfully and politely took off his hat, as to a well-known gentleman. Nekhlyudov had not yet finished asking the porter where Mikhail Ivénovich (Maslénnikov) was, when he appeared on the carpeted staircase, seeing off a very distinguished guest, such as he accompanied not only to the landing, but way down. The very distinguished military guest was, in descending, telling in French about the lottery and ball for the benefit of the asylums, which was being planned in the city, expressing his opinion that this was a good occupation for women : ” They are happy, and money is collected !

” Qu’elles s’amusent et que le bon Dieu les bénisse. Ah, Nekhlyudov, good day. What makes you so scarce ? ” he greeted Nekhlyudov. ” Allez présenter vous devoirs à ‘madame. The Korchdgins are here. Et Nadine Bukshev-den. Toutes les jolies femmes de la ville” he said, placing and slightly raising his military shoulders under the overcoat with the superb golden galloons, which was handed him by the lackey. ” Au revoir, mon cher.” He pressed Maslénnikov’s hand.

” Come up-stairs. How glad I am,” Maslénnikov spoke excitedly, linking his hand in Nekhlyudov’s arm and, in spite of his corpulence, rapidly drawing him up-stairs. Maslénnikov was in an extremely joyful agitation, the cause of which was the attention which had been bestowed upon him by the distinguished person. Every such attention caused Maslénnikov the same rapture that is produced in a docile little dog, whenever its master strokes, pats, and scratches it behind its ears. It wags its tail, crouches, winds about, lays down its ears, and insanely runs about in circles. Maslénnikov was ready to do the same. He did not notice Nekhlyudov’s serious countenance, did not listen to him, and kept dragging him to the drawing-room, so that there was no possibility of refusing, and Nekhlyudov went with him. ” Business afterward ; I shall do anything you please,” said Maslénnikov, crossing the parlour with Nekhlyudov. ” Announce to Mrs. General Maslénnikov that Prince Nekhlyudov is here,” he said to a lackey, during his walk. The lackey moved forward at an amble and passed beyond them. ” Vous n’avez qu’à ordonner. But you must by all means see my wife. I caught it last time for not bringing you to her.”

The lackey had announced them, when they entered, and Anna Igndtevna, the vice-governor’s wife, Mrs. General, as she called herself, turned to Nekhlyudov, with a beaming smile, from amidst the bonnets and heads of those who surrounded her at the divan. At the other end of the drawing-room, at a table with tea, ladies were sitting, and men, in military and civil attire, were standing, and from there was heard the uninterrupted chatter of masculine and feminine voices.

” Enfin ! Have you given us up ? Have we offended you in any way ? “

With such words, that presupposed an intimacy between her and Nekhlyudov, although it had never existed between them, Anna Ignatevna met the newcomer.

” Are you acquainted ? Are you ? Madame Byelav-ski, Mikhail Ivanovich Chernov. Sit down near me.

” Missy, venez donc à notre table. On vous apportera votre thé— And you — ” she addressed an officer who was talking to Missy, apparently having forgotten his name, “please, come here. Will you have some tea, prince ? “

“ I shall not admit it for a minute, not for a minute, — she simply did not love him,” said a feminine voice.

” But she did love cakes.”

” Eternally those stupid jokes,” laughingly interposed another lady, shining in her silk, gold, and precious stones.

“ O’est excellent, — these waffles, and so light. Let me have some more ! ”

“ How soon shall you leave ? “

” To-day is my last day. It is for this reason that I have come.”

” The spring is so charming, and it is so nice now in the country ! ”

Missy, in a hat and in a dark striped dress, which clasped her slender waist without any folds, as though she had been bom in it, was very pretty. She blushed when she saw Nekhlyudov.

“ I thought that you had left,” she said to him.

” Almost,” said Nekhlyudov. ” I have been kept back by business. I have even come here on business.”

” Come to see mamma. She is very anxious to see you,” she said, and, being conscious of telling an untruth, and of his knowing it, she blushed even more.

” I shall hardly have the time,” gloomily replied Nekhlyudov, trying to appear as though he had not noticed her blush.

Missy frowned angrily, shrugged her shoulder, and turned to the elegant officer, who seized the empty cup out of her hand, and, catching with his sword in the chairs, gallantly carried it to another table.

” You must contribute something for the home.”

” I do not refuse, but want to keep all my liberality until the lottery. There I will show up in all my strength.”

” Look out,” was heard a voice, accompanied by a manifestly feigned laughter.

The reception-day was brilliant, and Anna Ignàtevna was iu raptures.

” Mika has told me that . you are busy about the prisons. I understand that,” she said to Nekhlyudov. ” Mika ” (that was her stout husband, Maslénnikov) ” may have other faults, but you know how good he is. All these unfortunate prisoners are his children. He does not look at them in any other light. Il est d’une bonté — “

She stopped, being unable to find words which would have expressed the bonté of that husband of hers, by whose order men were flogged ; she immediately turned, smiling, to a wrinkled old woman in lilac ribbons, who had just entered.

Having conversed as much as was necessary, and as insipidly as was necessary, in order not to violate the proprieties, Nekhlyudov arose and walked over to Maslénnikov.

“ Can you listen to me now ? ”

” Oh, yes ! What is it ? Come this way ! “

They went into a small Japanese cabinet, and sat down by the window.

LVIIL

” Well, je suis à vous. Do you want to smoke ? Only wait, — we must make no dirt here,” he said, bringing the ash-tray. ” Well ? “

” I have two things to talk about.”

” Indeed ? “

Maslénnikov’s face became gloomy and sad. All the traces of the excitement of the little dog, whom its master has scratched behind its ear, suddenly disappeared. From the drawing-room were borne voices. A woman’s voice said: “ Jamais, jamais je ne croirai” and another, from the other end, a man’s voice, was telling something, repeating all the time: “La Comtesse Voronzoffand ” Victor Apraksine.” From a third side was heard only the rumble of voices and laughter. Maslénnikov listened to what was going on in the drawing-room, and at the same time to what Nekhlyudov was saying.

” I have come again in behalf of that woman,” said Nekhlyudov.

” Yes, the one who is sentenced, but innocent. I know, I know.”

” I should like to ask you to have her transferred as a servant to the hospital. I was told that that could be done.”

Maslénnikov compressed his bps and meditated.

“Hardly,” he said. “Still, I shall take it under advisement, and shall wire you tomorrow about it.”

“ I was told that there were many sick people there, and that help is needed.”

” All right, all right. I shall let you know in any case.”

“ If you please,” said Nekhlyudov.

In the drawing-room was heard a general, and even natural, laugh.

“ Victor is doing that,” said Maslénnikov. “ He is remarkably clever when he is in his proper mood.”

“Another thing,” said Nekhlyudov. “There are 130 people in the jail ; they have been kept there for more than a month for nothing else but because their passports are overdue.”

He told what the cause of their detention was.

” How did you find out about that ? ” asked Maslénnikov, and his face suddenly expressed unrest and dissatisfaction.

“ I was on my way to one who is awaiting trial, when I was surrounded in the corridor by these men, who asked me — ”

” To whom that is awaiting trial did you go ? “

” To a peasant who is innocently accused, and for whom I have employed counsel. But that is another matter. Is it possible that these men are kept in prison for no other reason than that their passports are overdue and — ”

“ That is the prosecuting attorney’s affair,” Maslénnikov angrily interrupted Nekhlyudov. ” You say that trials are speedy and just ! It is the duty of the prosecuting attorney’s assistant to visit the jail and to find out whether the prisoners are detained there lawfully. But they do nothing but play vint.”

” So you can’t do anything ? ” gloomily said Nekhlyudov, thinking of what the lawyer had said about the governor’s throwing it on the prosecuting attorney’s shoulders.

” Yes, I will do it. I will institute an investigation at once.”

” So much the worse for her. C’est un souffre douleur,” was heard the voice of a woman in the drawing-room, who, apparently, was quite indifferent to what she was saying.

” So much the better. I will take this one,” was heard from the other side the playful voice of a man and the playful laughter of a woman, who was refusing something.

” No, no, for nothing in the world,” said a feminine voice.

” I will do it all,” repeated Maslénnikov, putting out his cigarette with his white hand with the turquoise ring. ” And now let us go to the ladies.”

“Another thing,” said Nekhlyudov, without entering the drawing-room, but stopping at the door, ” I was told that some men had received corporal punishment in jail yesterday. Is that true ? “

Maslénnikov grew red in his face.

” Ah, that, too ? No, mon cher, you must positively not be admitted ; you meddle with everything. Come, come, Annette is calling us,” he said, taking him under his arm, and expressing the same kind of excitement as after the attention of the distinguished person, but this time it was not an excitement of joy, but of trepidation.

Nekhlyudov tore his arm away from him, and, without bidding any one goodbye or saying a word, with a melancholy expression in his face, crossed the drawing-room and the parlour, and went past the officious lackeys, through the antechamber, and out into the street.

” What is the matter with him ? What have you done to him ? ” Annette asked her husband.

” This is à la française,” somebody remarked.

” Not at all à la française ; it is à la zoulou”

” Yes, he has always been like that.”

Somebody arose ; somebody arrived ; and the twittering went on as before : the company used the incident with Nekhlyudov as a convenient subject for conversation on the present jour fixe.

On the day following his visit to Maslennikov’s house, Nekhlyudov received from him, on heavy, smooth paper, with a coat of arms and seals, a letter in a magnificent, firm handwriting, informing him that he had written to the hospital physician about Maslova’s transfer, and that, in all likelihood, his wish would be fulfilled. It concluded with “Your loving elder comrade,” and below the signature, “ Maslénnikov,” was made a wonderfully artistic, large, and firm flourish.

« Fool ! ” Nekhlyudov could not restrain himself from saying, especially because in the word “ comrade ” he felt that Maslénnikov condescended to him ; that is, he saw that, notwithstanding the fact that he was executing a morally exceedingly dirty and disgraceful function, he considered himself a very important man, and thought, if not to flatter, at least to show that he was not overproud of his majesty, in that he called himself his comrade.

LIX.

It is one of the most deep-rooted and wide-spread superstitions that every man has his well-defined properties, that a man is good or bad, clever or stupid, energetic or apathetic, and so forth. People are not such. We may say of a man that he is oftener good than bad, often er clever than stupid, oftener energetic than apathetic, and vice versa ; but it would be wrong to say of one man that he is good or clever, and of another, that he is bad or stupid. Yet we always classify people in this manner. This is wrong. Men are like rivers : the water is the same in all ; but every river is either narrow, or swift, or broad, or still, or clean, or cold, or turbid, or warm. Even thus men are. Each man carries within him the germs of all human qualities, and now manifests some of these, and now others, and frequently becomes unlike himself, and yet remains one and the same. With some people these changes are extremely sudden. To this category Nekhlyudov belonged. Changes took place within him both from physical and spiritual causes. Just such a change had occurred in him now.

That sensation of solemnity and joy of renovation, which he had experienced after the trial, and after the first interview with Katyusha, had completely disappeared, and had after the last meeting given way to terror, even disgust for her. He had decided not to leave her, not to change his determination of marrying her, if only she would wish it, but the thought of it was hard and painful to him.

On the day after his visit to Maslennikov’s house, he again drove to the prison, in order to see her.

The superintendent granted him an interview, but not in the office, and not in the lawyer’s room, but iu the women’s visiting-hall. Notwithstanding his kind-heartedness, the superintendent was more reserved than before with Nekhlyudov ; obviously his talks with Maslénnikov had resulted in an instruction to use greater precaution with that visitor.

“You may see her,” he said, “only in regard to the money, please, do as I have asked you. As to the transfer to the hospital, as his Excellency had written, — that was possible, and the physician was willing. Only she herself does not want to go. She says : ‘ I have no desire to carry out the vessels of those nasty fellows.’ Prince, they are a dreadful lot,” he added.

Nekhlyudov did not reply, and asked for the interview. The superintendent sent a warden after her, and Nekhlyudov went with him to the empty visiting-hall of the women.

Maslova was already there. She came out from behind the screen, quiet and timid. She went up close to Nekhlyudov, and, glancing beyond him, said :

” Forgive me, Dmitri Ivanovich ! I said many bad things the other day.”

“ It is not for me to forgive you — ” Nekhlyudov began.

” But still, I beg you, leave me alone,” she added, and in the dreadfully squinting eyes with which she looked at him Nekhlyudov again read a strained and evil expression.

” Why should I leave you ? “

“ Just do ! “

“ Why so ? “

She again cast the same malicious glance at him, as he thought.

“It is like this,” she said. “You leave me,— I tell you the truth. I can’t. Leave me altogether,” she said, with quivering lips, growing silent. “ I am telling you the truth. I shall prefer hanging myself.”

Nekhlyudov felt that in that refusal of hers there was hatred for him, and unforgiven offence, but at the same time something else, — something good and significant. This confirmation of her former refusal, made while in a calm state, at once destroyed all doubts in Nekhlyudov’s soul, and brought him back to his former serious solemnity and contrite condition in relation to Katyusha.

“ Katyusha, as I have told you before, so I tell you now,” he said, with especial seriousness. “ I ask you to marry me. But if you do not wish to do so, and as long as you do not wish, I shall, as before, be in the place where you are, and I will travel to the place to which you will be deported.”

“ That is your affair, and I sha’n’t say anything more about this,” she said, and again her lips began to tremble.

lie, too, was silent, feeling that he had not the strength to speak.

“ I am now going to the country, and then to St. Petersburg,” he said, regaining at last his composure. ” I shall there look after your — after our affair, and if God grants it, the sentence shall be reversed.”

“ If they do not reverse it, it will be all the same. I deserve it for something else, if not for this,” she said, and he saw what a great effort she was making to restrain her tears.

” Well, did you see Menshov ? ” she suddenly asked him, in order to conceal her agitation. “Is it not so, they are not guilty ? ”

“ Yes, I think so.”

“ What a charming old woman,” she said.

He told her everything he had found out from Menshdv, and asked her whether she did not need anything, to which she replied that she did not want anything.

They were again silent.

“ Well, in reference to the hospital,” she suddenly said, looking at him with her squinting eyes, “ if you wish, I will go there, and I will stop drinking — ”

Nekhlyudov looked her silently in the eyes. Her eyes were smiling.

“ That is very good,” was all he could say, and he bade her goodbye.

“ Yes, yes, she is an entirely different person ! ” thought Nekhlyudov, experiencing, after his previous misgivings, an altogether new, never before experienced feeling of confidence in the invincibleness of love.

Upon returning after this meeting to her malodorous’ cell, Maslova took off her cloak and sat down in her place on the benches, dropping her hands on her knees. In the cell were only consumptive Vladimirskaya with her suckling babe, old woman Menshov, and the flagwoman with the two children. The sexton’s daughter had been declared mentally deranged the day before, and taken to the hospital. All the other women were washing clothes. The old woman was lying on the bench and sleeping; the children were in the corridor, the door to which was open.

Vladimirskaya with the babe in her arms and the flagwoman with a stocking went up to Maslova.

“ Well, did you see him ? ” they asked.

Maslova sat on the high bench, without saying a word, and dangling her feet, which did not reach down to the floor.

“ Don’t mope ! ” said the flagwoman. “ Above everything else, don’t lose your courage, Katyusha. Well?” she said, rapidly moving her fingers.

Méslova made no reply.

” Our women have gone to wash the clothes. They said that to-day there would be great almsgiving. They have brought a lot, they say,” said Vladimirskaya.

” Fiuàshka ! ” the flagwoman cried through the door. ” Where are you, you little urchin ? ”

She took out one knitting-needle, and, sticking it into the ball of thread and the stocking, she went into the corridor.

Just then was heard the noise of steps and of women’s conversation in the corridor, and the inmates of the cell, with their shoes over their bare feet, entered, each of them carrying a roll, and some of them even two. Fedosya at once went up to Maslova.

” What is it ? Is something wrong ? ” asked Feddsya, looking lovingly at Mdslova with her clear blue eyes. Here is something with our tea,” and she put away the rolls on the shelf.

” Has he given up the idea of marrying you ? ” said Korabléva.

” No, he has not, but I do not want to,” said Maslova.

” You are a silly girl ! ” Korabléva said, in her bass.

“ If you are not to live together, what good would it do you to get married ? ” said Feddsya.

” But your husband is going along with you,” said the flagwoman.

“Yes, we are lawfully married,” said Fedosya. “But what use is there for him to bind himself lawfully, if he is not to live with you ? “

” What a silly woman ! What for ? If he should marry her, he would cover her with gold.”

” He told me that he would follow me, wherever I might be sent,” said Maslova. “ If he will go, he will ; and if not, I sha’n’t beg him.”

” Now he is going to St. Petersburg to look after my case. All the ministers there are his relatives,” she continued, ” only 1 have no use for them.”

” Of course ! ” Korabléva suddenly interposed, opening up her bag, and evidently thinking of something else. ” Shall we have some liquor ? “

“ I sha’n’t drink any,” answered Maslova. ” Drink yourselves.”

PART THE SECOND

I.

In two weeks the case would probably come up in the Senate, and by that time Nekhlyudov intended to be in St. Petersburg, in order, in case of a failure in the Senate, to petition his Majesty, as the lawyer, who had written the appeal, had advised him to do. Should the appeals remain fruitless, for which, in the lawyer’s opinion, he ought to be prepared, as the causes for annulment were rather weak, the party of the convicts to be deported, of which number Maslova was one, might leave in the first days of June ; therefore, in order to be ready to follow Maslova to Siberia, which was Nekhlyudov’s firm intention, he had to go down to his villages, to arrange his affairs there.

First Nekhlyudov went to Kuznnnskoe, his nearest, large black-earth estate, from which he derived his chief income. He had lived on this estate during his childhood and youth ; then, when he was a grown man, he had been there twice, and once, at his mother’s request, he had taken a German superintendent there, with whom he had examined the whole property ; consequently he had long been acquainted with the condition of the estate and with the relations the peasants bore to the office, that is, to the landed proprietor. They were such that the peasants were in complete dependence on the office. Nekhlyudov had known all this since his student days, when he had professed and preached Henry George’s

doctrine and, on account of this doctrine, had distributed his land among the peasants.

It is true, after his military service, when he became accustomed to spending twenty thousand a year, all this knowledge ceased being obligatory in his life and was forgotten. He did not question himself whence the money came which his mother gave him, and tried not to think of it. But his mother’s death, the inheritance, and the necessity of managing his estate, that is, the land, again roused in him the question of the ownership of land. A month before, Nekhlyudov would have said to himself that he was not able to change the existing order of things, that it was not he who managed the estate, — and would have more or less acquiesced, since he was living far away from his property, from which he received the money. But now he decided that, although he was confronted with a journey to Siberia and with complicated and difficult relations with the world of prisons, for which money would be needed, he could not leave affairs in their previous condition, but that he ought to change them, even though he suffer from that.

He determined not to work the land himself, but to give it to the peasants at a low rental, which would ensure their independence from the landed proprietor in general. Frequently, upon comparing the condition of the landed proprietor with the owner of serfs, Nekhlyudov considered the transfer of the land to the peasants as against the working of it by means of lured labour as being a parallel case to the action of the serf-owners, when they allowed the peasants to substitute a yearly tax for the manorial labour. It was not a solution of the question, but a step in that direction : it was a transition from a coarser to a less coarse form of violence. It was this that he intended to do.

Nekhlyudov arrived at Kuzmfnskoe about midnight. Simplifying his life as much as possible, he had not telegraphed about his arrival, but took at the station a two-horse tarantas. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen sleeveless coat, which was girded along the folds beneath the long waist ; he sat in driver’s fashion, sidewise, on the box, and was only too glad to talk to the gentleman, since, while they were talking, it gave the foundered, limping, white shaft-horse and the lame, weak-kneed off horse a chance to go at a pace which pleased them very much.

“A superb German,” said the driver, who had lived in the city and read novels. He was sitting half-turned toward the passenger, and was playing -with the whiphandle, which he caught now from above, and now from below ; he was evidently making a display of his culture. ” He has provided himself with a cream-coloured three-span, and when he drives out with Ins lady, it makes you feel small,” he continued. ” In winter, at Christmas, there was a Christmas tree in the large house, — I then took some guests there; it was lighted with an electric spark. You could not find the like of it in the whole Government ! He has stolen a lot of money ! And why not ? Everything is in his power. They say he has bought himself a fine estate.”

Nekhlyudov had thought that he was quite indifferent to the way the German was managing and using his estate. But the story of the driver with the long waist was disagreeable to him. He enjoyed the beautiful day, the dense, darkling clouds, which now and then shrouded the sun; and the field of spring grain, over which the peasants were walking behind their ploughs, in order to plough down the oats ; and the thickly sprouting verdure, over which the skylarks hovered ; and the forests, which now, with the exception of the late oaks, were covered with fresh foliage ; and the meadows, on which the various-coloured herds of cattle and horses could be seen ; and the fields, upon which he saw the ploughmen, — but do, no, he thought of something unpleasant, and when he asked himself what it was, he recalled the story of the driver about how the German had been managing his Kuzminskoe estate.

Upon arriving at Kuzminskoe and beginning to work, Nekhlyudov forgot that feeling.

The examination of the office books and the conversation of the clerk, who naïvely pointed out the advantages of the small peasant plots, surrounded by the manorial lands, only confirmed Nekhlyudov in his desire to give up the estate, and transfer all the land to the peasants. From these office books and from his talk with the clerk he discovered that, as before, two-thirds of the best cultivable land were worked by hired labour and improved machinery, while the remaining third was cultivated by the peasants at the rate of five roubles the desyatina ; that is, for five roubles a peasant was obliged three times to plough up, three times to harrow, and to sow in the desyatina, that is, to perform labour which at the cheapest hired rate would cost ten roubles. Similarly the peasants paid for everything they needed out of the office at the highest rate in labour. They worked for the meadows, for the timber, for the potato greens, and nearly all of them were in debt to the office. Thus they paid for the outlying fields, which were let to the peasants, four times as much a desyatina as it possibly could bring by figuring at five per cent, interest.

Nekhlyudov had known all that before ; but he now learned it as something new, and he only marvelled how it was that he and all other people in similar conditions could have helped seeing the abnormality of such relations. The proofs which the superintendent adduced that, if he let the peasants have the land, the whole inventory would be ruined, that it would not be possible to sell it at one-fourth its value, after the peasants had exhausted the land, that, in general, Nekhlyudov would lose a great deal through this transfer, — only confirmed liim in his belief that he was doing a good act by giving the peasants the land and depriving himself of a great part of his income. He decided to settle the matter at once, during his present stay. The superintendent was to harvest and sell the growing grain, and to sell all the chattels and unnecessary buildings. For the present, he asked the superintendent to call together for the next day the peasants of the three villages, which were surrounded by the estate of Kuzminskoe, in order to announce to them his intention and to come to an agreement in regard to the land which he was to give them.

With a pleasant consciousness of his firmness in the face of the superintendent’s proofs and of his readiness to sacrifice in favour of the peasants, Nekhlyudov left the office. Reflecting on the business which was before him, he walked around the house, along the flowerbeds which now were neglected (there was a well-kept flowerbed opposite the superintendent’s house), over the lawntennis ground, now overgrown with chicory, and over the avenue of lindens, where he used to go out to smoke his cigar, and where three years before pretty Miss Kirimov, who had been visiting them, had coquetted with him. Having thought out the points of the speech which he intended to make to the peasants on the following day, Nekhlyudov went over to the superintendent’s, and, having considered with him at tea how to liquidate the whole estate, quite calm and satisfied with the good deed which he was about to do to the peasants, he entered the room of the large house, which was always used for the reception of guests, and which now was prepared for him.

In this small apartment, with its pictures representing various views of Venice, and a mirror between two windows, was placed a clean spring bed and a table with a decanter of water, with matches, and a light-extinguisher. On a large table near the mirror lay his open portmanteau, in which could be seen his toilet-case and a few books which he had taken along : one of these, in Russian, was an essay on the investigation of the laws of criminality ; there were also one German and one English book on the same subject. He wanted to read them during his free moments, while travelling from village to village ; but it was too late now, and he was getting ready to go to sleep, in order to prepare himself early in the morning for £he explanation with the peasants.

In the room there stood in the corner an antique chair of red wood, with incrustations, and the sight of this chair, which he remembered having seen in his mother’s sleeping-room, suddenly evoked an unexpected feeling in Nekhlyudov. He suddenly grew sorry for the house, which would now go to ruin, and for the garden, which would become a waste, and for the forests, which would be cut down, and for all those stables, barns, implement sheds, machines, horses, cows ; though they had not been got by him, he knew with what labour they had been got together and maintained. Before, it had appeared to him easy to renounce it all, but now he was sorry not only for all this, but also to lose the land and half the income, which might be so useful to him. And at once he was assailed by the reflections that it was not wise or proper to give the land to the peasants, and to destroy his estate.

« I must not own land. But if I do not own land, I cannot maintain all this estate. Besides, I am now bound for Siberia, and therefore neither the house nor the estate would be of any use to me,” said one voice. ” That is so,” said another voice, “but in the first place, you are not going to pass all your life in Siberia ; and if you marry, there may be children. And you have received the estate in good order, and ought to transmit it in the same condition. There are certain duties to the land. It is very easy to give it up and ruin it, but very difficult to start it anew. But, above everything else, you must well consider what it is you intend to do with your life, and you must take your measures in regard to your property in accordance with this decision. And is your determination firm ? Then again, are you acting sincerely iu conformity with your conscience, or do you do so for the sake of people, in order to boast before them ? ” Nekhlyudov asked himself, and could not help confessing that the opinions of people had an influence upon his decision. The longer he thought, the more did questions arise before him, and the more insolvable they became.

In order to free himself from these thoughts, he lay down on his fresh bed and wanted to fall asleep, in order to solve on the morrow, when his head would be clear, all those questions in which he had become entangled now. But he could not sleep for a long time. Through the open windows poured in, together with the fresh air and moonlight, the croaking of frogs, which was interrupted by the singing and whistling of the nightingales far away in the park, and of one near by, under the window, in a spreading lilac bush. Listening to the sounds of the frogs and nightingales, Nekhlyudov thought of the music of the superintendent’s daughter ; he also recalled the superintendent of the prison, and Maslova, whose lips had quivered like the croaking of the frogs, when she said, ” Leave me altogether.” Then the German superintendent of the estate was going down to the frogs. It was necessary to hold him back, but he not only slipped down, but even became Maslova herself, and began to reproach, ” I am a convict, and you are a prince.” “No, I will not submit,” thought Nekhlyudov, awakening, and he asked himself : ” Well, am I doing right or wrong ? I do not know, and it does not make any difference to me. It makes no difference. But I must sleep.” And he himself began to slip down where the superintendent and Maslova had gone, and there everything was ended.

IL

On the following day Nekhlyudov awoke at nine o’clock. The young office clerk, who was attending him, upon hearing him stir, brought him his shoes which shone as never before, and clear, cold spring water, and announced to him that the peasants had assembled. Nekhlyudov jumped up from bed and shook off his sleep. There was not even a trace left of his last day’s feeling of regret at giving up his land and estate. He now thought of it with surprise. He now was rejoicing in his act, and involuntarily proud of it. Through the window of his room he could see the lawntennis ground, overgrown with chicory, where the peasants, at the superintendent’s request, had gathered.

The frogs had not been croaking in vain. The weather was gloomy ; a still, windless, warm rain had been drizzling since morning, and it hung in drops on the leaves, branches, and grass. Through the window burst not only the odour of the verdure, but also the odour of the earth crying for moisture. While dressing, Nekhlyudov several times looked out of the window and watched the peasants coining together in the open space. They walked up one after another, took off their caps, and stood in a circle, leaning over their sticks. The superintendent, a plump, muscular, strong young man, in a short frock coat, with a green standing collar and immense buttons, came to tell Nekhlyudov that all had come, but that they would wait, while Nekhlyudov had better drink some tea or coffee, for both were ready.

“No, I prefer to go down to them at once,” said Nekhlyudov, experiencing, quite unexpectedly to himself, a feeling of timidity and shame at the thought of the conversation which he was to have now with the peasants.

He was about to fulfil that wish of the peasants, of which they did not even dare to dream, — to give them land at a low price, — that is, he was going to do them a kindness, and yet he felt ashamed of something. When Nekhlyudov approached the peasants gathered there, and the blond, curly, bald, and gray heads were bared, he became so embarrassed that he did not know what to say. The rain continued to drizzle and to settle on the hair, the beards, and the nap of the peasant caftans. The peasants looked at the master and waited for him to say something, while he was so embarrassed that he could not utter a word. This embarrassing silence was broken by the calm, self-confident German superintendent, who regarded himself as a connoisseur of the Russian peasant, and who spoke Russian beautifully and correctly. This strong, overfed man, just like Nekhlyudov, presented a striking contrast to the lean, wrinkled faces and the thin shoulder-blades of the peasants, which protruded underneath their caftans.

” The prince wants to do you a favour, and to give you land, — only you do not deserve it,” said the superintendent.

“Why do we not deserve it, Vasili Kdrlych ? Have we not worked for you ? We are much satisfied with the defunct lady, — the kingdom of heaven be hers,— and the young prince is not going to abandon us,” began a red-haired orator.

” I have called you together in order to give you land, if you so wish it,” said Nekhlyudov.

The peasants were silent, as though not comprehending, or not believing.

” In what sense do you mean to give the land ? ” said a middle-aged peasant in a sleeveless coat.

“To let it to you at a low rental, for your own use.”

“ That is very fine,” said an old man.

« If only the price will be within our reach,” said another.

” Why should we not take the land ? ”

« This is our business, — to make a living off the land.”

“ It will be easier for you. All you will have to do is to receive the money, and no trouble!” were heard some voices.

“ It is you who are causing the trouble,” said the German. ” If you only worked and kept order.”

” It is impossible for us, Vasili Karlych,” interposed a sharp-nosed, lean old man. ” You say, ‘ Why did you let your horse into the grain,’ but who has let him ? I work day in, day out, with the scythe, and maybe fall asleep at night, and he is in your oats, and then you flay me alive.”

” If you only kept things in order.”

” It is easy for you to talk about order, but that is above our strength,” retorted a tall, black-haired, bearded, not very old man.

” I have told you to put up fences.”

” Well, give us the timber for it,” protested an insignificant, small peasant at the rear. ” I wanted to fence in last summer, when you stuck me into jail for three months to feed the lice. That’s the way I have fenced in.”

” What is he talking about ? ” Nekhlyudov asked his superintendent.

“Der erste Diet) im Dorfc” the superintendent said in German. ” He has been caught every year in the woods. Learn to respect other people’s property,” said the superintendent.

” Do we not respect you ? ” said an old man. ” We cannot help respecting you, because we are in your power, and you twist us into ropes.”

” Well, my friend, you are not the people to be worsted ; it is you who are doing the worsting.”

“ Of course, we do the worsting ! Last year you slapped my face, and so it was left. Apparently it does no good to try to get justice out of a rich man.”

” Do as the law tells you to.”

Manifestly this was an oratorical bout, in which the participants did not exactly see what they were talking about and to what purpose. On the one side, one could perceive anger restrained by fear, and on the other, the consciousness of superiority and power. Nekhlyudov was pained by what he heard, and tried to return to the matter in hand, — to establish prices and determine the periods of payments.

“ How is it then about the land ? Do you want it ? And what price will you set upon it, if it is all given to you ? ”

“It is your article, so you set a price.”

Nekhlyudov mentioned a price. Although it was much lower than what was paid in the neighbourhood, the peasants, as is always the case, began to haggle and to find the price too high. Nekhlyudov had expected that his proposition would be accepted with joy, but there was no apparent expression of pleasure. Nekhlyudov could see that this proposition was advantageous to them, because when the question arose who was going to take the land, whether the whole Commune, or by partnership, there began bitter contentions between those peasants who wanted to exclude the feeble and the poor payers from participation in the land, and those who were to be excluded. Finally, thanks to the superintendent, a price and periods of payment were agreed upon, and the peasants, conversing loudly, went down-hill, toward the village, while Nekhlyudov went to the office to sketch the conditions with the superintendent.

Everything was arranged as Nekhlyudov had wished and expected : the peasants received their land at thirty per cent, less than was asked in the neighbourhood ; his income from the land was cut almost into two, but that was more than enough for Nekhlyudov, especially in conjunction with the sum which he received for the timber which he had sold, and which he was to net from the sale of the chattels. Everything seemed to go well, and yet Nekhlyudov felt all the time ashamed of something. He saw that the peasants, notwithstanding the thanks which some had expressed to him, were dissatisfied and had expected something more. It turned out that he had lost a great deal, and the peasants did not receive what they had expected.

On the following day the contract was signed, and, accompanied by the select old men, who had come to see him, Nekhlyudov, with the unpleasant feeling of something unfinished, seated himself in the superintendent’s superb ” three-span carriage,’.’ as the driver from the station had called it. Bidding the peasants goodbye, who shook their heads in surprise and dissatisfaction, he left for the station. The peasants were dissatisfied. Nekhlyudov was dissatisfied with himself. What it was he was dissatisfied with he did not know, but he for some reason felt all the time sad and ashamed.

III.

From Kuzminskoe Nekhlyudov went to the estate which he had inherited from his aunts, the one where he had become acquainted with Katyusha. He intended to arrange matters with the land there just as at Kuzminskoe, and besides, to find out whatever he could about Katyusha and her child and his, whether it was true that it died, and how it died. He arrived at Panovo early in the morning. The first tiling he was struck by, as he drove into the courtyard, was the sight of abandonment and decay that was on all the buildings, but especially on the house. The sheet-iron roof, which at one time had been green, not having been painted for a long time, was now red with rust, and several sheets were curled up, apparently by the wind ; the boards with which the house was lined had in spots been pulled off by people, wherever the boards came off easily by turning away the rusty nails. Both the front and back porches, especially the memorable one from the back, had rotted and were broken, and nothing but the cross-beams were left. Some windows were nailed up with boards, and the wing, in which the clerk lived, and the kitchen, and stable, — everything was gray and dilapidated.

Only the garden did not look forlorn ; on the contrary, it had spread out and grown up and was now in full bloom ; beyond the fence could be seen, like white clouds, blooming cherry, apple, and plum trees. The clump of lilac bushes was flowering just as it had flowered twelve years before, when Nekhlyudov had played the ” burning” catching game with sixteen-year-old Katyusha, and had fallen and stung himself in the nettles. The larch which had been planted by Sofya Ivanovna near the house, and which then had been not higher than a post, was now a large tree, of the size of building timber, and all clad in yellowish-green, fluffy needles. The river was within its banks and dinned at the mill in the sluices. In the meadow, beyond the river, was pasturing a mixed many-coloured herd of peasant cattle.

The clerk, a seminarist who had not finished his course, met Nekhlyudov in the yard, continually smiling ; he invited him to the office, and, again smiling, as though promising something special by that smile, went behind the partition. Here there was some whispering, and then all grew silent. The driver having received a gratuity drove out of the yard, with tinkling bells, and then everything became completely still. Then a barefoot girl in an embroidered shirt, with fluff-rings in her ears, ran past the window ; after the girl ran a peasant, clattering with the hobnails of his heavy boots over the hard path.

Nekhlyudov sat down near the window, looking at the garden and listening. A fresh spring breeze, bearing the odour of the ploughed-up earth, came in through the small double-winged window, softly agitating the hair on his perspiring brow, and some notes lying on the windowsill, which was all cut up with a knife. On the river, ” tra-pa-tap, tra-pa-tap,” plashed, interrupting each other, the washing-beetles of the women, and these sounds ran down the dam of the river, that shone in the sun ; and one could hear the even fall of the water at the mill ; and past the ear flew a fly, buzzing in a frightened and melodious manner.

And suddenly Nekhlyudov recalled that just in the same manner long ago, when he was young and innocent, he had heard here on the river these sounds of the washing-beetles over the wet clothes, through the even din of the mill ; and just in the same manner the spring breeze had agitated the hair on his damp brow and the notes on the cut-up windowsill; and just as frightened a fly had flown past his ear, — and he felt himself, not the eighteen-year-old youth, which he had been then, but possessed of the same freshness, purity, and a future full of great possibilities, and at the same time, as happens in dreams, he knew that that was no more, and he felt terribly sad.

” When do you wish to eat ? ” the clerk asked him, smiling.

” Whenever you wish, — I am not hungry. 1 shall walk down to the village.”

” Would you not like to go into the house ? Everything is in good order inside. You will see that if on the outside — ”

” No, later. But tell me, if you please, is there here a woman by the name of Matréna Khariua ? ” (That was Katyusha’s aunt.)

” Certainly. She is in the village. I can’t manage her. She keeps a dram-shop. 1 have upbraided and scolded her for it, but when it comes to writing an accusation, I am sorry for her: she is old, and has grandchildren,” said the clerk, with the same smile, which expressed both a desire to be pleasant to the master, .and also a conviction that Nekhlyudov understood matters as well as he.

” Where does she live ? I should like to go down to see her.”

” At the edge of the village, — the third hut from the other end. On the left hand there is a brick cabin, and next to the brick cabin is her hut. I had better take you down,” said the clerk, with a smile of joy.

” No, thank you. I shall find her. In the meantime, please, send word to the peasants to come together: 1 want to speak to them about the land,” said Nekhlyudov, intending to arrange everything here as at Kuzmmskoe, and, if possible, on that very day.

IV.

Upon emerging from the gate, Nekhlyudov met on the hard-trodden path across the pasture, which was overgrown with plantain and wild rosemary, the peasant girl, with rapidly moving, stout, bare feet, in a motley apron, with fluff-rings in her ears. She was now returning. She swayed her left hand across her path, while with her right she clutched a red cock to her body. The cock, with his wavy red crest, seemed to be quiet, and only rolled his eyes, and now stretched and now drew in one of his black legs, catching with his claws in the girl’s apron. As she was coming nearer to the master, she slowed down and changed her run to a walk ; when she came abreast of him, she stopped and, swaying her head back, bowed to him ; she moved on with the cock, when he had passed her. Coming down to a well, Nekhlyudov met an old woman, who on her stooping shoulders, covered with her dirty, rough shirt, was carrying full, heavy buckets. The old woman carefully let them down and bowed to him with the same back swing of her head.

Beyond the well began the village. It was a clear, warm day, and at ten o’clock it was already hot, while the gathering clouds now and then veiled the sun. Through the whole street was borne a sharp, pungent, and not disagreeable odour of dung, which was proceeding from the carts that were climbing up-hill along a shining, smooth road, but more especially from the dug-up manure piles of the yards, past the open gates of which Nekhlyudov was going. The peasants, who were walking up the hill back of the wagons, were barefooted, and their trousers and shirts were daubed with the manure liquid ; they were looking back at the tall, stout gentleman, in a gray hat, which glistened in the sun with its silk band, as he was walking up the village, at every second step touching the ground with bis shining knotty cane, with a sparkling knob. The peasants, who were returning from the field, shaking on the seats of their empty carts, which came down at a gallop, took off their caps and with surprise watched the unusual man who was walking up then-street, while the women walked out of the gates or upon the porches and pointed him out to each other, and followed him with their eyes.

At the fourth gate, past which Nekhlyudov happened to pass, he was stopped by a cart that was just coming out with a squeak from the gate ; it was packed high with manure, and had a mat on top to sit on. A six-year-old boy, excited at the ride which he was going to have, was following the wagon. A young peasant, in bast shoes, making long strides, was driving the horses out of the gate. A long-legged, bluish-gray colt leaped out of the gate, but, becoming frightened at Nekhlyudov, pressed close to the cart and, hurting its legs against the wheels, jumped ahead of its distressed and slightly neighing mother, that was pulling the heavy wagon. The other horse was being led out by a lean, lively old man, who was also barefoot, in striped trousers and a long, dirty shirt, with protruding shoulder-blades.

When the horses got out on the hard road, which was bestrewn with tufts of manure, gray, as though burnt, the old man turned back to the gate and bowed to Nekhlyudov.

” Are you the nephew of our ladies ? “

” Yes, yes.”

” I welcome you upon your arrival. Have you come to see us ? ” said the talkative old man.

” Yes, yes — Well, how are you getting along ? ” said Nekhlyiidov, not knowing what to say.

” What kind of a life is it that we lead ? The very worst kind,” the talkative old man said, in a singsong, drawling way, as though it gave him pleasure to tell it.

” Why is it bad ? ” said Nekhlyudov, walking into the gate.

” What kind of a life is it ? The very worst kind,” said the old man, going with Nekhlyudov to the penthouse, which was cleaned out to the ground.

Nekhlyudov went after him under the penthouse.

” There they are, twelve souls,” continued the old man, pointing to two women, who, with receding kerchiefs, perspiring, their skirts tucked up, with bare calves soiled half-way up with the manure, were standing with pitchforks on the platform which was not yet cleaned out from the dung. ” I have to buy six puds every month, and where am I to get it ? “

« Haven’t you enough of your own ? ”

” Of my own ? ” said the old man, with a contemptuous smile. ” I have enough land for three souls, and this year I have only harvested eight ricks, so that there was not enough to last until Christmas.”

” What do you do, then ? “

” We do like this: I have hired out one as a labourer, and have borrowed money from you, gracious sir. I borrowed it before Shrovetide, and the taxes are not yet paid.”

” What are your taxes ? “

“From my farm they are seventeen roubles for four months. God preserve us from such a life ! I do not know how to turn about.”

” May I go into your house ? ” said Nekhlyudov, moving through the small yard, and passing from the cleaned-up place to the untouched, but forked-over, saffron-yellow, strong-smelling layers of manure.

“Why not? Step in,” said the old man, and, with rapid strides of his bare feet, that pressed the liquid manure between their toes, running ahead of Nekhlyudov, he opened the door for him.

The women adjusted the kerchiefs on their heads, let down their skirts, and with terrified curiosity looked at the clean master, with the gold cuff-buttons, who was walking into their house.

From the hut rushed out two little girls in shirts. Bending and taking off his hat, Nekhlyudov entered the vestibule and the dirty and narrow room, which smelled of some sour food, and which was occupied by two looms. Near the oven stood an old woman with the sleeves of her lean, venous, sunburnt arms rolled up.

” Here is our master, and he is visiting us,” said the old man.

“ You are welcome,” kindly said the old woman, rolling down her sleeves.

“ I wanted to see how you are getting along,” said Nekhlyudov.

“We live just as you see. The hut is ready to tumble down any time, and it will kill somebody yet. But the old man says that it is good. So we live, and rule over things,” said the vivacious old woman, nervously jerking her head. “ I am getting ready to dine. I have to feed the working people.”

“ What are you going to have for dinner ? ”

” For dinner ? We have good food. First course — bread with kvas ; the second — kvas with bread,” said the old woman, grinning with her half-worn-off teeth.

“ No, without jokes, show me what it is you are going to have for dinner to-day.”

“ What we shall eat ? ” said the old man, laughing. “ Our food is not complicated. Show it to him, old woman.”

The old woman shook her head.

” So you want to see our peasant food. You are a curious gentleman, as I look at you. He wants to know everything. I told you, bread and kvas, and soup made of goutwort, which the women brought yesterday, — that’s the soup, and then, potatoes.”

” And that is all ? “

” What else is there to be ? We wash it down with milk,” said the old woman, laughing, and looking at the door.

The door was open, and the vestibule was full of people, boys, girls, women with their babes, watching the strange master who was examining the peasant food. The old woman was evidently proud of her ability to converse with the master.

” Yes, sir, it is a bad, bad life we lead,” said the old man. ” Whither are you going ? ” he shouted at those who were standing in the door.

“ Goodbye,” said Nekhlyudov, experiencing uneasiness and shame, as to the cause of which he did not give himself any account.

” We thank you most humbly for having visited us,” said the old man.

In the vestibule, the people, pressing against each other, made way for him, and he went into the street and walked up the bill. He was followed by two barefoot boys from the vestibule : one of these, the elder, was in a dirty, once white shirt, and the other, in a worthless, faded, rose-coloured shirt. Nekhlyudov looked back at them.

” Whither are you going now ? ” asked the boy in the white shirt.

” To Matréna Kharina,” he said. ” Do you know her ? ”

The little fellow in the rose-coloured shirt laughed out for some reason, while the elder seriously asked :

” What Matréna ? An old woman ? “

” Yes, an old woman.”

” O-oh,” he drawled out. ” That is Semén’s wife, at the edge of the village. We shall take you there. Com..

Fédya, let us take him there ! ”

” And the horses ? ”

” Maybe it won’t hurt.”

Fédya agreed with him, and they went all three up the street.

V.

NekhlyÛdov was more at ease with the boys than with the grown people, and he talked to them on the way up. The little hoy in the rose-coloured shirt stopped laughing, and spoke as cleverly and clearly as the elder child.

” Who is poorest of all here ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” Who is poor ? Mikhàyla is poor, Semén Makarov, and then Marfa is mighty poor.”

« And Anisya, — she is poorer still. Anisya has not even a cow, and she has to go a-begging,” said little Fédya.

« She has no cow, but there are only three of them, while there are five of them at Marfa’s house,” insisted the elder boy.

“ But she is a widow,” the rose-coloured boy defended Anisya.

« You say Anisya is a widow, but Marfa is as good as a widow,” continued the elder boy. ” It is all the same as though she did not have a husband.”

<< Where is her husband ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

« In jail, feeding lice,” said the elder boy, using the customary expression.

« Last summer he cut down two little birches in the manorial forest, so he was locked up,” hastened to say the little rose-coloured boy. ” He has been there these six months, and the woman has to beg, for herself, three children, and a poor old woman,” he explained at great length.

” Where does she live ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” In this very house,” said the boy, pointing at the hut, * in front of which a white-haired little child, who was barely holding himself on his crooked legs with its turned-out knees, was standing, with a swinging motion, on the path over which Nekhlyudov was walking.

“Vaska, where are you running, you little urchin?” cried a woman in a dirty gray shirt, which looked as though it were covered with ashes, as she came running out of the hut. She rushed with a frightened face in front of Nekhlyudov, picked up the child, and carried him into the house.

It looked as though she were afraid lest Nekhlyudov should do him some harm.

That was the woman whose husband was locked up in jail for having taken the birches out of Nekhlyudov’s forest.

“Well, and Matréna, is she poor?” asked Nekhlyudov, as they were coming close to Matréna’s hut.

” Not at all poor : she traffics in liquor,” the slim rose-coloured boy answered resolutely.

Upon reaching Matréna’s hut, Nekhlyudov dismissed the boys, and entered the vestibule, and then the house. Old Matréna’s cabin was about fifteen feet square, so that on the bed, which was back of the oven, it was not possible for a tall man to stretch himself. ” On this very bed,” he thought, “ Katyusha bore the child and then lay ill.” Nearly the whole room was occupied by a loom, which the old woman was putting away with her elder granddaughter’s assistance, just as Nekhlyudov, having struck his head against the low door, entered. Two other grandchildren rushed headlong after the master, and stopped in the door, taking hold of the crosspiece with their bands.

” Whom do you want ? ” angrily asked the old woman, who was in bad humour on account of the loom that was giving her trouble. Besides, as she secretly sold liquor, she was afraid of all strangers.

” I am the proprietor. I should like to talk with you.” The old woman was silent and looked fixedly at him ; then she suddenly became transformed.

“Ah, you, dear sir, and I, foolish woman, did not recognize you. I thought it was some transient,” she said, in a feignedly kind voice. “Ah, you, my clear-eyed falcon.”

” I should like to talk to you without witnesses,” said Nekhlyudov, looking at the open door, where the children stood, and beyond which was a haggard woman, with a lean, sickly, pale, continually smiling baby, in a skull-cap made of rags.

” What is it you have not seen ? I will show you ! Just let me have my crutch,” cried the old woman at those who were standing in the door. ” Please close the door ! ”

The children went away, and the woman with the babe closed the door.

“I was wondering who it is has come. And behold, it is the master. My golden one, my precious beauty,” said the old woman. “ And so you have deigned to come to see me. 0 you precious one ! Sit down here, your Serenity, right here on the bench,” she said, wiping off the bench with her apron. “ I was wondering what devil it was that was coming here, and behold, it was your Serenity, the good master, the benefactor, our protector.”

Nekhlyudov sat down ; the old woman stood in front of him, supported her cheek with her right hand, with her left hand caught hold of the elbow of her right arm, and began to speak in a singsong voice :

“ You have grown old, your Serenity ; you used to be like a pretty flower, and now ? Evidently you, too, have known sorrow ! ”

“ I came to ask you whether you remember Katyusha Maslova? ”

“ Katerina ! How could I forget her — she is my niece. Of course I remember her ; I have wept so many tears for her. 1 know all. Who, my dear, is not sinful before God, and not guilty toward the Tsar ? A young thing, — she drank tea and coffee,— well, the unclean one tempted her, for he is strong, and the sin was committed. What is to be done ? If you had abandoned her, but no, you gave her a good reward, a whole hundred roubles. And what did she do ? She could not comprehend it. If she had listened to me, she might have lived well. Though she is my niece, 1 must say, she is not a sensible girl. I had found such a fine place for her, but she would not submit, and cursed the master. It is not right for us to curse masters. Well, she was dismissed. Then, she might have lived at the house of the forester, but she did not want to.”

“ I wanted to ask about the child. She bore him in your house, 1 think. Where is the child ? ”

“ I had, dear sir, well provided for the child. She was very ill, and thought she would not get up. I had the child baptized, as is proper, and sent him to a foundling house. Really, what was the use of tormenting an angelic little soul, when the mother was dying. Others leave the child without feeding, and it dies ; but I thought that it was not right, and so I took the trouble, and sent him to the foundling house. There was some money, and so he was taken there.”

“ Did he have a number ? ”

“ He did, only he died. She said that he died the moment she came there.”

“ Who is she ? ”

“ That woman who used to live at Skorodnoe. That was her business. Malanya was her name, — she is dead now. She was a clever woman—and that’s the way she did it. If a child was brought to her, she kept it in her house, and fed it. And she fed it until the time for taking it away. When there were three or four, she took

them away. She did it very cleverly : she had a large cradle, in the shape of a double bed, so that the children could be placed either way. And there was a handle attached to it. So she would place four of them with their heads apart, so that they should not hurt each other, and with their feet together, and thus she took the four away. She stuck sucking rags into their mouths, so the dear little things were content.”

” Well, and then ? “

“Well, so she took Katerina’s child and kept him for about two weeks. He began to ail in her house.”

” Was he a nice child ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” So nice that he ought to have had better care, but that was not possible. He was just like you,” added the old woman, blinking with her old eye.

“ What weakened him so ? I suppose he did not get the right food.”

“ What feeding could it be ? Consider that it was not her child. All she cared for was to get him there alive. She said that he died the moment she reached Moscow with him. She brought a certificate about it, all in proper shape. She was a clever woman.”

That was all Nekhlyudov was able to find out about his child.

VI.

Having again struck his head against the doors of the house and of the vestibule, Nekhlyudov emerged in the street. The dirty white and the rose-coloured boy were waiting for him. A few more had joined them. There were also waiting a few women with their suckling babes, and among them was the woman who lightly held in her arms the anæmic child with the skull-cap made of rags. This child did not cease smiling strangely with its whole old-looking face and twirling strainedly its large fingers.

Nekhlyudov knew that this was a smile of suffering. He asked who this woman was.

“ This is that very Anisya of whom I have told you,” said the elder boy.

Nekhlyudov turned to Anisya.

” How are you getting along ? ” he asked. ” What do you live on?”

“How do I live? I beg,” said Anisya, and burst out weeping.

The old-looking child melted into a smile, twisting its worm-like little feet.

Nekhlyudov drew out his pocketbook, and gave the woman ten roubles. He had not made two steps when he was overtaken by another woman with a child, then by an old woman, and again by another. They all spoke of their poverty, and asked to be helped. Nekhlyudov distributed the sixty roubles in small bills which he had in his pocketbook, and, with a terrible gnawing in his heart, returned home, that is, to the wing of the clerk.

The clerk, smiling, met Nekhlyudov with the information that the peasants would gather in the evening. Nekhlyudov thanked him, and, without entering the rooms, went to stroll through the garden over the overgrown paths, which were strewn with the white petals of the apple-blossoms, thinking over everything he had seen.

At first everything near the wing was quiet, but later Nekhlyudov heard two angry contending voices of women, through which now and then sounded the calm voice of the smiling clerk. Nekhlyudov listened.

“ I can’t make out why you are pulling the cross off my neck,” said one furious feminine voice.

“She just ran in,” said another voice. “Give her back to me, I say. Don’t torment the cow, and keep the milk away from the children.”

Pay, or work it off,” said the calm voice of the clerk.

Nekhlyudov came out of the garden and went up to the porch, where two dishevelled women were standing, one of them apparently in the last stages of pregnancy. On the steps of the porch stood the clerk, with his hands in the pockets of his linen ulster. Upon noticing the master, the women grew silent and began to fix the kerchiefs which had slipped off their heads, and the clerk took his hands out of his pockets and smiled.

The trouble was, as the clerk explained it, that the peasants purposely let the calves, and even the cows, out on the manorial meadows. Thus two cows belonging to these women had been caught in the meadow and had been driven in. Now the clerk demanded thirty kopeks a cow, or two days work from each of the women. But the women declared that, in the first place, the cows had just entered there ; that, in the second, they had no money ; and that, in the third, for the promise to work off the fine, they demanded the immediate return of the cows that had been standing since morning in the hot sun without food, and lowing pitifully.

“ How often I have asked them in all kindness,” said the smiling clerk, looking at Nekhlyudov, as though appealing to him as to a witness, ” to look after their cattle when they drive them out to pasture ! ”

” I just ran down to look at my baby, when they ran away.”

“ Then don’t go away, when you are supposed to watch the cattle ! ”

” And who will feed the baby ? You won’t give them the breast.”

“ If she had really cropped the meadow, her belly would not pain her now, but she had barely gone in,” said the other.

” They have pastured off all the meadows,” the clerk addressed Nekhlyudov. ” If they are not to be fined, there will be no hay at all.”

” Oh, don’t sin,” cried the woman with child. ” Mine have never gone there before.”

” But they have now, and so pay, or work it off.”

” I will work it off, only let the cows go, and don’t starve them,” she cried, angrily. ” As it is, 1 have no rest, neither by day nor by night. My mother-in-law is sick. My husband is on a spree. I have to attend to everything, and I have no strength. Choke yourself with your working off.”

Nekhlyudov asked the clerk to release the cows, and himself went to the garden to finish his reflections, but there was nothing to think about.

Everything was so clear to him that he could not help wondering how it was that people, and he himself included, had not seen long ago what was so manifestly clear. The people are dying by starvation, and are used to this process of starvation ; among them conditions of life, adapted to this starvation, have formed themselves : the dying off of the children, hard labour for the women which surpasses their strength, insufficiency of food for all, especially for the older men. And thus the people slowly arrive at a state when they no longer see its whole terror, and do not complain of it. Therefore we regard this condition as natural, and think that it ought to be such.

Now’ it was as clear as day to him that the chief cause of the people’s suffering, as perceived and pointed out by the peasants themselves, consisted in the fact that the landed proprietors had taken away the land from which they could provide for their needs. At the same time, it was exceedingly clear that the children and old people died because they had no milk, and they had no milk because there was no land on which to pasture their cows and harvest their grain and hay ; it was exceedingly clear that all the suffering of the people, or at least the chief and nearest cause of that suffering, came from the fact that the land which fed them was not in their hands, but in the hands of men who, making use of the right to that land, lived by the labours of the people. And the land, which was so necessary to the peasants that they starved for the lack of it, was worked by these very people, who were reduced to extremity, in order that the grain might be sold abroad, and that the owners of the land might be able to buy themselves hats, canes, carriages, bronzes, and so on.

This was now as clear to him as that horses which are shut up in an enclosure where they have browsed off all the grass will be lean and starving, unless they be permitted to use the land where they may find food for themselves. And that was terrible, and could not and ought not to be. And means ought to be found to do away with this, or at least he himself ought not to take part in it.

” I shall certainly find a way,” he thought, walking up and down, in the nearest avenue of birches. ” In learned societies, governmental institutions, and newspapers we talk about the causes of the people’s impoverishment, and about the means for their uplifting, except the one certain means, which the people will unquestionably suggest, and which is that the land which has been taken from them be returned to them.” He vividly recalled the fundamental doctrine of Henry George, and his former enthusiasm for it, and he wondered how it was he had forgotten it all. ” The land cannot be the object of private ownership; it cannot be the object of purchase and sale, any more than water, air, and the sun are. Everybody has the same right to the land and to the privileges which it bestows.” And he understood now why he felt so ashamed as he was arranging matters at Kuzmfnskoe. He had been deceiving himself. Though he knew that man had no right to the land, he assumed it in his own case, and presented the peasants with a part of that which, in the depth of his soul, he knew he had no right to.

He would not do that here, but would change his Kuzmmskoe procedure. He thought out a project, which was that he would give the land to the peasants at a stated rental, which rental was to be the peasants’ property and to be used for the payment of taxes and for public needs. This was not the Single-tax, but the nearest possible approach to it under present conditions. The chief thing was that he renounced his right of private ownership of land.

When he came back to the house, the clerk, smiling most joyfully, invited him to dine, at the same time expressing his fear lest the food, which had been prepared by his wife with the help of the girl with the fluff-rings in her ears, should be cooked and broiled too much.

The table was covered with a rough cloth ; an embroidered towel took the place of a napkin ; and on the table stood an old Saxon ware soup-bowl, with a broken handle, in which was potato soup with that cock which had been protruding now one black leg and now another, and which now was cut and even chopped into small

“No, I shan’t. I renounce it.”

The clerk heaved a heavy sigh, and then once more began to smile. He saw that Nekhlyudov was not quite sane, and immediately set out to discover in the project of Nekhlyudov, who was giving up his land, a chance for his own personal advantage ; he tried to comprehend that project in the sense of being able himself to make use of the land which was to be given away.

But when he saw that that was not possible, he felt aggrieved, and ceased taking any interest in the plan, and continued to smile only to please his master. Seeing that the clerk did not understand him, Nekhlyudov dismissed him, and himself sat down at the cut-up and ink-stained table, in order to put his plan down on paper.

The sun had just set behind the newly budded trees, and the gnats flew in swarms into the room and stung him. When he had ended his note and at the same time heard the bleating of the cattle in the village, the creaking of opened gates, and the conversation of the peasants collected for the meeting, Nekhlyudov told the clerk not to call the peasants to the office, but that he himself would go to the village and to the yard where the peasants might be gathered. Having swallowed a glass of tea offered him by the clerk, Nekhlyudov went to the village.

VIL

There wag noisy talk near the yard of the elder, but the moment Nekhlyudov approached, the conversation died down, and all the peasants, just as at Knzmmskoe, one after another took off their hats. The peasants of this locality looked more poverty-stricken than those at Kuzmfnskoe : just as the women and girls wore fluff-rings in their ears, so the men were nearly all of them in bast shoes and caftans. Some were barefoot, and in nothing but their shirts, just as they had come from their work.

Nekhlyudov made an effort over himself and began his speech by saying that he intended to give them the land altogether. The peasants were silent and there was no change in the expression of their faces.

” Because I consider,” said Nekhlyudov, blushing, ” that everybody has a right to make use of the land.”

” That is so. That is correct,” were heard the voices of the peasants.

Nekhlyudov continued to speak, telling them that the income from the land ought to be divided up among all, and therefore he proposed that they take the land and pay such rental as they themselves might determine on into the common capital, which was to be at their disposal. There were heard words of approval and agreement, but the serious faces of the peasants became ever more serious, and the eyes, which had been looking at the master, were cast down, as though not to shame him with the fact that his cunning had been understood by all, and that he would not deceive anybody.

Nekhlyudov spoke quite clearly, and the peasants were sensible people, but he was not understood, nor could he ever be, for the same reason that the clerk was unable to comprehend him. They were fully convinced that it was proper for every man to look out for his advantage. But the landed proprietors, they knew by the experience of several generations, always watched their own interests to the disadvantage of the peasants. Consequently, if the proprietor called them together and offered them something new, it was manifestly for the purpose of cheating them more cunningly still.

” Well, what rental do you expect to put on the land ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” What is the use putting a price on it ? We cannot do that. The land is yours, and so is the power,” was the answer from the crowd.

” But you will be using that money for your own common purposes.”

” We cannot do that. The common good is one thing, and this is another.”

” Understand,” said the smiling clerk, who had come up after Nekhlyudov, wishing to explain the matter, ” that the prince gives the land to you for money, and the money goes back to you as your own capital, for your common good.”

” We understand quite well,” said an angry-looking, toothless peasant, without raising his eyes. “ It is just like in a bank, only we shall have to pay at stated times. We do not wish that, because it is hard for us as it is, and that will ruin us completely.”

“ It does us no good. Let us live as before,” spoke dissatisfied and even insulting voices.

They began to refuse more resolutely when Nekhlyudov mentioned a contract which he would sign and they would have to sign, too.

” What is the use of signing ? As we have worked before, so we shall continue to work. But what good is this ? We are ignorant people.”

” We can’t agree to it, because it is an unusual business. As it has been, so let it be. If only the seeds be changed,” were heard some voices.

To change the seeds meant that under present conditions the seeding was done from the peasant grain, whereas they wanted the master to furnish the grain to them.

‘ ” So you decline it, and will not take the land ? ” asked Nekhlyudov, turning to a middle-aged barefoot peasant, with a beaming countenance, in a torn caftan, who in his bent hand was holding his tattered cap just as soldiers hold theirs when they take them off by command.

” Yes, sir,” replied this soldier, who apparently had not yet been freed from the hypnotism of militarism.

” Consequently you have enough land ? ” said Nekhlyudov.

” Not at all,” said the ex-soldier, with an artificial, happy grin, carefully holding his tattered cap in front of him, as though offering it to anybody who might like to use it.

” Still, you had better consider what I have told you,” said Nekhlyudov, in surprise, and he repeated his proposition.

“ We have nothing to think over. As we have said, so it will be,” angrily muttered the toothless old man.

“ I shall stay here all day tomorrow. If you have changed your minds, send word to me.”

The peasants made no reply.

Nekhlyudov could not get anything out of them, and went back to the office.

“ Let me inform you, prince,” said the clerk, upon returning home, ” that you will come to no understanding with them : they are stubborn people. The moment they are at a meeting, they become stubborn, and there is no stirring them after that. They are afraid of everything. And yet, on other occasions these very peasants — take, for example, that gray-haired, or that swarthy man, who did not agree — are clever people. Whenever one of them comes to the office, and I ask him to sit down and drink a glass of tea,” said the smiling clerk, ” he talks quite freely, — and he is a minister as regards his mind, — he will judge everything correctly. But at the meeting he is an entirely different man, and he sticks to just one thing.”

” Can’t you send for some of these more intelligent peasants,” said Nekhlyudov. ” I should like to explain it to them in detail.”

” That can be done,” said the smiling clerk.

“ Then, please, call them for tomorrow.”

“ That can be done,” said the clerk, smiling even more cheerfully. ” I shall call them for tomorrow.”

” I declare, he is shrewd ! ” said, swaying on his well-fed mare, the swarthy peasant, with his shaggy, never combed beard, to another old, lean peasant in a tattered caftan, who was riding near him and clanking with the iron hobbles. They were riding to put the horses to pasture for the night on the highway and secretly in the manorial forest. ” The idea of his giving away the land if we put down our signatures ! They have been fooling us long enough. No, sir, you are joking ! Nowadays we understand a thing or two ourselves,” he added, and began to call back the straying yearling colt.

“ Here, colt,” he cried, stopping his horse and looking back, but the colt was not behind, but had gone into the meadow at one side.

” That is where he has gone to, accursed one, into the manorial meadow,” said the swarthy peasant with the shaggy beard, as he heard on the dew-covered meadow, fragrant with the swamp, the crashing of the dock, over which the straying colt was prancing and whinnying.

“You hear, the meadows are getting full of weeds. On the holiday we shall have to send the women to weed out the meadows,” said the slim peasant in the torn caftan. ” Else we shall ruin our scythes.”

” Put down your signatures, he says,” the shaggy peasant continued his judgment of the master’s speech. ” You sign your name, and he will swallow you alive.”

“ That is right,” answered the old man. And they did not say anything more. There was heard only the thud of the horses’ feet on the rough road.

VIII.

Upon returning home, Nekhlyudov found in the office, which had been prepared for him for the night, a high bed with a feather mattress, two pillows, and a crimson, silk, double, unbending coverlet, quilted with a small design,— evidently from the trousseau of the clerk’s wife. The clerk offered Nekhlyudov what was left of the dinner, but receiving a refusal, he excused himself for his slim entertainment and accommodation, and retired, leaving Nekhlyudov to himself.

The peasants’ refusal did not in the least embarrass Nekhlyudov. On the contrary, he felt quite composed and happy, although there, at Kuzminskoe, his proposition had been accepted and he had received thanks, while here incredulity and even hostility were shown to him. The office was close and not clean. Nekhlyudov went into the yard and wanted to go into the garden, but he recalled that night, the window in the maids’ room, and the back porch, and it seemed unpleasant to him to stroll through places that were polluted by criminal recollections, lie sat down on the porch, and, inhaling the strong odour of the young birch leaves, which was everywhere in the warm air, he for a long time looked at the darkling garden and listened to the mill, to the nightingales, and to some other kind of a bird, which was monotonously whistling in a bush near the porch.

In the clerk’s window the light was extinguished ; in the east, back of the barn, crimsoned the glow of the rising moon ; heat-lightnings ever more brightly illuminated the blooming, wild-growing garden and the dilapidated house ; a distant clap of thunder was heard, and one-third of the heaven was shrouded by a black cloud. The nightingales and the bird grew silent. Through the din of the water in the mill was heard the cackling of geese, then the early cocks in the village and in the clerk’s yard began to call to each other, as they always crow earlier on hot, stormy nights.

There is a saying that cocks crow early on a cheerful night. This was more than a cheerful night for Nekhlyudov. It was a joyful, a happy night for him. His imagination reconstructed for him his impressions of that happy summer which he had passed here as an innocent youth, and he felt himself now to be such as he had been then and during all his better moments in life. He not only recalled, but even felt himself to be such as he had been when, being fourteen years old, he had prayed to God that He should show him the truth, when, as a child, he wept on his mother’s knees, at parting, promising her always to be good and never to give her cause for grief ; he felt himself to be such as he was when he and Nikdlenka Irténev had decided to support each other in a good life, and to try to make all people happy.

He now recalled how at Kuzmmskoe he was tempted to regret the house, the forest, the estate, the land, and he asked himself whether he regretted now. And it even appeared strange to him to have regretted. He recalled everything he had seen on that day : the woman with the children and without her husband, who had been locked up in jail for cutting down trees in his, Nekhlyudov’s, forest; and terrible Matréna, who thought, or, at least, said, that women of their condition ought to become gentlemen’s paramours ; he recalled her relation to the children, the manner of their despatch to the foundling house, and that unfortunate, smiling child in the skull-cap, that was slowly dying from lack of food ; he recalled that pregnant, feeble woman who was to work for him because, exhausted by work, she did not watch her cow that did not have enough to eat; and here, too, he recalled the prison, the shaven heads, the cells, the loathsome stench, the chains, and, side by side with it, the senseless luxury of his life and of that of every city gentleman. Everything was quite clear and indisputable.

The bright, almost full moon rose from behind the barn, and black shadows fell across the yard, and the sheet iron on the roof of the dilapidated house began to sparkle.

And, as though not wishing to let the light come out, the silenced nightingale began to pipe and trill in the garden.

Nekhlyudov recalled how he had begun at Kuznnnskoe to reflect over his life, and to solve the questions as to what he should do and how he should do it; and he recalled how he had become entangled in these questions, and could not solve them, because there were so many considerations connected with each of them. He now put these questions to himself, and was surprised to find how easy they were. They were easy now because he did not think what would become of him, nor did that interest him, but he thought what he ought to do. Strange to say, he was absolutely unable to decide what he himself needed, but knew beyond any doubt what was to be done for others. He knew unquestionably that the land must be given to the peasants, because it was wrong to retain it. He knew unquestionably that Katyusha must not be abandoned ; that he must aid her, and be ready for everything, in order to expiate his guilt before her. He knew unquestionably that he must study, examine, elucidate to himself, and comprehend all those cases of the courts and the punishments, in which he was conscious of seeing something which nobody else saw. He did not know what would come of it all, but he knew unquestionably that this and that had to be done. And this firm conviction gave him joy.

The black cloud had veiled the whole heaven, and not only heat-lightning, but real lightning, which illuminated the whole yard and the dilapidated house with its torn-off porches, was seen, and thunder was heard overhead. All the birds grew silent, but the leaves began to rustle, and the wind reached the porch, on which he was sitting, and tossed his hair. One drop fell upon him, then another ; then the rain began to drum on the burdock and on the iron sheets of the roof, and the whole air was brilliantly lighted up : everything grew silent, and before Nekhlyudov could count three, almost over his head there came a terrible clap of thunder, which then rolled along the sky.

Nekhlyudov went into the house.

” Yes, yes,” he thought, ” the work done by our life, all the work, the whole meaning of that work, is incomprehensible and must remain incomprehensible to me. Why were there aunts ? Why did Nikdlenka Irténev die ? and why am I alive ? Why was there Katyusha ? And my insanity ? Why was that war ? And all my consequent reckless life? It is not in my power to understand all that, all the work of the Master. But it is in my power to do His will as it is written in my conscience, and this I know unquestionably. And when I do it, I am unquestionably calm.”

The rain now came down in sheets and ran off the roofs, rustling into the barrel ; the lightning less often lighted up the yard and house. Nekhlyudov returned to the room, undressed himself, and lay down in the bed, not without some fear of bugs, the presence of which he suspected from the dirty and torn paper on the walls.

” Yes, to feel yourself not as a master, but as a servant,” he thought, and rejoiced at the thought.

His fears came true. The moment he put out the light, the insects began to cling to him and to bite him.

“To give up the land, to journey to Siberia, — fleas, bedbugs, dirt. What of it ? If I have to bear all .that, I shall bear it.” But, in spite of his determination, he could not bear it, and so he sat down near the open window, watching the fleeting cloud, and the newly unveiled moon.

lX.

Nekhlyudov fell asleep only toward the morning, and so he awoke late the next day.

At noon seven chosen peasants, who had been invited by the clerk, came to the apple orchard, under an appletree, where the clerk had made a table and benches over posts driven into the ground. It took quite awhile to persuade the peasants to put on their caps and seat themselves on the benches.

The ex-soldier, now clad in clean leg-rags and bast shoes, most persistently held his torn cap in front of him, according to regulation, as at funerals.

When one of them, a broad-chested old man of respectable aspect, with ringlets of a half-gray beard, as in Michael Angelo’s Moses, and with thick gray waving hair over his sunburnt and bared cinammon-coloured brow, put on his large cap, and, wrapping himself in his homemade caftan, climbed over the bench and sat down upon it, all the others followed his example. When all had taken their seats, Nekhlyudov sat down opposite them and, leaning with his elbows over a paper, which contained a brief of his project, began to expound it to them.

Either because there was fewer peasants, or because he was occupied not with himself, but with work, Nekhlyudov this time felt no embarrassment. He involuntarily turned preferably to the broad-chested old man with his beard of white ringlets, awaiting approval or retort from him. But the conception which Nekhlyudov had formed of him was wrong. Though the respectable old man kept approvingly nodding his handsome, patriarchal head, or tossing it and frowning, whenever the others objected to something, it obviously was hard for him to understand what Nekhlyudov was saying, and that even when the other peasants had transmitted it to him in their own language. Nekhlyudov’s words were understood much better by a little, almost beardless old man, who was sitting next to the patriarch ; he was blind in one eye, and wore a patched, nankeen, sleeveless coat, and old boots, worn sidewise; he was an oven-builder, as Nekhlyudov later found out. This man kept moving his eyebrows, in his effort to hear all, and immediately retold in his own manner everything Nekhlyudov said.

Of equally quick understanding was a short, stocky old man, with a white beard and gleaming, intelligent eyes, who used every opportunity to make jocular and ironical remarks on Nekhlyudov’s words, and who apparently was proud of this ability of his. The ex-soldier, too, might have understoood, if he had not been made stupid by his military experience, and did not get entangled in the habitual, senseless talk of a soldier.

Most serious of all in regard to the matter in hand was a tall man, with a long nose and a small beard, who was speaking in a bass voice ; he was clad in a clean, homemade garb and new bast shoes. This man comprehended everything and spoke only when it was necessary. The other two old men — one of these, the toothless peasant who on the previous day had shouted a decided refusal to every proposition of Nekhlyudov at the meeting, and the other, a tall, white, lame old man, with a kind-hearted face, in half-boots, and his lean legs tightly wrapped in leg-rags — were silent nearly all the time, though they listened attentively.

Nekhlyudov first expounded to them his view of the ownership of the land.

” The land,” he said, ” according to my opinion, ought not to be sold, nor bought, because if it be sold, those who have money will buy it all up, and then they will take from those who have no land as much as they please; they will take money for the right to use that land.”

” That is correct,” said the long-nosed peasant, in a heavy bass.

” Yes, sir,” said the ex-soldier.

“The woman has picked a handful of grass for her cow, — they have caught her, — to jail with her,” said the modest, kind-hearted old man.

“There is some land five versts from here, but it is beyond us to rent it ; they have so raised the price that we can’t make it pay,” said the toothless, angry old man.

“They are twisting us into ropes, according to their will ; it is worse than manorial labour,” insisted the angry one.

“ I think so, too,” said Nekhlyudov, “ and I consider it a sin to own land. So I want to give it away.”

“ That is a good thing,” said the old man with the Moses curls, apparently imagining that Nekhlyudov wanted to let the land.

“ That is why 1 have come here. I do not want to own any land, and now we must consider how I am to get rid of it.”

” Give it to the peasants, that is all,” said the toothless, angry old man.

Nekhlyudov was fora moment embarrassed, for he understood these words as doubting the sincerity of his intentions. But he immediately regained his composure, and used this opportunity in order to express his thought.

” 1 should gladly give it to you,” he said, ” but to whom shall I give it, and how ? To what peasants ? Why to you people, and not to the Deminskoe peasants ? ” This was a neighbouring village with beggarly parcels of land.

All were silent. Only the ex-soldier said, ” Yes, sir.”

” So, tell me,” said Nekhlyudov, “ what you would do, if you had to give the land to the peasants ? ”

“ What we should do ? Wc should divide it all up by souls, — everybody to receive an equal part,” said the oven-builder, rapidly raising and lowering his eyebrows.

” That is right. Divide it by souls,” confirmed the lame peasant in the white leg-rags.

They all agreed to this solution, regarding it as satisfactory.

“What do you mean by souls?” asked Nekhlyudov. “ Are the manorial servants to get some, too ? ”

“ Not at all,” said the ex-soldier, trying to express cheerfulness in his face. But the thoughtful tall peasant did not agree with him.

“If it comes to dividing it up, all ought to get equal shares,” he said, in bis heavy bass, after a moment’s thought.

“ That is impossible,” said Nekhlyudov, having prepared his answer in advance. “If all are to get equal shares, those who do not themselves work, who do not plough, will take their shares and sell them to the rich people. And those who are on their parcels will have an increase in their family, and all the land will have been distributed. Again the rich men will get those into their hands who need the land.”

“ Yes, sir,” the soldier hastened to add.

“There ought to be a prohibition against selling the land, and let those hold it who themselves will plough it,” said the oven-builder, angrily interrupting the soldier.

To this Nekhlyudov replied that it would not be possible to watch whether one was ploughing for himself or for some one else.

Then the tall, thoughtful peasant proposed that they should plough it in partnership, and that it should be divided up among those who did the ploughing. “ And those who did not plough should get nothing,” he said, in his determined bass.

Against this communistic project Nekhlyudov had ready arguments ; he retorted that for this all the ploughs and horses would have to be the same, and that none should fall behind the others, or that everything, the horses, the ploughs, the threshing-machines, and the whole farm, would have to be a common possession, and that such a thing should be possible, it would be necessary for all people to be of one accord.

” You will never succeed in making our people agree,” said the angry old man.

” There will be nothing but brawls,” said the old man with the white beard and smiling eyes.

” Then again, how is the land to be divided up according to its quality?” asked Nekhlyudov. “Why should some get black loam, while others will have clay and sand ? ”

” Divide it up by parcels, then all will get equal shares,” said the oven-builder.

To this Nekhlyudov replied that it was not only a question of the distribution of the land in one Commune, but in various Governments. If the land was to be given away to the peasants, some would have good lots and others bad ones. Everybody would wish to get the good land.

” Yes, sir,” said the soldier.

The rest kept silent.

” So, you see, it is not as simple as you imagine,” said Nekhlyudov. ” And not only we alone, but other people also are thinking about it. There is an American, George, who has reasoned it out like this, and I agree with him — ”

” You are the master, so you give it away if you wish. As you will it,” said the angry old man.

This interruption annoyed Nekhlyudov, but, to his delight, he noticed that the others were also dissatisfied with this interruption.

“Wait, Uncle Semén, let him tell it,” the thoughtful peasant said, in his impressive bass.

This encouraged Nekhlyudov, and he began to expound to them Henry George’s theory of the Single-tax. “ The land is nobody’s, it is the Lord’s,” he began.

“ That is so. Yes, sir,” several voices interposed.

“ All the land is a common possession. Everybody has an equal right to it. But there is better and worse land, and everybody wants to get the good land. What is to be done, in order to equalize tilings ? Let him who owns a good piece of land pay the price of it to those who have none,” Nekhlyudov answered his own question. ” And as it is hard to determine who is to pay, and to whom he is to pay, and as money has to be collected for common purposes, it ought to be arranged in such a manner that he who owns a piece of land should pay the value of his land to the Commune for all public purposes. Then all will have equal chances. If you wish to own land, pay more for good land, and less for less good land. And if you do not wish to own any land, you pay nothing ; but the taxes for the common needs will be paid by those who own the land.”

“ That is correct,” said the oven-builder, moving his eyebrows. « He who has the better land ought to pay more.”

” George had a great head,” said the representative old man with the curls.

” If only the pay will be within our reach,” said the tall man with the bass voice, evidently beginning to make out what it all tended to.

“The pay ought to be neither too high nor too low. If it is too high, it will not pay, and there will be losses; and if too low, all will begin to buy the land of each other and there will be speculation in land. I want to introduce these orders among you.”

” That is correct, that is right. That would be well,” said the peasants.

“He had a great head,” repeated the broad-chested man with the curls, ” that George. He has thought it out well.”

” How would it be if I wished to take a piece of land,” the clerk said, smiling.

” If there is a free lot, take it and work it,” said Nekhlyudov.

“You do not need it. You have enough to eat as it is,” said the old man with the smiling eyes.

This ended the consultation.

Nekhlyudov again repeated his proposition ; he did not ask for an immediate answer, but advised them to talk the matter over with the whole village, and then to come and give him an answer. The peasants promised they would do so, and, bidding him goodbye, went away in an agitated mood. On the road could long be heard their loud, receding conversation. Their voices dinned until late into the evening, and were borne along the river from the village.

On the following day the peasants did not work, but considered the master’s proposition. The village was divided into two parties : one found the master’s proposition profitable and harmless ; the other saw in it some deception, the significance of which they could not comprehend, and of which they consequently were especially afraid. Two days later they, however, agreed to accept the proposed conditions, and came to Nekhlyudov to announce to him the decision of the Commune. This decision was greatly influenced by the opinion of an old woman, which the old men accepted as putting aside all fear of deception, and which consisted in explaining the master’s act as arising from his meditating on his soul and desiring to save it. This explanation was also confirmed by the considerable monetary alms which Nekhlyudov had distributed during his stay at Panovo. His contributions of money were due to the fact that here he had for the first time found out the extreme degree of poverty and misery which the peasants had reached, and that, though he knew it to be unwise, he was so struck by that poverty that he could not help giving them money, of which he just then had a large sum, having received some for the forest at Kuznrinskoe, sold a year ago, and also an earnest for the sale of the chattels.

The moment they discovered that the master gave money to those who asked for it, crowds of people, especially women, began to come to him from all the surrounding country, imploring aid. He was at a complete loss what to do with them, and by what to be guided in the solution of the question how much to give, and to whom. He felt that it was impossible for him not to give to those who asked him and obviously were poor, while he had a great deal of money ; at the same time there was no sense in giving at haphazard to those who begged him for it.

During the last day of his stay at Panovo, Nekhlyudov went into the house, and began to examine the things that were left in there. Rummaging through them, he discovered many letters in the lower drawer of his aunts’ old big-bellied red wood chiffonière with bronze rings in lion heads, and among them was a photograph representing a group, Sdfya Ivdnovna, Marya Ivanovna, himself as a student, and Katyusha, clean, fresh, cheerful, and full of life. Of all things that were in the house Nekhlyudov took only the letters and this picture. Everything else he left for the miller, who, at the intercession of the smiling clerk, bought the house for removal and all the furniture of Panovo at one-tenth their real value.

Recalling his feeling of regret at the loss of his property, which he had experienced at Kuzminskoe, Nekhlyudov wondered how it was he could have had such a feeling ; now he experienced an unceasing joy of liberation and a sensation of novelty, such as a traveller must experience upon discovering new lands.

X.

The city impressed Nekhlyudov in an extremely strange and novel way, as he now reached it. He drove in the evening, when the lamps were all lighted, from the station to his house. There was still an odour of naphthalene in all the rooms. Agraféna Petrovna and Koméy both felt worried and dissatisfied, and had even had a quarrel on account of the cleaning up of things, the use of which seemed only to consist in being hung out, dried up, and put away again. Nekhlyudov’s room was not occupied, but not yet tidied ; it was hard to move about in it among the many boxes, and it was evident that Nekhlyudov’s arrival interfered with their work, which was carried on in these apartments by a certain strange inertia. After the impressions of the dire want in the village, all this appeared to Nekhlyudov so disagreeable because of its apparent senselessness, of which he had once himself been guilty, that he decided the next day to move to a hotel, leaving Agrafena Petrdvna to fix things according to her wishes until the arrival of his sister, who would make the final dispositions in regard to everything in the house.

Nekhlyudov left the house early in the morning. In an establishment with modest, somewhat dirty, furnished rooms, which he found in the neighbourhood of the prison, he rented a suite of two rooms, and, having given orders about the transfer of certain things set aside in the house, he went to the lawyer.

It was cold outside. After the storms and rains there was a cold spell, as generally happens in spring. It was

so chilly and the wind was so penetrating that Nekhlyudov froze in his light overcoat, and increased his gait, hoping to get warm.

Before his imagination rose the village people, the women, children, and old men, the poverty and exhaustion of whom he now seemed to have noticed for the first time, especially the smiling, old-looking baby, twisting its calfless little legs, — and he involuntarily compared with them that which was in the city. Walking past butcher-shops, fish-markets, and clothing-stores, he was startled, as though he saw it for the first time, by the well-fed appearance of such an immense number of clean and fat shopkeepers. There was not such a man in the whole village. These people were evidently firmly convinced that efforts to cheat people, who knew nothing of their wares, were not only not a vain, but even a useful, occupation. Just as well-fed were the coachmen with their broad backs and buttons on their backs ; and so were the porters in their gallooned caps, and the chambermaids in their aprons and curly hair, and more especially the dashing cabmen with their shaven napes, who were sitting jauntily in their cabs, contemptuously and dissolutely watching the itinerants.

In all these people he involuntarily saw the same village people who, being deprived of the land, had been driven to the city. Some of these had managed to adapt themselves to the conditions of city life, and had become like masters, and were satisfied with their situation ; others again fell in the city into worse conditions than in the village, and were even more pitiable. Such miserable creatures seemed to Nekhlyudov to be the shoemakers, whom Nekhlyudov saw working in the window of a basement ; just as miserable were the haggard, pale, dishevelled laundresses, who, with their lean, bared arms, were ironing at open windows, from which the soap-filled steam was rising in clouds. Just as miserable were two housepainters whom Nekhlyudov met, in aprons, in torn shoes on bare feet, and daubed from head to foot with paint. Their sleeves were rolled up above their elbows, and in their sunburnt, venous, feeble hands they were carrying a bucket of paint, and kept cursing without interruption. Their faces were emaciated and angry. The same expression was to be seen on the dusty, swarthy draymen, shaking on their wagons. The same expression was on the swollen faces of the ragged men and women standing with their children at the street corners and begging alms. The same faces were to be seen in the open windows of the inn, past which Nekhlyudov happened to go. At the dirty little tables, with bottles and tea-service upon them, between which waiters in white kept bobbing, sat perspiring redfaced men with stupefied faces, crying and singing in loud voices. One was sitting near the window ; had raised his eyebrows, and, thrusting forward his lips, gazed in front of him, as though trying to recollect something.

” Why have they all gathered there ? ” thought Nekhlyudov, involuntarily inhaling with the dust, which the chill wind wafted against him, the ubiquitous odour of rancid oil in the fresh paint.

In one of the streets he came across a procession of drays hauling some iron pieces, which made such a terrible noise on the uneven pavement that his ears and head began to ache. He increased his steps, in order to get ahead of the procession, when suddenly he heard his name through the rumble of the iron. He stopped and saw a few steps ahead of him an officer with a sharp-pointed, waxed moustache, with a smooth, shining face, who, sitting in a cab, waved his hand to him in a friendly manner, displaying by his smile a row of extremely white teeth.

” Nekhlyudov, is it you ? “

Nekhlyudov’s first sensation was that of pleasure.

” Ah, Shénbok,” he said, with delight, but immediately considered that there was no reason whatsoever to be pleased.

It was the same Shénbok who had then called for him at his aunts’. Nekhlyudov had long ago lost him out of sight, but had heard of him that he was now in the cavalry, and that, in spite of his debts, he managed in some way to hold himself in the world of rich people. His satisfied, cheerful aspect confirmed this intelligence.

“I am so glad I have caught you. For there is nobody in the city. Well, friend, you have grown older,” he said, stepping out of the cab, and straightening out his shoulders. ” 1 recognized you by your gait. Well, shall we dine together ? Where can one get a good dinner here ? “

” I do not know whether I shall have the time,” answered Nekhlyudov, thinking only of how to get rid of his comrade without offending him.

“ What are you here for ? ” he asked.

” Business, my friend. A business of guardianship. I am a guardian. I manage Saménov’s affairs. Do you know that rich man ? He is cracked, but he has fifty-four thousand desyatinas of land,” he said, with especial pride, as though he himself had earned all that land. ” His affairs had been dreadfully neglected. The whole land was in the hands of the peasants. They paid nothing, and there were back dues to the amount of eighty thousand roubles. I changed the whole matter in one year, and increased the trust by seventy per cent. Eh ? ” he asked him proudly.

Nekhlyudov recalled that he had heard that this Shénbok, for the very reason that he had lost all his property and had unpaid debts, had by some special influence been appointed a guardian over the property of a rich old man, who was squandering his estate. It was evident that he was thriving on his trust.

” How can I get rid of him without offending him ? ” thought Nekhlyudov, looking at that sleek, plump face, with the pomaded moustache, and listening to his good-hearted friendly prattle about where one could get a good dinner, and how he had managed the affairs of his trust.

” So where shall we dine ? “

” I have no time,” said Nekhlyudov, looking at his watch.

“ I say. There will be races to-night. Shall you be there ? ”

« No, I sha’n’t.”

” Do come. I have no longer horses of my own, but I bet on Grishin’s. Do you remember him ? He has a good stable. So come, and let us have supper together.”

” I can’t even eat supper with you,” Nekhlyudov said, smiling.

“What is that? Where are you going now? If you want to, I shall take you there.”

” I am on my way to a lawyer. He lives around the corner,” said Nekhlyudov.

” Oh, you are doing something in the prison. Have you become a prison intercessor ? The Korchagins told me about that,” Shénbok said, smiling. “ They have left town already. What is it ? Tell me.”

“ Yes, yes, that is all true,” replied Nekhlyudov. ” But I can’t tell you that in the street.”

” That’s so, you have always been odd. So, will you come to the races ? ”

” No, I cannot, and I do not want to. Please, do not be angry at me.”

« Why should I be angry ? Where do you live ? ” he asked, and suddenly his face became serious, his eyes stood still, and his brows were raised up. He was apparently trying to recall the address, and Nekhlyudov suddenly observed the same dull expression in him that he had noticed in the man with the raised eyebrows and protruding lips, which had struck him in the window of the inn.

” How chilly it is ! Eh ? “

“ Yes, yes ! “

“You have the bundles?” Shdnbok addressed the cabman.

“ Well, goodbye, then. I am very, very glad to have met you,” he said, and, firmly pressing Nekhlyudov’s hand, he leaped into the vehicle, waving his broad hand in a new, white, chamois-skin glove in front of his sleek face, and smiling a habitual smile with his unusually white teeth.

” Is it possible I was like him ? ” thought Nekhlyudov, continuing on his way to the lawyer. ” Yes, if not exactly like him, I had tried to be like him, and had thought to pass all my life that way.”

XI.

The lawyer received Nekhlyudov ahead of his turn, and at once proceeded to talk to him about the Menshov case, which he had read immediately, and which had provoked his indignation by its groundless accusation.

” It is a shocking allair,” he said. ” Very likely the fire was started by the owner himself, in order to get his insurance money, but the worst is that the guilt of the Menshdvs has not at all been proven. There is no evidence at all. This is due to the especial zeal of the examining magistrate and to the negligence of the prosecuting attorney. If the case came up, not in the county court, but here, I should guarantee an acquittal and ask for no remuneration. Now, the other allair, the petition of Feoddsya Biryukdv to his Majesty, is ready. If you go to St. Petersburg, take it with you, and hand it in in person, and ask for its consideration. Otherwise an inquiry will be made, and that will be the end of it. You must try and reach people who have inlluence in the Petition Commission. Well, is that all for the present ? “

“No, I have had a letter — “

“ I see you have become a funnel, a neck of a bottle, through which the complaints are poured out from prison,” the lawyer said, smiling. ” It is too much ; it will be above your strength.”

“ But this is a startling case,” said Nekhlyudov. He briefly told the essence of the case, which was that an intelligent peasant had been reading and expounding the Gospel to his friends in the village. The clergy regarded it as a crime. He was denounced. The magistrate examined him, the assistant prosecuting attorney wrote out an accusation — and the court confirmed the accusation.

” This is something terrible,” said Nekhlyudov. ” Can it be true ? ”

” What is it that so surprises you ? “

“ Everything. I can see how the village officer, who is under orders, might do it ; but the assistant prosecuting attorney, who wrote out the accusation, is an educated man — “

” But this is where the mistake is made : we are accustomed to think that the prosecuting attorneys, the members of the courts in general, are a kind of new, liberal men. That was once the case, but now it is quite different. They are officials, who are interested only in the twentieth of each month. They receive their salary, and they need more, and that is the limit of their principles. They will accuse, try, and sentence anybody you please.”

” Do there really exist laws, which permit them to deport a man for reading the Gospel in company with others ? “

” Not only may he be sent to nearer districts, but even to hard labour in Siberia, if it is proved that, while reading the Gospel, he allowed himself to expound it differently from the manner he is ordered to do, and that, consequently, he has disapproved of the exposition of the Church. It is considered blasphemy of the Orthodox faith in presence of the people, and, according to Article 196, this means deportation to Siberia for settlement.”

” That is impossible.”

” I am telling you the truth. I always say to the judicial people,” continued the lawyer, ” that I cannot help looking gratefully at them, because it is only due to their kindness that I, and you, and all of us, are not in jail. It is the easiest thing imaginable to have us sentenced to the loss of special privileges, and have us deported to nearer regions.”

” If it is so, and everything depends on the arbitrariness of the prosecuting attorney and of other persons, who may or may not apply a certain law, then what is the court for ? ”

The lawyer burst out into a merry laugh.

“ You are propounding line questions ! This, my friend, is philosophy. There is nothing to prevent discussing that. Come on Saturday. You will find at my house learned men, litterateurs, artists. Then we shall discuss these social questions,” said the lawyer, pronouncing the words ” social questions ” with ironical pathos. ” You are acquainted with my wife, I think. So come ! ”

” I shall try to,” replied Nekhlyudov, being conscious of telling a lie, and that if there was anything he would try it would be not to be in the evening at the lawyer’s in the company of the learned men, litterateurs, and artists, who would gather there. The laughter with which the lawyer had answered Nekhlyudov’s remark that the court had no meaning, if the members of the court may or may not apply a law as they are minded to do, and the intonation with which he pronounced the words ” philosophy ” and ” social questions,” showed Nekhlyudov how differently he and the lawyer and, no doubt, the lawyer’s friends looked at things, and how, notwithstanding the present gulf between him and his former comrades, such as Shénbok, he felt himself even farther removed from the lawyer and the people of his circle.

XII.

It was far to the prison, and late, so Nekhlyudov took a cab. In one of the streets the cabman, a man of middle age, with an intelligent and kindly face, turned to Nekhlyudov and pointed to an immense, house which was going up.

“See what an enormous house they are building,” he said, as though he had a share in this structure and were proud of it.

Indeed it was a huge building, and built in a complicated and unusual style. A solid scaffolding of immense pine timbers, held together by iron clamps, surrounded the structure which was going up, and it was separated from the street by a board fence. Workmen, daubed with mortar, were rushing to and fro, like ants, over the walks of the scaffolding : some were laying stones, others were cutting them into shape, while others carried full hods and barrels up and empty ones down again. A stout, well-dressed gentleman, apparently the architect, standing near the scaffolding and pointing up, was saying something to a respectfully listening Vladimir contractor. Through the gate, past the architect and contractor, empty wagons drove out into the street, and loaded ones into the yard.

” How sure they all are, both those who work, and those who make them work, that it must all be thus, that while their pregnant women do work at home above their strength, and their children, in skull-caps, before their imminent death from starvation, smile like old people, and twist their little legs, they must build tliis stupid and useless palace for some stupid and useless man, — one of those very men who ruin and rob them,” thought Nekhlyudov, looking at this house.

” Yes, a fool’s house,” he loudly expressed his thought.

” How a fool’s house ? ” the cabman protested, as though insulted. “ It gives people work to do, and so it is not a fool’s house.”

” But this is useless work.”

” It must be useful, or they would not build it,” retorted the cabman, ” and the people earn a living.”

Nekhlyudov grew silent, especially since it was not possible to carry on a conversation through the rattle of the wheels. Not far from the prison the cabman left the pavement for a country road, so that it was easy to talk, and he again turned to Nekhlyudov.

” What a lot of people nowadays rush to the city, — it is just dreadful,” he said, turning on his box and pointing to an artél of village workmen with files, axes, short fur coats, and bundles on their backs, who were coming toward them.

” Are there more of them than on previous years ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

“ It is simply terrible the way they are crowding now in all places. The masters fling them around like chips. They are everywhere.”

“ Why is it so ? ”

” They have increased so much. There is no place for them.”

” What of it if they have increased ? Why don’t they stay in the villages ? ”

“ What are they to do in the villages ? There is no land there.”

Nekhlyudov experienced a sensation which one has in a bruised spot. One seems eternally to strike it, as though on purpose, whereas one merely feels the hurts in the painful places.

” Is it possible it is the same everywhere ? ” he thought. He began to inquire of the cabman how much land there was in his village, how much he himself had, and why he was living in the city.

” There is about a desyatina to each soul, sir. There are three of us holding it,” the cabman was glad to inform him. “ I have a father and a brother at home ; another brother is in the army. They manage the farm. But there is nothing to manage, and so my brother wanted to go to Moscow.”

” Is it not possible to rent land ? ”

” Where is one to rent it ? The masters have squandered theirs. The merchants have got it all into their hands. You can’t buy it from them, for they are working it themselves. There is a Frenchman on our estate. He has bought it from the former master, and he won’t let anybody have it, and that is the end of it.”

” What Frenchman ? “

” Dufar the Frenchman. Maybe you have heard his name. He makes wigs for the actors in the large theatre, and that is a good business in which he has made much money. He has bought our lady’s whole estate. Now he rules over us. He rides us as he pleases. Fortunately, he is a good man. Only his wife, who is a Russian, is such a dog that God save us from her. She robs the people. It is just terrible. Well, here is the prison. Where do you wish me to drive you ? To the entrance ? I think they don’t admit now.”

XIII.

With faint heart and terror at the thought of how he would find Maslova now, and with that feeling of mystery which he experienced before her and before that congeries of people who were in this prison, Nekhlyudov rang the bell at the main entrance, and asked the warden, who came out to him, about Maslova. The warden made inquiries, and informed him that she was in the hospital. A kind-hearted old man, the watchman of the hospital, immediately admitted him, and, upon learning who it was he wanted to see, directed him to the children’s division.

A young doctor, all saturated with carbolic acid, came out to Nekhlyudov in the corridor, and sternly asked him what he wanted. This doctor was very indulgent with the prisoners, and so he continually had unpleasant conflicts with the authorities of the prison, and even with the senior physician. Fearing lest Nekhlyudov should ask something illegal of him, and, besides, wishing to show that he made no exceptions of any persons, he pretended to be angry.

” There are no women here ; this is the children’s department,” he said.

” I know ; but there is here an attendant who has been transferred from the prison.”

“ Yes, there are two here. So what do you wish ? “

” I have close relations with one of them, Mâslova,” said Nekhlyudov. “I should like to see her: I am going to St. Petersburg to enter an appeal in her case, and I wanted to give her this. It is only a photograph,” said Nekhlyudov, taking out an envelope from his pocket.

” Well, you may do that,” said the doctor, softening, and, turning to an old woman in a white apron, he told her to call the attendant, prisoner Maslova.

” Do you not wish to sit down or walk into the waiting-room ? “

“Thank you,” said Nekhlyudov, and, making use of the doctor’s favourable change, he asked him whether they were satisfied in the prison with Mdslova.

” She will pass. She works fairly well, considering the conditions under which she has been,” said the doctor. ” And here she is.”

From one of the doors came the old attendant, and back of her was Mdslova. She wore a white apron over a striped garment, and a kerchief on her head, which covered all her hair. Upon noticing Nekhlyudov, her face became flushed, and she stopped as though in indecision ; then she frowned, and, lowering her eyes, walked with rapid steps toward him over the corridor strip. As she approached Nekhlyudov, she had intended not to give him her hand, but she did extend it to him, and blushed even more. Nekhlyudov had not seen her since the conversation with her when she had excused herself for her excitability, and he expected to find her as she had been then. Now, however, she was quite different, and in the expression of her face there was something new: something restrained, bashful, and, as Nekhlyudov thought, something hostile toward him. He repeated to her what he had said to the doctor, that he was going to St. Petersburg, and handed her the envelope with the photograph, which he had brought with him from Panovo.

” I found this at Pdnovo. It is an old photograph, and may give you pleasure. Take it.”

She raised her black eyebrows in surprise, looked at him with her extremely squinting eyes, as though to say, “ What is that for ? ” and silently took the envelope and put it back of her apron.

” I saw your aunt there,” said Nekhlyudov.

” You did ? ” she said, with indifference.

“Are you well here?” asked Nekhlyudov.

“ Yes, I am,” she said.

” Is it not too hard ? ”

“ No, not very. I am not yet used to it.”

“ I am very happy for your sake. In any case it is better than there.”

“ Than where ? ” she said, and her face was flushed with a blush.

“ There, in the prison,” Nekhlyudov hastened to say.

” What makes it better ? ” she asked.

“ I think the people are better here. There are none here as there were there.”

” There are many good people there,” she said.

” I have taken measures for the Menshovs, and I hope they will be released,” said Nekhlyudov.

“ God grant it. She is such a charming old woman,” she said, repeating her old definition of the woman, and slightly smiling.

“ I shall leave for St. Petersburg to-day. Our case will soon be heard, and I hope the verdict will be set aside.”

“ Whether it will be or not, is all the same now,” she said.

“ Why now ? ”

“ It is,” she said, furtively casting a questioning glance at him.

Nekhlyudov understood these words and this glance to mean that she wanted to know whether he still stuck to his determination, or whether he had accepted her refusal and had accordingly changed it.

“ I do not know why it is all the same to you,” he said. ” But to me it is really quite the same whether you will be acquitted or not. I am ready in any case to do what I said I should,” he said, with determination.

She raised her head, and her black, squinting eyes rested on his face and past it, and all her face was beaming with joy. But she spoke something quite different from what her eyes were saying.

” You say this in vain,” she said.

” I say it that you may know.”

” You have said everything, and there is nothing else to say,” she replied, with difficulty restraining a smile.

There was a noise in the hospital room. A child’s cry was heard.

” It seems they are calling me,” she said, looking restlessly around.

” Well, goodbye, then,” he said.

She tried to look as though she had not noticed the extended hand, and, without pressing it, she turned around and, trying to conceal her victory, with rapid strides walked away over the strip of the corridor.

” What is going on within her ? What is she thinking about ? How does she feel ? Does she want to test me, or can she really not forgive me ? Can she not, or does she not wish to tell me all she thinks and feels ? Is she mollified, or hardened ? ” Nekhlyudov asked himself, and could not find any answers. He knew this much, that she had changed, and that an important transformation was taking place within her soul, and this transformation connected him not only with her but also with Him, in whose name this transformation was being accomplished. This connection induced in him a joyously ecstatic and contrite condition.

Upon returning to the room, where eight children’s beds were standing, Maslova began, at the Sister’s request, to make the beds ; in bending too far down with the sheet, she slipped and fell down. A convalescent boy, with a bandage around his neck, who had seen her fall, began to laugh, and Maslova herself could not restrain herself, and sat down on the bed and burst into such a loud and contagious laugh that several children, too, began to laugh, and the Sister scolded her.

“Don’t yell like that! You think that you are still there where you have been ! Go for the food ! ”

Maslova grew silent and, taking the dishes, went where she had been ordered, but, upon casting a glance at the bandaged boy, who was not permitted to laugh, again snorted.

Several times during the day, whenever Maslova was left alone, she pushed the photograph out of the envelope and looked at it ; but only in the evening, after her day’s work, when left alone in the room, where she slept with another attendant, she drew the photograph entirely out of its envelope, and looked long and fixedly at the faded, yellowed picture, caressing with her eyes every detail of the faces, and dresses, and the steps of the porch, and the bushes, against which as a background his, her, and the aunts’ faces had been thrown. She could not get enough of it, especially of herself, her young, beautiful face, with the hair coiling around the forehead. She looked so intently at it that she did not notice her companion coming into the room.

” What is this ? Did he give it to you ? ” asked the stout, kindly attendant, bending over the photograph.

“ Is it possible it is you ? “

” Who else? ” said Maslova, smiling, and looking at the face of her companion.

” And who is this ? Himself ? And is this his mother ? ”

“An aunt. Would you have recognized me?” asked Maslova.

“ No. Not for the world should I have recognized you. It is an entirely different face. I suppose ten years have elapsed since then.”

” Not years, but life,” said Mdslova, and suddenly all her animation disappeared. Her face grew gloomy, and a wrinkle cut itself between her eyebrows.

” I suppose ‘ there ‘ life was easy.”

” Yes, easy ! ” repeated Maslova, closing her eyes and shaking her head. ” Worse than hard labour.”

” How so ? ”

” It was that way every night, from eight o’clock in the evening until four in the morning.”

” Why, then, don’t they give it up ? ”

” They want to, but they can’t. What is the use of talking about it?” said Maslova. She jumped up, flung the photograph into the table drawer, and, with difficulty repressing her evil tears, ran out into the corridor, slamming the door after her. As she had been looking at the photograph, she had felt herself to be such as she was represented there, and had dreamed of how happy she had then been and could be with him even now. The words of her companion reminded her of what she now was and had been there, reminded her of all the horror of that life, which she then had felt but dimly, and had not permitted herself to become conscious of.

Now only did she recall all those terrible nights, and especially one during the Butter-week, when she had been waiting for a student, who had promised to redeem her. She recalled how she was clad in a décolleté, wine-stained, red silk dress, with a red ribbon in her tangled hair ; how, being tired out and weakened and drunk, she saw some guests off at two o’clock in the night ; and how, during an interval between the dances, she seated herself near the lean, bony, pimpled woman who played the accompaniment to the fiddler, and complained to her of her hard life ; and how that woman herself told her that she was tired of her occupation and wished to change it ; and how Klara came up to them, and they suddenly decided all three of them to quit this life. They thought that the night was ended, and were on the point of retiring, when suddenly some drunken guests made a stir in the antechamber. The fiddler started a ritournelle, and the woman began to strike off an accompaniment to a hilarious Russian song in the first figure of a quadrille ; suddenly a small, drunken, wine-sopped, and hiccoughing man, in a white tie and dress coat, which he later, in the second figure, took off, seized her, while another, a stout fellow, with a beard, also in a dress coat (they had just arrived from some ball), grasped Klara, and for a long time they whirled, danced, cried, drank —

And thus it went a year, two, three years. How can one help changing ! The cause of all that was be. And within her rose her former fury against him, and she wanted to scold and upbraid him. She was sorry she had missed to-day an opportunity of telling him again that she knew him, and that she would not submit to him, that she would not permit him to use her spiritually as he had used her physically, that she would not permit him to make her an object of his magnanimity. In order in some measure to drown that tormenting feeling of regret at herself and of uselessly reproaching him, she wanted some liquor. And she would not have kept her word, and would have drunk it, if she had been in the prison. But here it was not possible to get the liquor except from the surgeon’s assistant, and of the assistant she was afraid, because he importuned her with his attentions. All relations with men were distasteful to her. Having sat awhile on a bench in the corridor, she returned to the cell, and, without replying to her companion’s question, long wept over her ruined life.

XIV.

At St. Petersburg, Nekhlyudov had three affairs to attend to : Maslova’s appeal to the Senate for annulment, Feddsya Biryukov’s case in the Petition Commission, and, at Vyéra Bogodukhovski’s request, the affair in the Office of the Gendarmery, or the Third Division, for the liberation of Miss Shustov, and for obtaining an interview of a mother with her son, who was kept in the fortress, as mentioned in Vyéra Bogodukhovski’s note. The last two cases he regarded as his third affair. Then there was a fourth matter, that of the sectarians, who were to be sent to the Caucasus for reading and expounding the Gospel. He had promised, not so much to them as to himself, to do everything in his power in order to clear up this business.

Since his last visit to Maslénnikov’s house, especially after his journey to the country, Nekhlyudov not so much decided to disregard, as with his whole being felt a disgust for, his circle, in which he had been moving until then, — for that circle, from which the suffering that is borne by millions of people in order to secure comforts and pleasures to a small number, is so carefully concealed that the people belonging to that circle do not see, nor ever can see, this suffering and the consequent cruelty and criminality of their own lives. Nekhlyudov could not now, without awkwardness and reproach to himself, converse with people of that circle. And still, the habits of all his former life drew him to that circle ; and he was drawn to it by his family connections and by his friends ; but, above everything else, in order to do that which now interested him, in order to help Maslova and all those sufferers whom he wished to aid, he was compelled to invoke the aid and services of the people of that circle, whom he not only did not respect, but who frequently roused his indignation and contempt.

Upon arriving at St. Petersburg, he stopped with his maternal aunt, Countess Charski, the wife of a former minister, and thus at once plunged into the very midst of that aristocratic society from which he had become estranged. This was unpleasant for him, but he could not act otherwise. If he had stopped at a hotel, and not with his aunt, she would have been offended, whereas his aunt had influential connections, and could be extremely useful to him in all the affairs to which he wished to devote himself.

” What is it I hear about you ? Marvellous things,” Countess Ekaterina Ivdnovna said to him, treating him to coffee soon after his arrival. ” Vous posez pour un Howard. You are aiding criminals. You travel about prisons. You are mending things.”

” No, I do not even think of it.”

” Well, that is good. There must be some romance connected with it. Tell me about it.”

Nekhlyudov told her about his relations with Maslova exactly as they were.

” I remember, I remember. Hélène told me something about it at the time when you were living with those old ladies. I think they wanted to marry you to that ward of theirs.” (The Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna had always despised those paternal aunts of Nekhlyudov’s.) ” How is she ? Elle est encore jolie ? ”

Aunt Ekaterina Ivanovna was a woman of sixty years of age, healthy, gay, energetic, and talkative. She was of tall stature and plump, and on her upper lip a black moustache was discernible. Nekhlyudov liked her, and ever since his childhood was easily infected by her energy and cheerfulness.

” No, ma tante, all that is ended. I only want to help her, because, in the first place, she has been unjustly sentenced, and because I am to blame for it, I am to blame for her whole fate. I feel myself under obligations to do all I can for her.”

” But I have been told that you want to marry her ? “

“ Yes, I wanted to, but she does not consent.”

Ekaterina Ivanovna, smoothing out her brow and lowering her pupils, looked at her nephew in surprise and silence. Suddenly her countenance was changed, and pleasure was expressed upon it.

” Well, she has more sense than you have. Oh, what a fool you are ! And you would have married her ? “

” By all means.”

” After what she has been ? ”

” So much the more. I am to blame for it.”

« No, you are simply a dummy,” his aunt said, repressing a smile. “A terrible dummy, but I love you for being such a terrible dummy,” she repeated, evidently taking a liking to this word, which, in her opinion, precisely rendered the mental and moral condition of her nephew. ” You know this is very à propos,” she continued; ” Aline has a remarkable home for Magdalens. I was there once. They are horrid, and I did nothing but wash myself afterward. But Aline is corps et âme in it. So we shall send that woman of yours to her. If anybody is to mend her ways, it must be Aline.”

” But she is sentenced to hard labour. I have come here to appeal from this verdict. This is the first business I have with you.”

« Indeed ? Where does that case of hers go to ? ”

” To the Senate.”

” To the Senate ? Yes, my dear cousin Levushka is in the Senate. However, he is in the department of heraldry.

I do not know any of the real Senators. They are all God knows who, or Germans : Ge, Fe, De, tout Valphabet, or all kinds of Ivânov, Seménov, Nikitin, or Ivanénko, Simonénko, Nikitenko, pour varier. Des gens de Vautre monde. Still, I shall tell my husband. He knows them. He knows all kinds of people. I shall tell him, but you had better explain matters to him, for he never understands me. Whatever I may say, he says he does not understand. C’est un parti pris. Everybody else understands, but he does not.”

Just then a lackey in stockings brought a letter on a silver tray.

” Just from Aline. You will hear Kiesewetter there.”

” Who is that Kiesewetter ? ”

“Kiesewetter? You go there to-day, and you will find out who he is. He speaks so eloquently that the most inveterate criminals kneel down and weep and repent.”

Countess Ekaterina Ivdnovna, however strange this may seem, and however little it comported with her character, was a fervent adherent of the doctrine according to which the essence of Christianity consisted in the belief in the redemption. She attended meetings where this at that time fashionable doctrine was preached, and gathered these devotees about her. Notwithstanding the fact that according to this doctrine all ceremonies, images, and even mysteries were denounced, Countess Ekaterina Ivànovna had holy images not only in all the rooms, but even over her bed, and continued to comply with all the demands of the Church, seeing no contradiction in all that.

“ Your Magdalen ought to hear him ; she would become converted,” said the countess. ” You must be at home in the evening. You will hear him. He is a remarkable man.”

“ That does not interest me, ma tante.”

“ And I tell you, it is interesting. And you be sure and go there. Tell me what else you want of me ? Videz cotre sac.”

” I have some business in the fortress.”

” In the fortress ? Well, I can give you a note to Baron Kriegsmut. C’est un très brave homme. You yourself know him. He was a comrade of your father. fl donne dans le spiritisme. Well, that is not so bad. He is a good fellow. What do you want there ? “

” I want to ask the permission for a mother to see her son who is confined there. But I have been told that this does not depend on Kriegsmut, but on Chervyanski.”

” I do not like Chervyanski, but he is Mariette’s husband. I can ask her. She will do it for my sake. Elie est très gentille.”

“ 1 want also to ask about a woman. She has been in the fortress for several months, and nobody knows why.”

” Don’t tell me that. She certainly knows why. They all know. It serves them right, those short-haired ones.”

“ We do not know whether right or not. In the meantime they suffer. You are a Christian and believe in the Gospel, and yet you are so pitiless.”

” That has nothing to do with it. The Gospel is one thing, and what we do despise is another. It would be worse if I should pretend loving the nihilists, and especially short-haired nihilists, when, in reality, I bate them.”

” Why do you hate them ? “

” Do you ask me why, after March the first ? “

” But not all of them have taken part in the affair of March the first.”

” It makes no difference : let them keep out of what does not concern them. That is not a woman’s business.”

” But here is Mariette, who, you find, may attend to business,” said Nekhlyudov.

” Mariette ? Mariette is Mariette. And that other one is God knows who, — some Khalyupkin who wants to instruct everybody.”

” They do not want to instruct but help the people.”

“ We know without their aid who is to be helped and who not.”

” But the people are suffering. I am just back from the country. Is it right that the peasants should work as hard as they can, without getting enough to eat, while we live in terrible luxury ? ” said Nekhlyudov, involuntarily drawn on by his aunt’s good-heartedness to tell her all he was thinking.

” Do you want me to work and eat nothing ? ”

” No, I do not want you to starve,” Nekhlyudov replied, with an involuntary smile. ” All I want is that we should all work and have enough to eat.”

His aunt again lowered her brow and pupils, resting them on him with curiosity.

” Mon cher, vous finirez mal” she said.

” But why ? ”

Just then a tall, broad-shouldered general entered the room. That was the husband of the countess, Charski, an ex-minister.

“ Ah, Dmitri, good-morning,” he said, offering him his freshly shaven cheek. ” When did you arrive ? ”

He silently kissed his wife’s brow.

” Non, il est impitoyable,” Countess Ekaterina Ivdnovna turned to her husband. ” He tells me to go down to the river to wash the linen, and to eat nothing but potatoes. He is a terrible fool, but still you do for him that for which he will ask you. He is a terrible dummy,” she corrected herself. ” Have you heard, they say Madame Kamenski is in such despair that they are afraid for her life,” she addressed her husband. ” You had better call on her.”

” That is terrible,” said her husband.

” You go and talk with him, for I must write some letters.”

Nekhlyudov had just gone into the room next to the drawing-room, when she called out to him :

” Shall I write to Mariette ? “

” If you please, ma tante.”

“ So I shall leave en blanc what it is you wish about that short-haired one, and she will tell her husband. And he will do it. Don’t think that I am a cross woman. They are all very, very horrid, those protégées of yours, but je ne leur veux pas de mal. God be with them. Go ! By all means be at home in the evening, and you will hear Kiesewetter. And we shall pray. If only you will not oppose yourself to it, ça vous fera beaucoup de bien. I know both Hélène and all of you are way behind in this. So, au revoir.”

XV.

Count Ivan Mikhaylovich was an ex-minister and a man of very firm convictions. The convictions of Count Ivan Mikhaylovich had from his earliest youth consisted in this : just as it is proper for a bird to feed on worms, to be clad in feathers and down, and to fly through the air, so it was proper for him to feed on costly dishes, prepared by expensive cooks, to be clad in the most comfortable and expensive garments, to travel with the best and the fastest horses, and to expect everything to be ready for him. Besides this, Count Ivdn Mikhaylovich considered that the more kinds of various amounts he received from the treasury, and the more decorations, inclusive of all kinds of diamond tokens, he should have, and the oftener he met and spoke with distinguished personages, the better for him. Everything else, in comparison with these fundamental dogmas, Count Ivan Mikhaylovich regarded as uninteresting and insignificant. Everything else might be as it was, or the reverse, for all he was concerned. In conformity with this belief, Ivdn Mikhaylovich had been living and acting in St. Petersburg for forty years, until at last he reached the post of minister.

The chief qualities of Count Ivan Mikhaylovich, by means of which he attained this post, consisted, in the first place, in his ability to comprehend the meaning of documents and laws, and to compose comprehensible, if not entirely grammatical documents, without any orthographical mistakes ; in the second place, he was very representative, and, wherever it was necessary, he was able to give an impression not only of haughtiness, but also of

inaccessibility and majesty, and, on the other hand, whenever this was necessary, to be servile to the point of self-effacement and baseness ; in the third place, he had no general principles or rules, either of personal or of state morality, so that he could agree with everybody, if this was necessary, or equally well disagree with everybody, if that served him. In proceeding in this manner, he was concerned only about preserving his tone and not manifesting any palpable contradiction with himself ; but he was quite indifferent as to whether his acts were in themselves moral or immoral, or whether any great good, or great evil, would accrue from them to the Russian Empire and to the rest of Europe.

When he became minister, not only those who depended upon him (and there were very many people and close friends who depended upon him), but even all outsiders, and he himself, were convinced that he was a very wise statesman. But when some time passed, and he had done nothing, had shown nothing, and when, by the law of the struggle for existence, just such men as he, who had learned how to write and comprehend documents, and who were representative and unprincipled officials, had pushed him out, and he was compelled to ask for his discharge, it became clear to everybody that he was, not only not a very intelligent man, but even a man of very limited capacities and of little culture, though a self-confident man, who in his views barely rose to the level of the leading articles of the conservative papers.

It turned out that there was nothing in him which distinguished him from other little-educated, self-confident officials, who had pushed him out, and he himself came to see that ; but this did not in the least shake his convictions that he must every year receive a large sum of Crown money and new decorations for his parade uniform. This conviction was so strong in him that nobody dared to refuse them to him, and each year he received, partly in the form of a pension, and partly in the form of remuneration for his membership in a higher state institution, and for presiding in various commissions and committees, several tens of thousands of roubles, and, besides, each year new rights highly esteemed by him, to sew new galloons on his shoulders or pantaloons, and to attach new ribbons and enamelled stars to his dress coat. In consequence of this Count Ivan Mikhaylovich had great connections.

Count Ivan Mikhaylovich listened to Nekhlyudov just as he would listen to the report of his secretary ; having heard all he had to say, he told him that he would give him two notes : one to Senator Wolf, in the Department of Cassation. “They say all kinds of things about him, but dans tous les cas c’est un homme très comme il faut’’ he said. ” He is under obligations to me, and he will do what he can.” The other note Ivan Mikhaylovich gave him was to an influential person in the Petition Commission. The case of Fedosya Biryukov, as Nekhlyudov told it to him, interested him very much. When Nekhlyudov told him that he wanted to write a letter to the empress, he said that it really was a very pathetic case, and that he would tell it there, whenever an opportunity should offer itself. But he could not promise to do so. He had better send in the petition any way. But if there should be a chance, he said, if they should call him to a petit comité on Thursday, he would probably tell it.

Having received the two notes from the count, and the note to Mariette from his aunt, Nekhlyudov at once went to all those places.

First of all he repaired to Mariette. He used to know her as a young girl ; he knew that she was the daughter of a poor, aristocratic family, and that she had married a man who had made a career, and of whom he had heard some very bad things ; consequently, it was, as ever, painful for Nekhlyudov to make a request of a man whom he did not respect. In such cases he always felt an internal discord, a dissatisfaction with himself, and a wavering, whether he should ask or not, and he always decided that he should. Besides being conscious of the unnaturalness of his position as a petitioner among people whom he did not regard as his own, but who considered him as theirs, he felt in that society that he was entering his former habitual routine, and that he involuntarily succumbed to the frivolous and immoral tone which reigned in that circle. He had experienced this even at the house of his aunt Ekaterina Ivanovna. He had that very morning fallen into a jocular tone, as he had been talking to her.

St. Petersburg in general, where he had not been for a long time, produced upon him its usual physically bracing and morally dulling effect.

Everything was so clean, so comfortable, and so well-arranged, but, above everything else, people were morally so little exacting, that life seemed to be easy there.

A beautiful, clean, polite cabman took him past beautiful, polite, and clean policemen, over a beautiful, smooth pavement, past beautiful, clean houses, to the one in which Mariette lived.

At the entrance stood a span of English horses in a fine harness, and an English-looking coachman, with sidewhiskers up to the middle of his cheeks, and in livery, sat on the box, holding a whip, and looking proud.

A porter in an uncommonly clean uniform opened the door to the vestibule, where stood, in a still more clean livery with galloons, a carriage lackey with superbly combed sidewhiskers, and an orderly in a new, clean uniform.

“The general does not receive. Nor does the lady. They will drive out in a minute.”

Nekhlyudov gave up the letter of Countess Ekaterina Ivànovna, and, taking out a visiting-card, went up to a small table, on which lay a book for the registry of visitors, and began to write that he was very sorry not to find her at home, when the lackey moved up to the staircase, the porter went out to the entrance, and the orderly straightened himself up, with his hands down his legs, in a motionless attitude, meeting and following with his eyes a small, lean lady, who was walking down the staircase with a rapid gait, which did not comport with her dignity.

Mariette wore a large hat with a feather, a black gown, a black mantle, and new, black gloves; her face was covered with a veil.

Upon noticing Nekhlyudov, she raised her veil, displayed a very sweet face with gleaming eyes, and looked at him interrogatively.

” Ah, Prince Dmitri Ivdnovich,” she exclaimed, in a merry, pleasant voice. ” I should have recognized — “

” What, you even remember my name ? ”

“ Certainly. Sister and I had even been in love with you,” she said, in French. “ But how you have changed ! What a pity I am driving out. However, let us go back,” she said, stopping in indecision.

She looked at the clock.

” No, it is impossible. I must go to the mass for the dead at Madame Kamenski’s. She is terribly cast down.”

” Who is this Madame Kdmenski ? ”

” Have you not heard ? Her son was killed in a duel. He fought with Pozen. An only son. Terrible. The mother is so very much cast down.”

” Yes, I have heard.”

“No, I had better go, and you come tomorrow, or this evening,” she said, walking through the entrance door with rapid, light steps.

” I cannot come this evening,” he answered, walking out on the front steps with her. ” I have some business with you,” he said, looking at the span of bay horses, which drove up to the steps.

“ What is it ? “

“ Here is a note from my aunt about it,” said Nekhlyudov, handing her a narrow envelope with a large monogram. “ You will see from this what it is.”

” I know, Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna thinks that I have some influence on my husband in business matters. She is in error. I cannot and will not interfere. But, of course, for the countess and for you I shall depart from my rules. What is the business ? ” she said, in vain trying to find her pocket with her small hand in the black glove.

” There is a girl who is confined in the fortress ; she is ill, and not guilty.”

“ What is her name ? ”

“Shustov. Lidiya Shustov. You will find it in the note.”

“ Very well, I shall try to do it,” she ‘ said, lightly stepping into the softly cushioned carriage which glistened in the sun with the lacquer of its wings. She opened her parasol. The lackey sat down on the box, and gave the coachman a sign to drive on. The carriage started, but the same minute she touched the coachman’s back with her parasol, and the slender-legged, handsome, shorttailed mares stopped, compressing their reined-in beautiful heads, and stamping with their slender feet.

“ Do come, but, if you please, disinterestedly,” she said, smiling a smile, the power of which she knew too well. The performance, so to say, being over, she drew down the curtain, — let down her veil. ” Well, let us start,” and she again touched the coachman with the parasol.

Nekhlyudov raised his hat. The thoroughbred bay mares, snorting, struck their hoofs against the pavement, and the carriage rolled off swiftly, now and then softly leaping with its new tires over the unevennesses of the road.

XVI.

Recalling the smile which he had exchanged with Mariette, Nekhlyudov shook his head at himself :

“ Before I shall have looked around, I shall again be drawn into that life,” he thought, experiencing that internal dissension and those doubts which the necessity of invoking the aid of people whom he did not respect awakened in him. He considered where he should go first, where later, so as not to recross his way, and started to go to the Senate. Upon arriving there, he was led into the chancery, where, in a magnificent apartment, he saw an immense number of exceedingly polite and clean officials.

Maslova’s petition had been received and submitted for consideration and report to that same Senator Wolf, to whom he had a letter from his uncle, so the officials told Nekhlyudov.

” There will be a meeting of the Senate this week, but Maslova’s case will hardly come up then. But if it should be requested, there is hope that it might pass this week, on Wednesday,” said one.

In the chancery of the Senate, while waiting for the information, Nekhlyudov again heard a conversation about the duel, and a detailed account of how Kamen ski had been killed. Here he for the first time heard all the details of the story which interested all St. Petersburg. Some officers had been eating oysters in a shop, and, as usual, drinking a great deal. Some one said something uncomplimentary about the regiment in which Kamenski was serving : Kamenski called him a liar. The other struck Kàmenski. The following day they fought, and X amen ski was hit by a bullet in the abdomen, and died from it in two hours. The murderer and the seconds were arrested, but it was said, although they were now confined in the guard-house, they would be released in two weeks.

From the chancery of the Senate, Nekhlyudov drove to the Petition Commission, to see there an influential official, Baron Vorobév, who occupied superb quarters in a Crown house. The porter and the lackey sternly informed Nekhlyudov that the baron could not be seen on any but reception-days, that he now was at the emperor’s palace, and that on the next day he would have to report there again. Nekhlyudov left his letter, and went to Senator Wolf.

Wolf had just breakfasted, and, as usual, was encouraging his digestion by smoking a cigar and walking up and down in his room, when he received Nekhlyudov. Vladimir Vasilevich Wolf was, indeed, un homme très comme il faut, and this quality he placed higher than anything else. From this height he looked at all other people, nor could he help highly valuing this quality, since, thanks only to this, he had made a brilliant career, such as he had wished to make : that is, by his marriage he had acquired property giving him an income of eighteen thousand roubles, and by his own labours he had risen to the rank of a Senator. He not only regarded himself as un homme très comme il faut, but also as a man of chivalrous honesty. By honesty he understood his rule not to take secret bribes from private individuals. But he did not consider it dishonest to extort from the Crown all kinds of travelling expenses, post moneys, and rentals, in return for which he servilely executed that which even the Government did not demand of him. To ruin and destroy, to be the cause of the deportation and incarceration of hundreds of innocent people, for their attachment to their people and to the religion of their fathers, as he had done while being a governor of one of the Governments of the Kingdom of Poland, he not only did not consider dishonest, but even an act of noble-mindedness, courage, and patriotism. Nor did he regard it as dishonest to fleece his wife, who was enamoured of him, and his sister-in-law.

On the contrary, he looked upon this as a wise arrangement of his domestic life. His family consisted of his impersonal wife, her sister, whose property he had also taken into his hands, and whose estate he had sold, depositing the money in his own name, and a meek, timid, homely daughter, who was leading a hard, isolated life, from which she of late found distraction in evangelism, in the meetings at Aline’s and at Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna’s. Vladimir Vasilevich’s son, a good-hearted fellow, who had been bearded at fifteen years of age, and had been drinking and leading a dissolute life since then, continuing to live thus to his twentieth year, had been driven out of the house for not having graduated from anywhere, and for compromising his father by moving in bad society and making debts. His father had once paid 230 roubles for him, and another time six hundred roubles, when he informed him that this was the last time, that if he did not improve he would drive him out of the house, and would break off all connections with him. His son not only did not improve, but even made another debt of one thousand roubles, and, besides, allowed himself to tell his father that it was a torment for him to live in his house. Then Vladimir Vasilevich informed his son that he could go whither he pleased, that he was not a son to him. Since then Vladimir Vasilevich pretended that he had no son, and his home people never dared to talk to him about his son, and Vladimir Vasilevich was absolutely convinced that his family life was circumstanced in the best manner possible.

Wolf stopped in the middle of his promenade in the room, with a gracious and somewhat ironical smile (that was his mannerism, the involuntary expression of his consciousness of his comme il faut superiority above the majority of men), greeted Nekhlyudov, and read the note.

” Please be seated, and pardon me. I shall continue to walk, if you will permit it,” he said, placing his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and treading with soft, light steps along the diagonal of the cabinet, which was appointed in severe style. ” I am very happy to make your acquaintance and, of course, to be able to do Count Ivan Mikhaylovich a favour,” he said, emitting a fragrant bluish puff of smoke, and cautiously removing the cigar from bis mouth, in order not to drop the ashes.

” I should like to ask you to consider the case as early as possible, so that the prisoner may go to Siberia as soon as possible, if she has to go at all,” said Nekhlyudov.

“Yes, yes, with the first steamers from Nfzhni-N6v-gorod, — I know,” said Wolf, with his condescending smile, knowing always in advance what people were going to tell him. ” What is the prisoner’s name ? “

“ Mdslova — ”

Wolf went up to the table and looked at a paper which was lying on a box with documents.

” Yes, yes, Mdslova. Very well. I shall ask my associates about it. We shall take the case under advisement on Wednesday.”

” May I wire the lawyer about it ? “

“You have a lawyer? What is that for? If you wish, you may.”

” The causes for appeal may be insufficient,” said Nekhlyudov, “ but it may be seen from the case that the verdict was due to a misunderstanding.”

” Yes, yes, that may be so, but the Senate does not consider the case on its essential merit,” sternly said Vladimir Vasilevich, looking at the ashes. “ The Senate is concerned only about the correct application and exposition of the laws.”

“ This seems to me to be an exceptional case.”

“ I know, I know. All cases are exceptional. We shall do all we can. That is all.” The ashes still held on, but had a crack, and were in imminent peril. “ Do you come often to St. Petersburg?” said Wolf, holding his cigar in such a way that the ashes could not fall down. But the ashes trembled, and Wolf cautiously carried his cigar to the ash-tray, into which they dropped.

“ What a terrible incident that was with Kâmenski,” he said. “ A fine young man. An only son. Especially his mother’s condition,” he said, repeating almost the identical words that all St. Petersburg was at that time saying about Kamenski. Having said something about Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna and her infatuation for the new religious movement, which Vladimir Vasilevich neither condemned nor approved of, and winch was manifestly superfluous to him in his comme il faut state, he rang a bell.

Nekhlyudov bowed himself out.

“ If it is convenient to you, come to dinner,” Wolf said, giving him his hand, ” say, on Wednesday. I shall then give you a decisive answer.”

It was late, and Nekhlyudov drove home, that is, to his aunt’s.

XVII.

Dinner was served at the house of Ekaterina Ivanovna at half-past seven in a new fashion, which Nekhlyudov had not seen before. The dishes were placed on the table, and the lackeys went out at once, so that the diners helped themselves to the food. The gentlemen did not permit the ladies to exert themselves by superfluous movements, and, being the strong sex, bravely attended to the labour of filling the ladies’ and their own plates with food, and filling their glasses with drinks. When one course was consumed, the countess pressed the button of an electric bell on the table, and the lackeys entered noiselessly, rapidly, cleaned off the table, changed the dishes, and brought the next course. The dinner was excellent, and so were the wines. In the large, well-lighted kitchen a French chef was busy with two assistants in white. There were six persons at the table : the count and the countess, their son, a gloomy officer of the Guards, who put his elbows on the table, Nekhlyudov, a French ladyreader, and the count’s manager, who had come up from the country.

The conversation here, too, turned upon the duel. The emperor’s view of the affair was under consideration. It was known that the emperor was very much grieved for the mother, and all were grieved for the mother. But, as it was also known that, although the emperor sympathized with her, he did not wish to be severe on the murderer, who had defended the honour of his uniform, all were condescending to the murderer, who had defended the honour of his uniform. Countess Ekaterina Ivdnovua alone, with her frivolous free ideas, condemned him.

” I should not forgive them for anything in the world for carousing and for killing innocent young men,” she said.

“ I cannot understand that,” said the count.

” I know that you never understand what I say,” said the countess, turning to Nekhlyudov. ” Everybody understands except my husband. I say that I am sorry for the mother, and that I do not want them to kill and to be content.”

Then tlw son, who had been silent until now, defended the murderer and attacked his mother, proving to her in a sufficiently coarse manner that the officer could not have acted differently, that if he had he would have been expelled from the army by a court of officers. Nekhlyudov listened, without taking part in the conversation ; having been an officer, he understood, though he did not approve, the proofs which young Chàrski adduced ; at the same time he involuntarily compared the officer who had killed another with the prisoner, the fine-looking young fellow, whom he had seen in prison, and who had been sentenced to hard labour for killing a man in a brawl. Both became murderers through drinking. The peasant had killed in a moment of excitement, and he was separated from his wife, his family, his relatives, was chained in fetters, and with a shaven head was on his way to hard labour, while the officer was located in a beautiful room at the guard-house, eating good dinners, drinking good wine, and reading books, and in a few days he would be let out, continuing his previous life, and being only a more interesting person for his deed.

He said what he thought about the matter. At first Countess Ekaterina Ivdnovna agreed with her nephew, but later she was silent.

Nekhlyudov felt, like the rest, that with his story he had, as it were, committed an indecency.

In the evening, after dinner, chairs with high carved backs were placed in the parlour, as though for a lecture, in rows, and in front of the table was put a chair with a small table, with a decanter of water for the preacher, and people began to congregate, to listen to the sermon of the newly arrived Kiese wetter.

Near the entrance stood expensive carriages. In the luxuriously furnished parlour sat ladies in silk, velvet, and laces, with false hair and tightly laced waists and false bosoms. Between the women sat gentlemen, soldiers and private citizens, and five men from the lower classes : two janitors, a shopkeeper, a lackey, and a coachman.

Kiesewetter, a strongly built, gray-haired gentleman, spoke in English, and a lean young lady, with eyeglasses, translated rapidly and well.

lie said that our sins were so great, and the punishment for these was so great and unavoidable, that it was impossible to live in expectation of this punishment.

” Let us only think, dear sisters and brethren, of ourselves, of our lives, of what we are doing, how we are living, how we anger long-suffering God, how we cause Christ to suffer, and we shall see that there is no forgiveness for us, no issue, no salvation, — that we are all doomed to perdition. A terrible doom, eternal torments await us,” he said, in a trembling voice. ” How are we to be saved, brethen, how are we to be saved from this terrible conflagration ? It has already seized upon the house, and there is no issue from it ! “

He grew silent, and real tears flowed down his cheeks. He had been delivering this speech for eight years, without any errors, and whenever he reached that passage of his very popular sermon he was seized by convulsions in his throat, and tickling in his nose, and tears began to flow from his eyes.

And these tears touched him still more. Sobs were heard in the room. Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna sat near a mosaic table, leaning her head on both her arms, and her fat shoulders shrugged convulsively. The coachman looked in surprise and fear at the foreigner, as though he had driven right into him with the shaft, and he did not budge. The majority sat in poses similar to that of Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna. Wolf’s daughter, who resembled him, in a fashionable garment, was on her knees, covering her face with her hands.

The orator suddenly revealed his face and called forth upon it that which strikingly resembled a real smile, such as actors use to express joy with, and began to speak in a sweet and tender voice :

” There is a salvation. Here it is : it is easy and blissful. This salvation is the blood of the only begotten Son of God, who has allowed Himself to be tormented for our sakes. His suffering, His blood saves us. Sisters and brethren,” he again said, with tears in his eyes, ” let us praise the Lord who has given His only begotten Son for the redemption of the human race. His holy blood — ”

Nekhlyudov was overcome by such a painful feeling of nausea that he softly rose and, frowning and repressing a groan of shame, walked out on tiptoe and went to his room.

XVIII.

On the following day, just as Nekhlyudov had dressed himself and was on the point of going down-stairs, a lackey brought him the visiting-card of the Moscow lawyer. The lawyer had arrived to look after his affairs and, at the same time, to be present at the discussion of Maslova’s case in the Senate, if it was to be heard soon. The despatch which Nekhlyudov had sent him had missed him. Upon hearing when Maslova’s case was to come up and who the Senators were, he smiled.

” There you have all three types of Senators,” he said : ” Wolf is a Petersburgian official ; Skovorodnikov is a learned jurist ; and Be is a practical jurist, consequently the liveliest of them all,” said the lawyer. “There is most hope in him. And how is it about the Petition Commission ? ”

“I am going down to-day to Baron Vorobév. I could not get any interview yesterday.”

“Do you know how Vorobév comes to be a baron?” said the lawyer, replying to the somewhat comical intonation, with which Nekhlyudov had pronounced this’ foreign title in connection with such a Russian name. “ Paul had rewarded his grandfather, a lackey of the chamber, I think, for some great favour of his, as much as to say : ‘ Have a baronetcy, and don’t interfere with my pleasure ! ‘ Since then goes the race of the Barons of Vorobév. He is very proud of it. And he is a shrewd one.”

“ I am on my way to him,” said Nekhlyudov.

“ Very well, let us go together. I shall take you down to his house.”

Nekhlyudov was already in the antechamber, being on the point of leaving, when he was met by a lackey with a note from Mariette :

“ Pour vous faire plaisir, fai agi tout à fait contre mes principes, et fai intercédé auprès de mon mari pour votre protégée. Il se trouve que cette personne peut être ralachle immédiatement. Mon mari a écrit au commandant. Venez donc disinterestedly. Je vous attends. m.”

” How is this ? ” Nekhlyudov said to the lawyer. ” This is simply terrible. The woman whom he has been keeping for seven months in solitary confinement proves to be innocent, and, in order to release her, it was only necessary to say the word.”

” It is always that way. At least, you have got what you wanted.”

“Yes, but this success grieves me. Just think what must be going on there ? What were they keeping her for ? “

” Well, it would be better not to try to get to the bottom of that. So let me take you down,” said the lawyer, as they came out to the front steps, and a fine carriage, which the lawyer had hired, drove up to the entrance.

“ You want to go to Baron Vorobév ? ”

The lawyer told the coachman where to drive, and the good horses soon brought Nekhlyudov to the house which the baron occupied. The baron was at home. In the first room were two young ladies and a young official in his vice-uniform, with an exceedingly long neck and a bulging Adam’s apple, and an extremely light gait.

“Your name?” the young official with the bulging Adam’s apple asked, passing with an extremely light and graceful gait from the ladies to Nekhlyudov.

Nekhlyudov told him his name.

” The baron has mentioned you. Directly ! “

The adjutant went through the closed door, and brought out from the room a lady in mourning, who was in tears. The lady with her bony fingers adjusted the tangled veil, in order to conceal her tears.

” Please,” the young official turned to Nekhlyudov, walking with a light step over to the door, opening it, and stopping.

Upon entering the cabinet, Nekhlyudov found himself in front of a middle-sized, stocky, short-haired man in half-uniform, who was sitting in an armchair at a large writing-desk, and cheerfully looking in front of him. His good-natured face, which stood out quite prominently with its ruddy blush from the white moustache and beard, formed itself into a gracious smile at the sight of Nekhlyudov.

“ Very glad to see you. Your mother and I were old friends. I used to see you when you were a boy, and later as an officer. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you. Yes, yes,” he said, shaking his close-cropped gray head as Nekhlyudov was telling him Feddsya’s history. “Go on, go on, I have understood it all. Yes, yes, this is touching indeed. Well, have you entered a petition ? “

“ I have prepared a petition,” said Nekhlyudov, taking it out of his pocket. ” I wanted to ask you to give it your especial attention, and I hope you may.”

” You have done well. I shall by all means make the report myself,” said the baron, awkwardly expressing compassion in his merry face. “ It is very touching. She was apparently a child, and the husband treated her rudely ; this made him repulsive to her, and later came a time when they began to love each other — Yes, I shall report it.”

“ Count Ivan Mikhaylovich said that he wanted to ask — ”

Nekhlyudov did not finish his phrase, when the baron’s face was suddenly changed.

” You had better hand in the petition at the chancery, and I shall do what I can,” he said to Nekhlyudov.

Just then the young official, apparently proud of his gait, entered the room.

” The lady asks to be permitted to say two words more.”

” Well, call her in. Ah, mon cher, what a lot of tears one sees here ; if one only could dry them all! I do what I can.”

The lady entered.

” I forgot to ask you not to let him give up the daughter, or else — ”

“ I told you I should do it.”

” Baron, for God’s sake ! You will save a mother.”

She seized his hand and began to kiss it.

” Everything will be done.”

When the lady left, Nekhlyddov, too, rose to say goodbye.

” We shall do what we can. We shall consult the minister of justice. He will give us his view, and then we shall do what we can.”

Nekhlyudov went out and walked into the chancery. Again, as in the Senate, he found in a superb apartment superb officials, who were clean, polite, correct in their dress and speech, precise, and severe.

” How many there are of them, how very many, and how well fed they are ! What clean shirts and hands they have ! How well their shoes are blackened ! And who does it all ? And how well they are off in comparison not only with the prisoners, but even with the peasants,” Nekhlyudov again involuntarily thought.

XIX.

The man on whom depended the alleviation of the lot of those who were confined in St. Petersburg had decorations enough to cover him, but, with the exception of a white cross in the buttonhole, he did not wear them ; he was a superannuated old general, in his dotage, as they said, and was of German baronial origin. He had served in the Caucasus, where he had received this extremely flattering cross because under his command Russian peasants, with their hair cropped and clad in uniforms and armed with guns and bayonets, had killed more than a thousand people who were defending their liberty, their homes, and their families. Then he had served in Poland, where he again compelled Russian peasants to commit all kinds of crimes, for which he received new decorations and embellishments on his uniform. Then he had served somewhere else, and now, being an enfeebled old man, he obtained the place, which he now was occupying, and which supplied him with good apartments and support, and gave him honours. He executed severely all orders from above, and was exceedingly proud of this execution ; to these orders from above he ascribed a special meaning, and thought that everything in the world might be changed, except these orders from above. His duty consisted in keeping political prisoners in barracks, in solitary confinement, and he kept them there in such a way that half of them perished in the course of ten years, partly becoming insane, partly dying from consumption, and partly committing suicide : some by starving themselves, others by cutting their veins open with pieces of glass, or by hanging, or by burning themselves to death.

The old general knew all this ; all this took place under his eyes, but all these cases did not touch his conscience any more than his conscience was touched by accidents arising from storms, inundations, and so on.

These accidents happened on account of his executing orders from above, in the name of the emperor. These orders had to be carried out without questioning, and therefore it was quite useless to think of the consequences resulting from these orders.

The old general did not permit himself even to think of such affairs, considering it his patriotic duty as a soldier not to think, in order not to weaken in the execution of these, as he thought, extremely important duties of his. Once a week the old general regarded it as his duty to visit all the barracks and to ask the prisoners whether they had any requests to make. The prisoners generally had requests to make of him. He listened to them calmly and in impenetrable silence, and never granted them because they were all contrary to the regulations of the law.

As Nekhlyudov was approaching the residence of the old general, the soft chimes of the tower played ” Praise ye the Lord,” and the clock struck two. Listening to the chimes, Nekhlyudov involuntarily recalled having read in the memoirs of the Decembrists what an effect this sweet music, repeated every hour, had on the souls of those who were confined for life.

As Nekhlyudov drove up to the entrance of his lodgings, the general was sitting in a dark drawing-room at an inlaid table and, together with a young man, an artist, a brother of one of his subordinates, was twirling a small dish on a sheet of paper. The thin, moist, feeble fingers of the artist were linked with the rough, wrinkled fingers of the general, which were stiff in their joints, and these linked hands were jerking about, together with the inverted saucer, over the sheet of paper upon which were written all the letters of the alphabet. The saucer was answering the question put by the general as to how the spirits would recognize each other after death.

Just as one of the orderlies, who was acting as valet, entered with Nekhlyudov’s card, Joan of Arc’s spirit was communicating with them by means of the saucer. Joan of Arc’s spirit had already spelled out, ” They will recognize each other after their,” and this had been noted down. Just as the orderly had entered, the saucer, which had first stopped at “1,” was jerking about in all directions just after it had reached the letter “i.” It was wavering because the next letter, according to the general’s opinion, was to have been ” b,” that is, Joan of Arc, in his opinion, was to have said that the spirits would recognize each other after their liberation from all earthly dross, or something to that effect, and the next letter, therefore, had to be ” b ” ; but the artist thought that the next letter would be “g,” that the spirit was going to say that the souls would recognize each other after their lights, which would emanate from their ethereal bodies. The general, gloomily arching his thick gray eyebrows, was looking fixedly at the hands, and, imagining that the saucer was moving of its own accord, was pulling it in the direction of letter ” b.” But the young, anæmic artist, with his scant hair combed behind his ears, was looking with his lifeless blue eyes into the dark corner of the drawing-room, and, nervously twitching his lips, was pulling the saucer in the direction of ” g.” The general scowled at the interruption of his occupation, and, after a moment’s silence, took the card, put on his eyeglasses, and, groaning from a pain in the small of his back, arose to his full tall stature, rubbing his stiffened joints.

” Take him to the cabinet.”

” Permit me, your Excellency, I shall finish it myself,” said the artist, getting up. ” I feel the presence.”

“Very well, finish it,” the general said, in a resolute and severe voice, while with a resolute and even gait he directed the long steps of his parallel feet to the cabinet.

” Glad to see you.” The general said these gracious words to Nekhlyudov in a coarse voice, pointing to a chair at the writing-desk. “Have you been long in St. Petersburg ? “

Nekhlyudov told him that he had arrived but lately.

“ Is the princess, your mother, well.”

” Mother is dead.”

” Pardon me, I am very sorry. My son told me that he had met you.”

The general’s son was making the same career as his father. After leaving the military academy, he served in the detective bureau, and was very proud of the business winch there was entrusted to him. His occupation consisted in supervising the spies.

“ Yes, I have served with your father. We were friends and comrades. Well, are you serving ? ”

“ No.”

The general shook his head disapprovingly.

” I have a request to make of you, general,” said Nekhlyudov.

“ Oh, oh, I am very glad. What can I do for you ? ”

“If my request is improper, you will forgive me, I hope. But I must communicate it to you.”

“ What is it ? “

“ There is a certain Gurdvich confined in the fortress. His mother wishes to have an interview with him, or, at least, to let him have certain books.”

The general expressed neither joy nor displeasure at Nekhlyudov’s question ; he bent his head sidewise and closed his eyes, as though lost in thought. He really was not thinking of anything and was not even interested in Nekhlyudov’s question, knowing very well that he would answer him in accordance with the laws. He was simply taking a mental rest, thinking of nothing.

” This, you see, does not depend on me,” he said, after a moment’s rest. ” In regard to interviews there is a regulation confirmed by his Majesty, and whatever is decreed there is carried out. As to the books, we have a library, and they get such books as are permitted to them.”

” But he needs scientific books. He wants to work.”

” Don’t believe that.” The general was silent for a while. ” That is not for work. Nothing but unrest.”

” But they have to do something to occupy their time in their heavy situation,” said Nekhlyudov.

” They always complain,” said the general. “We know them.”

He spoke of them in general as of some especially bad tribe of men.

“ They are furnished such comforts here as one will rarely find in places of confinement,” continued the general.

And, as though to justify himself, he began to tell in detail of all the comforts which the prisoners had, as though the chief aim of this institution consisted in providing pleasant quarters for its inmates.

” Formerly, it is true, it was very hard, but now they are kept nicely. They eat three courses, and one of these is meat, either forcemeat or cutlets. On Sundays they get a fourth course of sweetmeats. May God only grant that every Russian have such meals ! “

The general like all old people, having once come to a subject which he knew by rote, kept saying that which he had repeated so often in order to prove their exactions and ingratitude.

“ They get books, both of a religious character, and old periodicals. We have a library. But they do not like to read. At first they seem to be interested, and afterward the new books remain half uncut, while the pages of the old ones are not turned over. We have tried them,” said the baron, with a distant resemblance to a smile, ” by putting pieces of paper in. The papers remain untouched. Nor are they kept from writing,” continued the general. ” They get slates and pencils, so that they may write for their amusement. They may rub oil what they have written, and write over again. But they don’t write. No, they very soon become very quiet. Only in the beginning they are restless ; and later they grow fat, and become very quiet,” said the general, without suspecting what terrible meaning his words had.

Nekhlyudov listened to his hoarse old voice ; he looked at his stiffened joints ; at his dimmed eyes beneath his gray brows ; at his shaven, overhanging, old cheeks, supported by a military collar ; at the white cross, which this man prided himself on, especially since he had received it for an extraordinarily cruel and wholesale murder, — and he understood that it was useless for him to explain to him the meaning of his words. But he, nevertheless, made an effort over himself and asked about another affair, about prisoner Shustov, about whom he had received that day the information that she would be released.

” Shustov ? Shustov — I do not remember them all by name. There are so many of them,” he said, apparently reproaching them for overcrowding. He rang a bell and sent for his -secretary. While they went to fetch his secretary, he tried to persuade Nekhlyudov that he should serve, saying that honest and noble-minded people, including himself in the number, were especially useful to the Tsar — ” and the country,” he added, apparently as an adornment of speech.

“ I am old, but I am serving so far as my strength permits.”

The secretary, a dried-up, lean man, with restless, clever

the spirit of Joan of Arc all written out. The general put on his eyeglasses and read : “ They will recognize each other after their lights, which will emanate from their ethereal bodies.”

” Ah,” the general said approvingly, closing his eyes, ” but how are you going to tell them if the light is the same with all ? ” he asked, and again sat down at the table, linking his fingers with those of the artist.

Nekhlyudov’s cabman came out of the gate.

” It is dull here, sir,” he said, turning to Nekhlyudov, ” and I wanted to leave, without waiting for your return.”

” Yes, it is dull,” Nekhlyudov agreed with him, inhaling the air with full lungs, and restfully gazing at the smoky clouds that were scudding along the sky, and at the sparkling waves of the Neva, rippling from the boats and steamers that were moving upon it.

XX.

On the following day Maslova’s case was to be heard, and Nekhlyudov went to the Senate. The lawyer met him at the grand entrance of the Senate building, where several carriages were standing already. Mounting the magnificent parade staircase to the second story, the lawyer, who knew all the corridors, turned to the left to a door, on which was written the year of the introduction of the code of laws governing the courts. Having taken off his overcoat in the first long room, and having learned from the porter that the Senators had all arrived, and the last had just entered, Fandrin, now left in his dress coat and his white tie on his white bosom, passed into the next room with cheerful self-confidence. Here there was, on the right, a large safe and then a table, and, on the left, a winding staircase, down which now came an elegant-looking official in a vice-uniform, with a portfolio under his arm.

In this room the attention was attracted by a patriarchal old man, with long white hair, in a jacket and gray pantaloons, near whom stood two assistants in a respectful attitude. The old man with the white hair went up to the safe, and was lost in it. Just then Fanarin, having spied a comrade of his, a lawyer in a white tie and in a dress coat, immediately entered into an animated conversation with him. In the meantime Nekhlyudov watched those who were in the room. There were in all about fifteen persons present, among them two ladies. One of these wore eyeglasses, and the other was a gray-haired old woman. The case which was to be heard was in regard to a libel ok the press, and therefore more than a usual audience had assembled, — they were nearly all people belonging to the newspaper world.

The bailiff, a ruddy-faced, handsome man, in a magnificent uniform, with a note in his hand, walked over to Fanarin to ask him what his case was, and, having heard that it was the Maslova case, he made a note of something and went away. Just then the door of the safe was opened, and the patriarchal old man emerged from it, no longer in his jacket, but in a galloon-embroidered garment, with metal plates on his breast, which made him look like a bird.

This ridiculous costume apparently embarrassed the old man himself, and he walked more rapidly than was his custom through the door opposite the entrance.

“That is Be, a most respectable man,” Fandrin said to Nekhlyudov, and, introducing him to his colleague, told him of the extremely interesting case, as he thought, which was to be heard now.

The case soon began, and Nekhlyudov, with the rest of the audience, went into the hall on the left. All of them, Fandrin included, went behind a barrier, to seats intended for the public. Only the St. Petersburg lawyer stepped out beyond the barrier to a writing-desk.

The hall of the meetings of the Senate was smaller than the one of the Circuit Court, simpler in its appointments, and differed from it only in that the table, at which the Senators were sitting, was not covered with green cloth, but with crimson velvet, embroidered with gold lace ; all the other attributes of the execution of justice were the same : there was the Mirror of Laws,1 the emblem of duplicity — the holy image, and the emblem of servility — the portrait of the emperor. The bailiff announced in the same solemn voice, ” The court is com-1A triangular prism with certain laws promulgated by Peter the Great printed upon it, to be found in every court. ing.” All rose in the same manner; the Senators, in their uniforms, walked in in the same way, sat down in the same way in the chairs with the high backs, and in the same way leaned over the table, trying to look natural. There were four Senators : the presiding judge, Nikitin, a clean-shaven man, with a narrow face and steel eyes; Wolf, with compressed lips and white little hands, with which he fingered some sheets of paper ; then Skovorodnikov, a fat, massive, pockmarked man, — a learned jurist; and the fourth, Be, that patriarchal old man who had been the last to arrive. With the Senators came out the secretary-general and the associate prosecuting attorney-general, a middle-sized, spare, clean-shaven young man, with a very dark skin and black, melancholy eyes. In spite of his strange uniform, and although six years had passed since Nekhlyudov had last seen him, he at once recognized in him the best friend of his student days.

“ Is this Associate Prosecuting Attorney-General Selénin ? “

” Yes. Why ? “

“ I know him well. He is a fine man — “

“ And an excellent associate prosecuting attorney-general, who knows his business. You ought to have asked him,” said Fanarin.

“ He will in any case be conscientious,” said Nekhlyudov, recalling his close relations and friendship with Selénin, and his gentle qualities of purity, honesty, and decency, in the best sense of the word.

« It is too late now,” Fanarin whispered to him, paying strict attention to the report of the case.

The case was an appeal to the verdict of the Superior Court which had left unchanged the judgment of the Circuit Court.

Nekhlyudov listened and tried to understand the meaning of that which was going on before him, but, just as in the Circuit Court, the chief impediment to comprehension lay in the fact that they were not considering that which naturally seemed to be the main point, but a side issue. The case under advisement was an article in a newspaper, in which the rascality of a presiding officer of a certain stock company had been brought to light. It seemed that the only important question was whether really the president of the stock company was fleecing his creditors, and what means were to be taken to stop him from stealing. But that was not at all considered. The only question they discussed was whether the publisher had a legal right to print the article of the feuilleton writer, or not, and what crime he had committed by printing it: whether it was a defamation or libel, and how defamation includes libel, or libel defamation, and other unintelligible points for common people about various articles and decrees of some general department.

There was one thing which Nekhlyudov understood, and that was that, notwithstanding the fact that Wolf, who made the report on the case, and who on the previous day had so sternly informed him that the Senate could not consider the essence of a case, in this particular affair reported with an apparent bias in favour of the annulment of the verdict of the Superior Court, and that Selénin, quite out of keeping with his characteristic reserve, suddenly hotly expressed an opposite opinion. The impassionedness of the ever reserved Selénin was based on the fact that he knew the president of the stock company as unreliable in business matters, and that he had accidentally found out that Wolf had almost on the eve of the hearing of this case been present at a luxurious dinner given by this suspicious business man. When now Wolf reported in an apparently biassed, even though very cautious, manner on the case, Selénin became excited and expressed his opinion with greater vigour than was necessary for such a usual matter. His speech evidently offended Wolf : he blushed, twitched his muscles, made silent gestures of surprise, and with a very dignified and offended look retired with the other Senators to the consultation-room.

” What is your case? ” the bailiff again asked Fanarin, the moment the Senators had retired.

” I have told you before that I am here to hear Maslova’s case,” said Fanarin.

“That is so. The case will come up to-day. But— ” ” What is it ? ” asked the lawyer.

” You see, it has been put down without discussion, and the Senators will hardly come out after the announcement of their decision. But 1 shall inform them — “

“ What do you mean ? “

” I shall inform them,” and the bailiff made a note of something on the paper.

The Senators actually intended, after announcing their decision in the libel-suit, to finish all the other business, including Maslova’s case, at tea and cigarettes, without leaving the consultation-room.

XXI.

The moment the Senators sat down at the table of the consultation-room, Wolf began in a very animated manner to adduce the reasons why the case ought to be annulled. The presiding Senator, who was as a rule not well disposed, happened to be in an unusually bad humour. Listening to the case during the session, he had formed his opinion, and so he now sat lost in thought, without paying any attention to what Wolf was saying. His thought was centred on the consideration of what he had written the day before in his memoirs in regard to Vilyanov’s appointment, instead of him, to that important post which he had long wished to get. President Nikitin was very firmly convinced that his reflections on the officials of the highest two ranks, with whom he came in contact during the time of his service, formed very important historical material. Having on the previous day written a chapter, in which he gave some hard knocks to some officials of the first two classes for having prevented him, as he formulated it, from saving Russia from the destruction into which the present rulers were drawing it, — but in reality for having kept him from getting a larger salary than he now was receiving, — he now was meditating on the fact that this circumstance would have an entirely new light thrown upon it for the use of posterity.

” Yes, of course,” he replied to Wolf’s words which he had addressed to him, but which he had not heard. Be listened with a sad countenance to what Wolf was saying, drawing garlands on the paper which was lying before him. Be was a liberal of the purest water. He sacredly preserved • the traditions of the sixties, and if he ever departed from his severe impartiality it was always in favour of liberalism. Thus, in the present case, apart from the fact that the stock speculator, who had brought the accusation of libel, was an unclean individual, Be was for letting the complaint remain without consequences because this accusation of libel against a writer was a restraint upon the freedom of the press. When Wolf had finished his proofs, Be, without having finished drawing a garland, with sadness, — he was aggrieved that he had to prove such truisms, — in a soft, pleasant voice, gently, simply, and convincingly proved the groundlessness of the complaint, and, lowering his head with its white hair, continued to draw the garland.

Skovorddnikov, who was sitting opposite Wolf, and who was all the time pulling his beard and moustache into his mouth with his fat fingers, the moment Be ceased talking, stopped chewing his beard, and in a loud, creaking voice said that, notwithstanding the fact that the president of the stock company was a great scoundrel, he would be for the annulment of the verdict if there were legal reasons for it, but as such were lacking, he seconded the opinion expressed by Ivdn Semdnovich (Be), he said, enjoying the sting which he had thus given to Wolf. The presiding Senator sided with Skovorddnikov, and the case was decided in the negative.

Wolf was dissatisfied, especially since he was, so to say, accused of dishonest partiality. However, he pretended to be indifferent and opened the next case to be reported upon, that of Maslova, and buried himself in it. In the meantime the Senators rang the bell and asked for tea ; they began to discuss an affair which, together with Kamenski’s duel, then interested all the Petersburgians. It was the case of a director of a department who had been convicted of a crime provided for iu Article 995.

” What baseness,” Be said, in disgust.

” What evil do you see in it ? 1 shall show you in our literature a plan of a German writer who proposes pointblank that this should not be regarded as a crime, and that marriage between two men be permitted,” said Skovorddnikov, eagerly sucking in the smoke from a crushed cigarette which he was holding at the roots of his fingers, near the palm of his hand, and bursting out into a loud laugh.

” It is impossible,” said Be.

” I shall show it to you,” said Skovorddnikov, quoting the full title of the work, and even the year and place of publication.

“ They say he is to be appointed governor in some Siberian city,” said Nikitin.

“ That is all right. The bishop will come out to meet him with the cross. They ought to have a bishop of the same kind. I could recommend a bishop to them,” said Skovorddnikov, and, throwing the stump of the cigarette into the ash-tray, he took into his mouth as much as he could of his beard and moustache, and began to chew at them.

Just then the bailiff, who had entered, informed them of the lawyer’s and Nekhlyudov’s desire to be present at the discussion of Maslova’s case.

” Now this case,” said Wolf, ” is a whole romance,” and he told all he knew about Nekhlyudov’s relations with Maslova. After having talked of this, and having finished smoking their cigarettes and drinking their tea, the Senators went into the hall of sessions, announced their decision in the previous case, and took up Maslova’s.

Wolf in his thin voice reported in a very detailed manner on Maslova’s appeal for annulment, and again spoke not entirely without impartiality, but with the manifest desire to have the judgment of the court annulled.

” Have you anything to add ? ” the presiding Senator addressed Fanarin. Fan drin arose, and, expanding his broad white chest, began, by points, and with remarkable impressiveness and precision, to prove the departure of the court in six points from the exact meaning of the law, and, besides, took the liberty of touching, though briefly, on the merits of the case itself, and on the crying injustice of the verdict. The tone of Fandrin’s short but strong speech was to the effect that he begged the Senate’s indulgence for insisting on something which the Senators, in their sagacity and judicial wisdom, saw and understood better than he, saying that he did so only because his duty demanded it. After Fandrin’s speech, there seemed to be not the least doubt but that the Senate would reverse the decision of the court. Having finished his speech, Fanarin smiled a victorious smile.

Looking at his lawyer, and seeing this smile, Nekhlyudov was convinced that the case was won. But when he glanced at the Senators, he noticed that Fanarin was the only one who was smiling and triumphing. The Senators and the associate prosecuting attorney-general neither smiled nor triumphed, but had the aspect of people who felt ennui, and who were saying, “We have heard a lot of your kind of people, and that all leads to nothing.” They were all, apparently, glad when the lawyer got through and stopped delaying them.

Immediately after the end of the lawyer’s speech, the presiding officer turned to the associate prosecuting attorney-general. Selénin clearly and precisely expressed himself in a few words against the reversal of the judgment, finding the causes for the annulment insufficient. Thereupon the Senators arose and went away to hold their consultation. In the consultation-room the votes were divided. Wolf was for the repeal. Be having grasped the whole matter, also very warmly sided with the annulment, vividly presenting to his associates a picture of the court and the misunderstanding of the jury, just as he had comprehended it very correctly. Nikitin, who always stood for severity in general and for severe formality, was against it. The whole affair depended on Skovorddnikov’s vote. He cast it against a reversal chiefly because Nekhlyudov’s determination to marry this girl in the name of moral demands was in the highest degree distasteful to him.

Skovorodnikov was a materialist and a Darwinist, and considered all manifestations of abstract morality, or, still worse, of religiousness, not only a contemptible madness, but a personal affront. All this interest in the prostitute, and the presence in the Senate of a famous lawyer, who was defending her, and of Nekhlyudov himself, was extremely distasteful to him. And thus, he stuck his beard into bis mouth and, making a grimace, pretended not to know anything about the affair except that the causes for annulment were insufficient, and that, therefore, he agreed with the president in disregarding the appeal.

The appeal was denied.

XXII.

” Terrible ! ” said Nekhlyiidov, walking into the waiting-room with the lawyer, who was arranging his portfolio. ” In a most palpable case they stickle for form, and refuse it. Terrible ! “

” The case was spoilt in court,” said the lawyer.

” And Selénin is for a refusal ! Terrible, terrible ! ” Nekhlyudov continued to repeat. ” What is to be, done now ? “

” Let us appeal to his Majesty. Hand in the petition while you are here. I shall write it out for you.”

Just then thick-set Wolf, in his stars and uniform, came into the waiting-room and walked over to Nekhlyudov.

” What is to be done, dear prince ? There were not any sufficient causes,” he said, shrugging his narrow shoulders and closing his eyes. He passed on.

After Wolf came Selénin, having learned from the Senators that Nekhlyudov, his former friend, was there.

” 1 did not expect to find you here,” he said, going up to Nekhlyudov, smiling with his lips, while his eyes remained sad. ” I did not know you were in St. Petersburg.”

” And I did not know that you were prosecuting attorney-general — “

” Associate,” Selénin corrected him.

“ What are you doing in the Senate ? ” he asked, looking sadly and gloomily at his friend. “ I heard that you were in St. Petersburg. But what brings you here ?”

“ Here ? I came here, hoping to find justice and to save an innocent condemned woman.”

” What woman ?

” She whose case has just been decided.”

“ Oh, Maslova’s affair,” Selénin said, recalling it. “ An • entirely unfounded appeal.”

” The question is not in the appeal, but in the woman, who is not guilty and yet condemned.”

Selénin heaved a sigh : ” Very likely, but — ”

” Not very likely, but absolutely — ”

” How do you know ? “

“Because I was one of the jury. I know where we made a mistake.”

Selénin fell to musing. ” You ought to have announced it then and there,” he said.

” I did.”

“You ought to have written it down in the protocol.

If that had been in the appeal for annulment — ”

“ But it was manifest as it is that the verdict was senseless.”

“ The Senate has no right to say so. If the Senate should take the liberty of annulling the judgments of the courts on the basis of their own views of their justice, not only the Senate would lose every point of support and would be rather in danger of violating justice than establishing it,” Selénin said, recalling the previous case, “but the verdicts of the juries would also lose their meaning.”

“ I know this much : the woman is absolutely innocent, and the last hope to save her from an unmerited punishment is gone. The highest court has confirmed a case of absolute illegality.”

“ It has not confirmed it, because it has not considered, and it cannot consider, the merits of the case itself,” said Selénin, blinking.

Selénin, who was always busy at home and never went out in society, had apparently heard nothing of Nekhlyudov’s romance ; and Nekhlyudov, being aware of this, decided that it was not necessary for him to speak of his relations with Maslova.

” You, no doubt, are stopping with your aunt,” he added, evidently wishing to change the subject. ” I heard only yesterday from her that you were here. The countess invited me to be with you at the meeting of the visiting preacher,” said Selénin, smiling with his bps only.

” Yes, I was there, but went away in disgust,” angrily said Nekhlyudov, provoked at Selénin for changing the subject.

” But why in disgust ? It is, nevertheless, a manifestation of religious feeling, even though one-sided and sectarian,” said Selénin.

” It is nothing but some wild insipidity,” said Nekhlyudov.

“ Not at all. The only strange thing about it is that we know so little the teachings of our own church that we receive our fundamental dogmas as a kind of new revelation,” said Selénin, as though hastening to express his views, which were new to his old friend.

Nekhlyudov looked at Selénin with surprised attention. Selénin lowered his eyes, in which there was an expression not only of sadness, but of hostility as well.

“Do you believe in the dogmas of the church?” Nekhlyudov asked.

“ Of course I do,” Selénin replied, gazing with a straight and dead stare at Nekhlyudov.

Nekhlyudov sighed. ” Remarkable,” he said.

“However, we shall speak of it later,” said Selénin. ” I am coming,” he turned to the bailiff, who had walked up to him with a respectful gait. ” We must by all means see each other,” he added, with a sigh. ” But shall I find you at home ? You will always find me at home at seven o’clock, at dinner. Nadézhdinskaya,” and he gave the number of the house. “Much water has flowed since then,” he added, walking away, and again smiling with his lips alone.

” I shall come if I have time,” said Nekhlyudov, feeling that Selénin, who had once been a close and favourite friend of his, had suddenly become, in consequence of this short conversation, strange, distant, and unintelligible, if not hostile.

XXIII.

When Nekhlyudov knew Selénin as a student, he was a good son, a faithful comrade, and, according to his years, a cultivated man of the world, with much tact, always elegant and handsome, and, at the same time, of extraordinary truthfulness and honesty. He studied beautifully without any effort and without a sign of pedantry, receiving gold medals for his themes. Not only in words, but in deeds, he made serving people the aim of his youthful life. This service he never presented to himself in any other form than as a government service, and therefore, the moment he graduated, he systematically passed in review all the activities to which he might devote his energy, and decided that he would be most useful in the second division of the Private Chancery, which has charge of the making of laws, and so he entered there. But, in spite of the most precise and conscientious execution of everything demanded of him, he did not in this service find a satisfaction for his desire to be useful, and could not appease his conscience with the thought that he was doing the right thing. This discontent was so strengthened by his conflicts with the petty and vainglorious superior immediately above him, that he left the second division, and transferred himself to the Senate.

Here he was more at ease, but the feeling of discontent pursued him still. He did not cease feeling that it was all different from what he had expected and what it ought to be. While occupying his post in the Senate, his relative obtained for him an appointment as Yunker cf the Chamber, and he was obliged to drive out in an embroidered uniform, and a white linen apron, in a carriage, to thank all kinds of people for having promoted him to the dignity of a lackey. However much he tried, he could not discover a sensible explanation for this oflice. And he felt even more than in the service that it was ” not it ; ” at the same time he could not refuse this appointment, on the one hand, in order not to offend those who were convinced that they had given him a great pleasure, while, on the other, the appointment flattered the lower qualities of his nature, and it gave him pleasure to see himself in the mirror iu an embroidered gold lace uniform, and to enjoy that respect which his appointment elicited from certain people.

The same thing happened with him iu regard to his marriage. They arranged for him a very brilliant marriage, from the standpoint of society. And he married, mainly because by refusing to he would have offended and pained the bride, who was very anxious to marry him, and those who had arranged the marriage for him ; as also, because his marrying a young, sweet, aristocratic maiden flattered his vanity and gave him pleasure. But the marriage soon proved to be ” not it ” in a far greater way than the service and his court duties. After the first baby was born, his wife did not want to have any more children, and began to lead a luxurious society life, in which he was compelled to take part against his will.

She was not particularly beautiful, was faithful to him, and, although she poisoned her husband’s life by it, and herself gained nothing from it but an expenditure of terrible strength, and weariness, she continued intently to lead such a life. All attempts of his to change this existence were wrecked, as against a stone wall, against her conviction that it had to be so, iu which opinion she was supported by her relatives and acquaintances.

The child, a girl, with long golden locks and bare legs,

was entirely estranged from her father, more especially because she was brought up differently from what he had wished her to be. Between the married couple naturally arose misunderstanding and even an absence of any desire to understand each other, and a quiet, silent struggle, concealed from outsiders and moderated by proprieties, which made life for him at home exceedingly hard. Thus, his domestic life proved, even more than his service and court appointment, to be ” not it.”

His relation to religion was, however, most “not it.” Like all people of his circle and time, he had, without the least effort, by his mental growth, broken those fetters of religious superstitions in which he had been brought up, and he did not know himself when that liberation had taken place. Being a serious and honest man, he did not conceal this freedom from the superstitions of the official religion while he was still young, during his student days and his friendship with Nekhlyudov.

But with advancing years and rise in service, especially during the reaction of conservatism which had in the meantime taken possession of society, this spiritual freedom stood in his way. Not only in his domestic relations, especially at the death of his father, at the masses for his soul, and because his mother desired him to prepare himself for the sacrament, and public opinion partly demanded this, — but even in his service he had continually to be present at prayers, dedications, and thanksgivings, and other similar services: hardly a day passed without his coming in contact with some external forms of religion, which it was impossible to avoid. Being present at these services, one of two things had to be done : either he had to pretend (which, with his truthful character he never could do) that he believed in that in which he did not believe, or, acknowledging all these external forms to be a He, so to arrange his life as not to be compelled to be present at wliat ne cuubiuviv- .. a lie.

But, in order to accomplish this apparently unimportant deed, very much had to be done : it was necessary to take up an unending struggle with all his close friends ; it was necessary to change his position, to give up his service, and to sacrifice all his usefulness, which he now was convinced he brought people by his service, and hoped even to increase in the future. And in order to do this, it was necessary to be convinced of the justice of his views. Of this he was as firmly convinced as every cultivated man of our time must be of the justice of his sound reason, if he knows anything of history, and if he knows anything of the origin of religion in general, and of the origin and decay of the Church-Christian religion in particular. He could not help knowing that he was right in refusing to acknowledge the truth of the Church teachings. But, under the pressure of the conditions of life, he, a veracious man, permitted himself a small lie, which consisted in saying to himself that, in order to assert that the senselessness is senseless, it is necessary first to study that senselessness. This was a small He, but it led him to that great lie, in which he now was stuck fast.

In putting the question to himself whether that Orthodoxy, in which he had been born and brought up, which was demanded of him by all those who surrounded him, and without which he could not continue his useful activity among men, was right, — he had already prejudged it. Therefore, in order to elucidate this question, he did not take Voltaire, Schopenhauer, Spencer, Kant, but the philosophical works of Hegel, and the religious books of Vinet and Khomyakov, and he naturally found in them what he wanted : a semblance of acquiescence and justification of that religious teaching in which he had been educated, which his reason had long rejected, but without which all his life was filled with annoyances, and by the

acceptance of which all these annoyances would at once be removed.

He appropriated all those customary sophisms that the separate reason of man cannot comprehend truth, that truth is revealed only to the aggregate of humankind, that the only means for conceiving it is the revelation, that revelation is in the keeping of the church, and so forth. Since then he could calmly, without being conscious of the lie, be present at prayers and masses, take the sacrament, and cross himself before the images, and he could continue in his post, which gave him the consciousness of his utility and a consolation in his cheerless domestic life. He thought that he believed, and yet he was conscious with all his being, even more than in anything else, that this faith was absolutely ” not it.” And it was this that made his eyes look so melancholy. And it was this which caused him, at the sight of Nekhlyudov, , whom he used to know when these lies had not taken possession of him, to recall the time when he was still different ; especially after he had hastened to hint to him about his religious views, he felt more than ever that all this was ” not it,” and he was overcome by painful melancholy. The same sensation took possession of Nekhlyudov, after the first impression of joy in seeing Ins old friend had passed.

It was for this reason that, although they had promised to see each other, neither of them sought the meeting, and they never again met during Nekhlyudov’s stay in St. Petersburg.

XXIV.

Upon leaving the Senate, Nekhlyudov walked down the sidewalk with the lawyer. The lawyer ordered his carriage to follow him, and began to tell Nekhlyudov the history of that director of a department of whose conviction the Senators had been talking, and who, instead of being condemned to hard labour, was to be appointed governor in Siberia. He told him the whole story, and all its nastiness, and also expatiated with especial pleasure on the story of the highly placed persons who had stolen the money which had been collected for the construction of the unfinished monument past which they had driven in the morning ; and of how the mistress of a certain man had made millions at the Exchange ; and of how one had sold and the other had bought a wife ; then he began his narrative about the rascalities and all kinds of crimes of the higher officials of government, who were not confined in jails, but occupied president’s chairs in various institutions. These stories, of which the supply seemed to be inexhaustible, caused the lawyer much pleasure, since they gave evident proof of the fact that the means which he, the lawyer, employed to make money were quite lawful and innocent in comparison with the means employed for the same purpose by the highest functionaries at St. Petersburg. Therefore, the lawyer was very much surprised when Nekhlyudov did not wait for the end of the last story about the crimes of the officials, but bade him goodbye and took a cab to drive him home.

Nekhlyudov felt very sad. He was sad more especially because the Senate’s refusal confirmed the senseless torture of innocent Màslova, and because this refusal made more difficult his unchangeable determination to unite his fate with hers. This melancholy was increased by those terrible stories of the reigning evil, of which the lawyer had been telling him with such delight ; in addition to this, he continually thought of the grim, cold, repelling look of Selénin, whom he had known as a gentle, frank, and noble-minded man.

When Nekhlyudov returned home, the porter, with a certain contemptuous look, handed him a note which a certain woman, so he expressed himself, had written in the porter’s lodge. It was a note from Miss Shustov’s mother. She wrote that she had come to thank the benefactor and saviour of her daughter, and, besides, to beg and implore him to call at their house, on the Vasilev Island, Fifth Avenue, Number so and so. This was very necessary for the sake of Vyéra Efremovna. She said he need not be afraid of being annoyed by expressions of gratitude, that this would not even be mentioned, but that they would be very happy to see him. If he could, he should come the next morning.

There was also another note from his former comrade, Aid-de-camp Bogatyrév, whom Nekhlyudov had asked to hand in person to the emperor the petition in the name of the sectarians. Bogatyrév wrote in his large, firm hand that he would hand the petition to the emperor, as he had promised, but that it had suddenly occurred to him that it would be well for Nekhlyudov to go and see the person on whom the matter depended, and to ask him to use his influence.

After the impressions of the last few days in St. Petersburg, Nekhlyudov was in a state of complete hopelessness as regards the success of anything. His plans, which he had formed in Moscow, appeared to him like those youthful dreams, in which people are invariably disenchanted when they enter life. Still, while he was in St. Petersburg, he regarded it as his duty to fulfil everything he had set out to do, and so he resolved to call on Bogatyrév, after which lie would go and see the person on whom the affair of the sectarians depended.

He drew the petition of the sectarians out of his portfolio and began to read it, when the lackey of Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna knocked at the door and entered, inviting him up-stairs to tea.

Nekhlyudov said he would be there at once. Having put away his papers, he went to his aunt’s rooms. On his way up, he looked through the window into the street and saw the span of Mariotte’s bays, and he suddenly felt unexpectedly happy, and wished to smile.

Mariette, in a liât no longer black, but of some bright colour, and a many-coloured dress, was sitting with a cup in her hand near the countess’s armchair, and was chattering, beaming with her beautiful, smiling eyes. As Nekhlyudov entered the room, Mariette had just finished telling something funny, something indecently funny,— this Nekhlyudov saw from the character of the laughter, — so that the good-natured, mustachioed Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna shook with her stout body, rolling from laughter, while Mariette, with a peculiarly mischievous expression, twisting her smiling mouth a little, and turning her energetic and merry face to one side, looked silently at her interlocutor.

Nekhlyudov understood from the few words which he heard that they had been speaking about the second latest St. Petersburg news, — the episode of the Siberian governor, and that it was in this region that Mariette had said something so funny that the countess could not for a long time control herself.

” You will kill me,” she said, coughing.

Nekhlyudov greeted them and sat down near them. He was on the point of condemning Mariette for her frivolity, when she, noticing the serious and slightly dissatisfied expression of his face, immediately changed, not only the expression of hers, but also her whole mood, in order that she might please him, — and this she had desired to do ever since she had met him. She suddenly grew serious, discontented with her life, seeking something, and striving for something. She did not exactly simulate the mood Nekhlyudov was in, but actually appropriated it to herself, although she would not have been able to express in words what it consisted in.

She asked him how he had succeeded in his affairs. He told her about his failure in the Senate and about his meeting with Selénin.

« Ah, what a pure soul ! Now this is really a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. A pure soul,” both ladies used the invariable epithet under which Selénin was known in society.

“What kind of a woman is his wife?” Nekhlyudov asked.

” She ? Well, 1 am not going to condemn her. But she does not understand him.”

“Is it possible he, too, was for denying the appeal ? ” she asked, with sincere sympathy. “ That is terrible, and I am very sorry for her ! ” she added, with a sigh.

He frowned, and, wishing to change the subject, began to speak of Miss Shustov, who had been confined in the prison, and now was released by her intercession. He thanked her for her appeal to her husband and wanted to tell her how terrible it was to think that that woman and her whole family suffered only because nobody thought of them, but before he had a chance to finish saying what he wanted to say, she herself expressed her indignation.

« Don’t tell me,” she said. ” The moment my husband told me that she could be released, I was struck by that idea. Why was she kept, if she is innocent?” she said, expressing Nekhlyudov’s thought. “ It is shocking, shocking ! “

Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna saw that Mariette was coquetting with her nephew, and this amused her. ” Do you know what ? ” she said, when they grew silent, ” come tomorrow to Aline’s house: Kiesewetter will be there. And you too,” she turned to Mariette.

” Il vous a remarqué,” she said to her nephew. “ He told me that everything you said — I told him about it — was a good sign, and that you will certainly come to Christ. Go there by all means. Tell him, Mariette, to come, and come yourself.”

” Countess, in the first place, I have no right to advise the prince,” said Mariette, looking at Nekhlyudov, and with this glance establishing between him and herself a full agreement in regard to the words of the countess and to evangelism in general, ” and in the second place, I am not very fond, you know — “

“You always do everything topsyturvy and in your own way.”

” How so in my own way ? I believe like the commonest kind of a woman. And, in the third place,” she continued, ” I shall go to the French Theatre tomorrow.”

“ Ah ! Have you seen that — well, what is her name ? ” said Countess Ekaterina Ivanovna.

Mariette helped her out with the name of a famous French actress.

” Go there by all means, she is remarkable.”

“ Whom am I to see first, ma tante, the actress or the preacher?” said Nekhlyudov, smiling.

” Please, don’t catch me at words.”

“ I think, first the preacher and then the French actress, otherwise I shall lose all my interest in the sermon,” said Nekhlyudov.

” No, you had better begin with the French Theatre, and then repent of your sins,” said Mariette.

” Don’t dare make fun of me ! The preacher is one thing, and the theatre another. In order to be saved it is not necessary to make a face a yard long and weep all the time. One must believe, and then you are happy.”

« Ma tante, you preach better than any preacher.”

” Do you know what,” said Mariette, thoughtfully, ” come tomorrow to my opera-box.”

” I am afraid I sha’n’t be able — ”

The conversation was interrupted by the lackey’s announcement of a visitor. It was the secretary of a charitable institution, of which the countess was the president.

” lie is a dreadfully tiresome man. I had better receive him in there. And then I shall come out here again. Give him tea to drink, Mariette,” said the countess, walking to the parlour, with her rapid, waddling gait.

Mariette took off her glove and laid bare an energetic, sufficiently flat hand, with its ring-finger covered with rings.

” Will you have a cup ? ” she said, taking hold of the silver teapot over the spirit-lamp, and strangely spreading out her little finger.

Her face became serious and sad.

” It is always terrible, terrible and painful, for me to think that people, whose opinion I value, should confound me with the situation in which I am placed.”

She looked as though ready to weep, as she was saying these words. Although, upon analysis, these words had either no sense at all, or only a very indefinite meaning, they seemed to Nekhlyudov to be of unusual depth, sincerity, and goodness, — for he was attracted by the glance of those sparkling eyes, which accompanied the words of the young, beautiful, and well-dressed woman.

Nekhlyudov looked at her in silence, and could not tear his eyes away from her face.

” You think that I do not understand you and everything that takes place within you. That which you have done is known to all. C’est le secret de polichinelle. And I rejoice in it and approve of it.”

” Really, there is nothing to rejoice in ; I have done so little as yet.”

” That makes no difference. I understand your feeling, and I understand her. Well, well, I sha’n’t speak of it,” she interrupted herself, noticing an expression of dissatisfaction on his face. ” I also understand that, having seen all the suffering and all the horrors of the prisons,” said Mariette, who had but the one wish, to attract him, with her feminine feeling guessing all that might be important and dear to him, ” you wish to succour all those people who suffer and suffer so terribly, so terribly from men, from indifference, from cruelty — I comprehend how one may give his life for it, and I myself should give up mine. But everybody has his lot — ”

” Are you dissatisfied with yours ? ”

“ I ? ” she asked, as though startled by such a question. ” I have to be satisfied, and I am. But there is a worm which awakens — ”

” You ought not to permit it to fall asleep. You must trust this voice,” said Nekhlyudov, submitting completely to the deception.

Afterward Nekhlyudov often thought with shame of his whole conversation with her ; he thought of her words, which were not so much false as simulating his own, and of her face, feigning humble attention, as she listened to his recital of the horrors of the prison and of his impressions of the country.

When the countess returned, they were conversing, not only as old, but as intimate friends, like those who understand each other in a throng of men, who do not comprehend them.

They spoke of the injustice of the government, of the sufferings of the unfortunates, of the poverty of the masses, but in reality their eyes, which watched each other through the sounds of the conversation, kept asking, ” Can you love me ? ” and answered, ” I can,” and the sexual feeling, assuming the most unexpected and joyous aspect, drew them one to the other.

As she was leaving, she told him that she was always ready to serve him to the best of her ability, and asked him to be sure and come to see her in the theatre on the following evening, at least for a moment, as she had to talk to him about one important matter.

“For when shall I see you again?” she added, with a sigh, carefully putting the glove on her ring-bedecked hand. “ Say that you will come.”

Nekhlyudov promised he would.

During that night, Nekhlyudov, being all alone in his room, lay down on his bed and put out the light. He could not sleep for a long time. Thinking of Maslova, of the decree of the Senate, and yet of his determination to follow her, of his renunciation of his rights to the land, there appeared suddenly before him, as though in reply to his questions, Mariotte’s face, her sigh, and her glance, when she said, “ When shall I see you again ? ” and her smile ; she appeared before him as clearly as though she were actually standing before him, and he smiled. ” Am I doing well to go to Siberia ? And shall I be doing well in giving up my wealth ? ” he asked himself.

The answers to these questions on that clear St. Petersburg night, which streamed in through the half-drawn blinds, were indistinct. Everything was mixed in his head. He called back his former mood, and thought of his former ideas, but they no longer had their former convincing power.

” I have evoked all this in my imagination, and shall not be able to live according to it : I shall repent doing good,” he said to himself, and, not being able to answer these questions, he experienced such a feeling of pining and despair as he had not experienced for a long time. Unable to find his way through the maze of these questions, he fell into that heavy sleep which used to come over him after some great loss at cards.

XXV.

Upon awakening on the next morning, Nekhlyudov’s first feeling was that he had on the previous day committed some villainy. He began to reflect : there was no villainy, no bad act, but there were thoughts, bad thoughts, which were that all his present intentions, his marrying Katyusha, his gift of the land to the peasants, that all this was an unrealizable dream, that he would not carry it to its conclusion, that it was all artificial, unnatural, and that he ought to live as he had been living. There was no bad act, but there was that which was much worse than a bad act : there were those thoughts from which spring all bad deeds.

A bad act may not be repeated, and one may repent of it ; but evil thoughts generate all evil deeds.

A bad act only smooths out the path for another bad act ; while bad thoughts irrepressibly drag one down that path.

Having recalled in his imagination all the thoughts of the previous evening, Nekhlyudov marvelled how it was he could have had any faith in them even for a moment. However new and difficult all that was which he intended to do, he knew that it was the only possible life for him, and that, however easy and natural it was for him to return to his former life, it would be his death. The temptation of the previous day now appeared to him analogous to the feeling of a man who has had a good sleep and still wishes, not to sleep, but to stay awhile in his bed, although he knows full well that it is time to get up in order to attend to an important and joyful matter.

On that day, the last of his sojourn in St. Petersburg, he went early in the morning to the Shustovs, in the Vasilev Island.

The lodgings of the Shustovs were in the second story. Nekhlyudov, following the janitor’s indication, got to the back stairs, and mounted a straight, steep staircase, and walked straight into a hot, close kitchen, smelling of the cooking.

An elderly woman with rolled-up sleeves, in an apron, and in glasses, was standing at the stove and mixing something in a steaming pan.

” Whom do you wish ? ” she asked, sternly, looking above her glasses at the stranger.

Nekhlyudov had barely mentioned his name, when the woman’s face assumed a frightened and, at the same time, joyful expression.

” O prince ! ” cried the woman, drying her hands on her apron.

“But why did you come by the back staircase? You are our benefactor. I am her mother. They had entirely ruined the girl. You are our saviour,” she said, grasping Nekhlyudov’s hand and wishing to kiss it.

” I was at your house yesterday. My sister in particular asked me to go. She is here. This way, this way, please follow me,” said Mother Shustov, leading Nekhlyudov through a narrow door and a dark corridor, and on her way adjusting her tucked-up dress and her hair. “My sister is Kornilov, you have no doubt heard her name,” she added, in a whisper, stopping before the door. “ She has been mixed up in political affairs. She is a very clever woman.”

Having opened a door in the corridor, Mrs. Shustov led Nekhlyudov into a small room, where, in front of a table, on a small sofa, sat a short, plump girl, in a striped chintz bodice, with waving blond hair, which encased her round and very pale face that resembled her mother’s. Opposite to her sat the bent form of a young man with black moustache and beard, wearing the national shirt with the embroidered collar. They were evidently both so absorbed in their conversation that they turned around only after Nekhlyudov had entered through the door.

” Lida, Prince Nekhlyudov, the same — “

The pale girl sprang up nervously, putting back a lock of hair which had strayed from behind her ear, and timidly fixed her large gray eyes on the stranger.

” So you are that dangerous woman for whom Vyéra Efrémovna has interceded,” said Nekhlyudov, smiling, and extending his hand to her.

“Yes, I am that woman,” said Lidiya, and, opening wide her mouth, and thus displaying a row of beautiful white teeth, she smiled a kindly, childish smile. “ It is aunty who was so anxious to see you. Aunty ! ” she called out through the door, in a sweet, tender voice.

” Vyéra Efrémovna was very much aggrieved at your arrest,” said Nekhlyudov.

” Sit down here, or better still, here,” said Lidiya, pointing to a soft broken chair, from wliich the young man had just arisen.

” My cousin, Zakharov,” she said, noticing the glance which Nekhlyudov cast upon the young man.

The young man, smiling as kindly a smile as Lidiya, greeted the guest, and, when Nekhlyudov sat down in his seat, took a chair from the window and sat down near him. From another door came a blond gymnasiast, about sixteen years of age, and silently sat down on the windowsill.

” Vyéra Efrémovna is a great friend of aunty’s, but I hardly know her,” said Lidiya.

Just then a woman with a very sweet, intelligent face, in a white waist, girded by a leather belt, came out from the adjoining room.

” Good morning. Thank you for having come,” she began, the moment she had seated herself on the sofa near Lidiya.

” Well, how is Vyéra ? Have you seen her ? How does she bear her situation ? ”

” She does not complain,” said Nekhlyudov. ” She says that she is in Olympian transport.”

“ Ah, Vyéra, I recognize her,” said the aunt, smiling, and shaking her head. ” One must know her. She is a splendid personality. Everything for others, nothing for herself.”

“That is so. She did not wish anything for herself, but was concerned only about your niece. She was tormented more especially because she had been arrested without cause.”

“ That is so,” said the aunt, “ it is a terrible affair ! She has really suffered in my stead.”

“ Not at all, aunty,” said Lidiya. “ I should have taken the papers even without you.”

“Permit me to know better,” continued the aunt. “ You see,” she continued, turning to Nekhlyudov, “everything began from a certain person’s request that I should keep his papers for awhile. As I had no separate quarters, I took them to her. They made a raid on her that night, and took both the papers and her. They kept her all this time, and wanted her to tell from whom she had received them.”

“ But I did not tell,” Lidiya said rapidly, nervously twirling a lock of hair which was not at all in her way.

“ I do not say you did,” her aunt retorted.

“ If they did take Mitin, it was not through my fault,” said Lidiya, blushing, and restlessly looking about her.

“ Do not even speak about it, Lidochka,” said her mother.

“ Let me tell about it,” said Lidiya, no longer smiling, but blushing, and no longer adjusting her lock, but curling it about her Linger, and looking all the time about her.

” You know what happened yesterday when you began to talk of it.”

“Not at all — let me alone, mamma. I did not say anything, but only kept silent. When he questioned me twice about aunty and about Mitin, I said nothing, and informed him that I should not answer his questions. Then that — Petrov — ”

” Petrov is a spy, a gendarme, and a great scoundrel,” interposed the aunt, explaining her niece’s words to Nekhlyudov.

” Then he,” continued Lidiya, in an agitated and hurried manner, “ began to persuade me. ‘ All you will tell me,’ he said, ‘will hurt nobody; on the contrary, by telling the truth, you will only free some innocent people whom we are tormenting for nothing.’ I still insisted that I would not tell. Then he said : ‘Very well, say nothing, only do not deny what I am going to say.’ And he mentioned Mitin.”

” Don’t talk,” said her aunt.

“ 0 aunt, don’t interrupt me — ” and she kept pulling her lock, and looking all around her, “ and suddenly, imagine, on the following day I was informed by knocks at the wall that Mitin had been arrested. Well, thought I, I have betrayed him. And that began to torment me so that I almost went insane.”

“ And then it turned out that it was not at all through you that he was arrested,” said the aunt.

“ But I did not know it. I thought I had betrayed him. I kept walking from wall to wall, and I could not keep from thinking. I thought I had betrayed him. I lay down, covered myself, and I heard somebody whispering into my ear, ‘ You have betrayed, you have betrayed Mitin, you have betrayed him.’ I knew it was a hallucination, but I could not keep from listening. I wanted to fall asleep, and I could not. I wanted to keep from thinking, and I could not. It was so terrible!” said Lidiya, becoming more and more agitated, winding her lock around her Linger, again unwinding it, and looking all around her.

“ Lidochka, calm yourself,” repeated her mother, putting her hand on her shoulder.

But Lidiya could no longer stop. “ It is terrible because — ” she began to say, but she burst into sobs, without finishing her words, jumped up from the sofa, and, catching her dress in a chair, ran out of the room. Her mother went out after her.

“ These scoundrels ought to be hanged,” said the gymnasiast, who was sitting on the window.

“ What have you to say ? ” asked his aunt.

“Oh, nothing— I was just talking,” replied the gymnasiast, picking up a cigarette, which was lying on the table, and lighting it.

XXVI.

” Yes, for young people this solitary confinement is terrible,” said the aunt, shaking her head, and also lighting a cigarette.

” I think, for everybody,” said Nekhlyudov.

” No, not for all,” replied the aunt. ” For real revolutionists, so I was told, it is a rest, a relief. These illegal people live in eternal turmoil and material want and fear for themselves, for others, and for the cause ; and when, at last, they are arrested, all is ended, and they are relieved of all responsibility : all they have to do is to sit and rest themselves. I have been told that they really experience joy when they are arrested. But for young innocent people, — they always take innocent people, like Lidochka, first, — for these the first shock is terrible. Not because you are deprived of liberty, because they treat you rudely, feed you badly, and because the air is bad, — in general, all the privations are nothing. If even there were three times as many privations, they could all be borne easily, if it were not for that moral shock which one experiences when arrested for the first time.”

” Have you experienced it ? ”

“I ? I have been confined twice,” said the aunt, smiling a sad, pleasant smile. ” When I was arrested the first time — and it was for no cause whatsoever,” continued she — ” I was twenty-two years old. I had a baby, and I was with child. However hard my loss of liberty was, and my separation from my child and my husband, all that was nothing in comparison with what I felt when I saw that I ceased to be man, and became a thing. I wanted to bid my child goodbye, and I was told to hurry to take my seat in a cab. I asked them whither they were taking me, and I was told I should find out when I got there. I asked them what it was 1 was accused of, and I received no reply. When I was undressed after the inquest and a prison garb was put on me, I was given a number and taken to a vaulted room, and a door was opened, and I was pushed in, and the door was locked after me, and they went away, and only a sentry was left, who with his gun walked silently up and down, and now and then peeped through the crack in my door, — a terribly heavy sensation overcame me. I was particularly struck at the inquest by the fact that the officer of the gendarmes offered me a cigarette. Evidently he knew that people like to smoke; he consequently knew that people like liberty and light ; he knew that mothers loved their children, and children their mothers; how, then, could they have pitilessly torn me away from everything which was dear to me, and have me locked up like a wild beast ? One cannot bear this without results. If one has believed in God and men, and that people love each other, he will after that cease believing. I have quit believing in men ever since that time, and have become furious,” she concluded, and smiled.

The mother entered through the door, through which Lidiya had left, and announced that Lidiya would not come in, as she was all unnerved.

“ Why should they ruin a young life ? It pains me more especially,” said the aunt, ” since I am the involuntary cause of it.”

” With God’s aid she will improve in the country,” said the mother. ” We shall send her out to father.”

” Yes, if it had not been for you, she would have been entirely ruined,” said the aunt. ” Thank you. But 1 wanted to see you to ask you to give a letter to Vyéra Efremovna,” she said, drawing a letter out of her pocket. ” The letter

is not sealed. You may read it and tear it up, or transmit it to her, whichever you will find more in conformity with your convictions,” she said. ” There is nothing of a compromising character in the letter.”

Nekhlyudov took the letter, and, promising to transmit it to her, rose, and, bidding them goodbye, went out into the street.

He sealed the letter without reading it, and decided to transmit it to its destination.

XXVII.

The last affair which kept Nekhlyudov at St. Petersburg was the case of the sectarians, whose petition he intended to hand in to the Tsar through his former comrade in the army, Aid-de-camp Bogatyrév. He went to see him in the morning, and found him at home at breakfast, though on the point of leaving. Bogatyrév was short and stocky, endowed with unusual physical strength, — he could bend horseshoes, — a kindly, honest, straightforward, and even liberal man. In spite of these qualities, he was an intimate at court, and loved the Tsar and his family, and, in some admirable manner, knew, while living in that highest circle, how to see only its good side, and not to take part in anything bad and dishonest. He never condemned men, nor measures, but either kept silent, or spoke in a bold, loud voice, as though shouting, whatever he had to say, frequently bursting into just as loud laughter. He did this, not for diplomatic reasons, but because such was his character.

” Now this is charming that you have come. Do you not want to breakfast with me? Sit down. Superb beefsteak ! I always begin and end with substantial things. Ha, ha, ha ! Come, have a glass of wine. I have been thinking of you. I shall hand in the petition. I shall put it into his hands ; only it has occurred to me that it would be better for you first to see Toporov.”

Nekhlyudov frowned at the mention of Toporov.

” All this depends upon him. They will ask his opinion in any case. And maybe he himself will satisfy you.”

” If you so advise, I shall go to see him.”

“Very well. Well, how does St. Petersburg affect you ? ” shouted Bogatyrév. ” Tell me, eh ? ”

” I feel that I am becoming hypnotized,” said Nekhlyudov.

“You are becoming hypnotized ? ” repeated Bogatyrév, laughing out loud. “ If you don’t want to, all right.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “ So you will go to see him ? Ah ? If he will not do it for you, let me have it, and I shall hand it in tomorrow,” he exclaimed, rising from the table, and, crossing himself with a broad sign of the cross, apparently as unconsciously as he had wiped his mouth, he began to gird on his sword. “ Now goodbye, I must be off.”

“ We shall go out together,” said Nekhlyudov, delighted to press Bogatyrév’s strong, broad hand, and parting from him at the steps of his house, with the pleasant feeling of something healthy, unconscious, fresh.

Although he did not expect anything good to come from his visit, he took Bogatyrév’s advice and went to see Toporov, the person on whom the case of the sectarians depended.

The post which Topordv occupied, by its very constitution, formed an internal contradiction, to which only a man who was dull and deprived of all moral sense could be blind. Topordv was possessed of both these negative qualities. The contradiction contained in the post held by him consisted in the fact that its purpose was to maintain and defend by external means, not excluding violence, that church which, by its definition, had been established by God Himself and could not be shaken either by the fiends of hell or by any human efforts. It was this divine and imperturbable godly institution that the human institution, over which Toporov and his officials presided, had to support and defend.

Topordv did not see this contradiction, or did not wish to see it, and therefore he was seriously concerned lest some Roman Catholic priest, or Protestant preacher, or sectarian destroy the Church which the gates of hell could not vanquish. Toporov, like all people deprived of the fundamental religious sense, and of the consciousness of the equality and brotherhood of men, was firmly convinced that the people consisted of creatures who were quite different from himself, and that the people were in dire need of that without which he himself could very well get along. In the depth of his soul, he believed in nothing, and he found such a condition very convenient and agreeable ; but he was in fear lest the people come to the same state, and so he considered it his sacred duty, as he said, to save the people from it.

Just as it says in a certain cookbook that lobsters like to be boiled alive, so he was firmly convinced, by no means in a metaphorical sense, as it is to be taken in the cookbook, but in the direct sense, — and so he expressed himself, — that the people like to be superstitious.

He stood in the same relation to the religion which he was supporting that the poultry-keeper occupies in regard to carrion with which he feeds his chickens : the carrion is a very disagreeable business, but the chickens like to eat it, and so they must be fed on it.

Of course, all these miracle-working images of Ivor, Kazan, and Smolénsk are a very rude idolatry, but the people believe in it and like it, and so these superstitions must be maintained. Thus thought Toporov, forgetting to reflect that the reason he thought the people liked the superstitions was because there have always been such cruel men as he, Toporov, was, who, having themselves become enlightened, used their light not for that for which they ought to use it, — to succour the people emerging from the darkness of ignorance, — but only to confirm them still more in it.

As Nekhlyudov entered the waiting-room, Topordv was conversing in his cabinet with an abbess, a lively aristo-cçat, who was spreading and supporting Orthodoxy in the western country amidst the Uniates, who had been by force driven into the folds of the Orthodox Church.

An official on special missions, who was in the waiting-room, asked Nekhlyudov about his business, and, having discovered that Nekhlyudov had made up his mind to hand in the petition of the sectarians to the emperor, asked him whether he could not let him have the petition to read it over. Nekhlyudov gave it to him, and the official went with it into the cabinet. The abbess, in cowl, wavy veil, and trailing black skirt, having folded her white hands with their clean nails, in which she held a topaz rosary, came out of the cabinet, and directed her steps to the entrance. Nekhlyudov was not asked in yet. Topord v was reading the petition and shaking his head. He was unpleasantly surprised, as he read the clearly and strongly formulated petition.

“If it gets into the hands of the emperor, it might give rise to unpleasant questions and misunderstandings,” he thought, as he finished the petition. The trouble was that the Christians who had departed from Orthodoxy had been reprimanded and then tried before a court of justice, but the court had acquitted them. Then the bishop and the governor decided, on account of the illegality of their marriages, to deport the men, women, and children to different places. What these fathers and wives asked was that they should not be separated. ToponSv thought of the first time the case had come to his notice. He had then wavered whether he had better not quash the case. But there could be no harm in confirming the decree of scattering the various members of the peasant families; their sojourn in the same places might have bad consequences on the rest of the population in the sense of their defection from Orthodoxy ; besides, it showed the zeal of the bishop, and so he let the case take the course which had been given to it.

But now, with such a defender as Nekhlyudov, who had connections in St. Petersburg, the affair might be brought to the emperor’s particular attention, as something cruel, or it might get into the foreign newspapers, and so he at once took an extraordinary stand.

“ Good morning,” he said, with the look of a very busy man, meeting Nekhlyudov while standing, and immediately passing over to the affair.

“I know this affair. The moment I looked at the names, I recalled that unfortunate matter,” he said, taking the petition into his hands, and showing it to Nekhlyudov. ” I am very grateful to you for reminding me of it. The governmental authorities have been a little too zealous — ”

Nekhlyudov was silent, looking with an evil feeling at the motionless mask of the pale face.

” I will order this measure to be withdrawn, and these people to be restored to their places of abode.”

“So I do not need to attend any further to the petition ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

“Certainly not. I promise you this,” he said, with especial emphasis on the word “ I,” being evidently quite convinced that his honesty, his word, were the best guarantee. “ I shall write at once. Please be seated.”

He went up to the table and began to write. Nekhlyudov did not sit down, but looked down upon that narrow, bald skull, and upon his hand with its large blue veins, which was rapidly moving the pen, and wondered why he was doing it, and why a man, who seemed to be so indifferent to everything, did this thing with so much apparent anxiety. Why — ?

” So here it is,” said Toporov, sealing the envelope. “ You may inform your clients of it,” he added, compressing his lips into a semblance of a smile.

“ For what, then, have those people been suffering ? ” Nekhlyudov said, accepting the envelope.

Toporov raised his head and smiled, as though Nekhlyudov’s question afforded him pleasure.

“ That I am unable to tell you. I can only tell you that the interests of the people, over which we watch, are so important that superfluous zeal in matters of faith are not so terrible and dangerous as the superfluous indifference to them, which is now spreading.”

” But how, in the name of religion, are the first demands of goodness violated, and families broken up ? “

Toporov was still smiling in the same condescending way, as though finding Nekhlyudov’s remarks very charming. Whatever Nekhlyudov might have said, Toporov would have found charming and one-sided from the height of that broad consideration of state, on which, he thought, he stood.

” From the standpoint of a private individual that may seem so,” he said, ” but from the point of view of state it appears somewhat differently. My regards to you,” said Toporov, bending his head and extending his hand.

Nekhlyudov pressed it, and silently and hurriedly went away, regretting the fact that he had pressed his hand.

« The interests of the people,” he repeated Toporov’s words. ” Your interests, only yours,” he thought, upon leaving Toporov.

He mentally ran through the list of persons against whom was exercised the activity of the institutions that reestablish justice, support faith, and educate the people, — the woman who was punished for the illegal sale of liquor, and the young fellow for stealing, and the vagrant for tramping, and the incendiary for arson, and the banker for robbery, and also unfortunate Lidiya, simply because it might have been possible to obtain the necessary information from her, and the sectarians for violating Orthodoxy, and Gurévich for wishing a constitution,— and Nekhlyudov was suddenly struck with unusual force by the thought that all these people had been arrested, confined, and deported, not because they had all violated justice, or committed lawlessness, but only because they interfered with the officials and rich people in their possession of the wealth which they were amassing from the people.

They were interfered with equally by the woman who was trafficking without a license, and by the thief who was tramping through the city, and by Lidiya with her proclamations, and by the sectarians who were breaking down superstition, and by Gurevich with his constitution. And therefore it seemed quite clear to Nekhlyudov that all these officials — beginning with his aunt’s husband, the Senators, and Toporov, and coming down to all those petty, clean, and correct gentlemen, who were sitting at the tables in the various ministries — were not in the least concerned about the suffering of the innocent people under such an order of things, but about the removal of all the dangerous elements.

So that not only was the rule neglected which enjoins that ten guilty men be pardoned lest one innocent man suffer, but, on the contrary, just as it is necessary to cut out the healthy part together with the decay, in order to remove the latter, so they removed ten innocent people by means of punishments, in order to get rid of one guilty person.

Such an explanation of all that was taking place seemed so very simple and clear to Nekhlyudov, but it was this same simplicity and clearness which made him hesitate in accepting it. It seemed hardly possible that such a complicated phenomenon should have such a simple and terrible explanation ; it could not be that all these words about justice, goodness, laws, faith, God, and so on, should be nothing but words, and should shroud the coarsest selfishness and cruelty.

XXVIII.

Nekhlyudov would have left that very evening, but he had promised Mariette to come to see her in the theatre, and, although he knew that he ought not to do it, he nevertheless compromised with his soul and went, considering himself bound by his word.

” Can I withstand this temptation ? ” be thought, not quite sincerely. ” I shall see for the last time.”

Having put on his dress coat, he arrived during the second act of the eternal “ Dame aux camélias,” in which the visiting actress showed in a new fashion how consumptive women die.

The theatre was filled. Mariette’s box was at once pointed out to Nekhlyudov, with due respect to the person who was asking for it.

In the corridor stood a liveried lackey. He bowed as to an acquaintance and opened the door.

All the rows of the boxes opposite, with the figures sitting there and standing behind them, and the near-by backs and the gray, half-gray, bald, and pomaded, fixed-up heads of those who were sitting in the orchestra circle,— all the spectators centred their attention on the lean, bony actress who, dressed up in silk and laces, was contorting herself and declaiming a monologue in an unnatural voice. Somebody was hissing as the door was being opened, and two streams of warm and cold air passed over Nekhlyudov’s face.

In the box were Mariette and a strange lady in a red wrap and a large, massive coiffure, and two men : a general, Mariette’s husband, a handsome, tall man, with a severe,

440 impenetrable, hook-nosed face and a broad, military chest, padded with cotton and starched linen, and a light-com-plexioned, bald man, with a clean-shaven, dimpled chin between majestic sidewhiskers. Mariette, graceful, slender, elegant, décolleté, with her strong muscular shoulders, slanting from the neck, at the juncture of which with the shoulders there was a black birthmark, immediately turned around, and, indicating a seat behind her to Nekhlyudov with her fan, smiled to him approvingly, gratefully, and, as he thought, significantly. Her husband calmly looked at Nekhlyudov, as he always did, and bent his head. One could see in him, in the glance which he exchanged with his wife, the master, the owner of his beautiful wife.

When the monologue was finished, the theatre shook with applause.

Mariette arose and, holding her rustling silk skirt, went to the back of the box and introduced her husband to Nekhlyudov.

The general kept smiling with his eyes, and, saying that he was very glad, grew impenetrably silent.

” I must leave to-day, but I promised you,” said Nekhlyudov, turning to Mariette.

” If you do not wish to see me, you will see a remarkable actress,” said Mariette, replying to the meaning of his words. ” Was she not fine in the last scene ? ” she addressed her husband.

Her husband bent his head.

” This does not affect me,” said Nekhlyudov. ” I have seen so many real miseries to-day that — ”

” Sit down and tell me about them.”

Her husband listened, and ironically smiled ever more with his eyes.

“ I called on the woman who has been released, and who has been confined so long : she is a crushed being.”

” This is the woman of whom I told you,” Mariette said to her husband.

« I was very glad that it was possible to release her,” he said, calmly, shaking his head and smiling quite ironically under his moustache, as Nekhlyudov thought. ” I shall go out to have a smoke.”

Nekhlyudov sat in expectation that Mariette would tell him that important thing of which she had spoken, but she said nothing and did not even try to say anything, but only jested and talked about the play which, so she thought, ought to interest him very much.

Nekhlyudov saw that she had nothing to tell him, but that she only wished to appear before him in all the splendour of her evening toilet, with her shoulders and birthmark, and he felt both pleased and annoyed.

All that covering of charm, which lay over everything before, was now, as far as Nekhlyudov was concerned, taken away, and he also saw what there was beneath that covering. He admired Mariette as he looked at her, but he knew that she was a liar, who was living with a man who was making his career by the tears and lives of hundreds and hundreds of people, while all this was a matter of indifference to her, and that everything she had said the day before was an untruth, and that she wanted, he did not know why, nor did she, that he should fall in love with her. He was both attracted and repelled by her. He made several attempts to leave, and picked up his hat, and again remained.

But finally, when her husband returned to the box, with the odour of tobacco on his thick moustache, and cast a condescendingly contemptuous look at Nekhlyudov, as though not recognizing him, Nekhlyudov left for the corridor, before even the door was closed, and, having found his overcoat, went away from the theatre.

On his way home along the Névski Prospect, he involuntarily noticed in front of him a tall, very well built, and provokingly dressed woman, who was slowly walking over the asphalt of the broad sidewalk ; both in her face and in her whole figure could be seen the consciousness of her evil power. All the people who met her or came abreast with her surveyed her form. Her face, no doubt painted, was handsome, and the woman smiled at Nekhlyudov, sparkling her eyes at him. Strange to say, Nekhlyudov at once thought of Mariette, because he experienced the same sensation of attraction and repulsion which he had experienced in the theatre.

Walking hurriedly past her, Nekhlyudov turned into the Morskaya Street, and, upon reaching the shore, began, to the surprise of the policeman, to stroll up and down.

” Just so she smiled at me in the theatre, as I entered,” he thought, ” and the same meaning was in that smile as in this. The only difference is that this one says simply and directly, ‘ If you need me, take me ! If not, pass on.’ While the other pretends not to be thinking of it, but to live by some higher, refined sentiments, whereas there is no difference in fact. This one, at least, is telling the truth ; the other one lies.

” More than that : this one is driven to her condition by necessity ; while the other one plays and dallies with that beautiful, repulsive, terrible passion. This street-walker is malodorous, dirty water which is offered to those whose thirst is greater than their disgust ; the one in the theatre is poison which imperceptibly poisons that into which it falls.”

Nekhlyudov thought of his connection with the marshal’s wife, and disgraceful memories burst upon him. ” Disgusting is the animality of the beast in man,” he thought, ” but when that beast in man is in its pure form, you survey it from the height of your spiritual life and despise it; whether you have fallen or not, you remain what you have been ; but when this animal is concealed beneath a quasi-æsthetic, poetical film and demands worship, then you become all rapt in it, and, worshipping the animal, no longer distinguish right from wrong. Then it is terrible.”

Nekhlyudov saw this now as clearly as he saw the palaces, the sentries, the fortress, the river, the boats, the Exchange. And as there was no soothing, restful darkness upon earth in that night, but an indistinct, cheerless, unnatural light without its source, even thus there was no longer a restful darkness of ignorance in Nekhlyudov’s soul.

Everything was clear. It was clear that that which is considered important and good is bad and detestable, and that all that luxury and splendour conceal old, habitual crimes, which not only go without being punished, but are triumphant and adorned with all the charm which people are able to invent.

Nekhlyudov wanted to forget this, not to see it, but he no longer could keep from seeing it. Although he did not see the source of the light which revealed all this to him, and although this light appeared to him indistinct, cheerless, and unnatural, he could not help seeing that which was revealed to him in this light, and he had at the same time a joyous and a perturbed sensation.

XXIX.

Upon arriving at Moscow, Nekhlyudov first of all drove to the prison hospital to give Maslova the sad news of the Senate’s confirmation of the verdict of the court, and to tell her that she must prepare herself for the journey to Siberia. He had little hope in the appeal to his Majesty, which the lawyer had composed for him, and which he now took to the prison to have signed by Maslova. Strange to say, he did not desire any success now. He had accustomed himself to the thought of journeying to Siberia, and of living among deported and hard labour criminals, and he found it hard to imagine how he should arrange his life and that of Maslova, if she were acquitted. He recalled the words of the American author, Thoreau, who had said, at the time when there was slavery in America, that the only place which was proper for an honest man in a country where slavery is legalized and protected was the jail. Even thus Nekhlyudov thought, particularly after his visit to St. Petersburg, and after all he had learned there.

“Yes, the only proper place for an honest man in Russia at the present time is the jail ! ” he thought. He had this direct sensation, as he now approached the prison and entered within its walls.

The porter in the hospital, recognizing Nekhlyudov,-at once informed him that Maslova no longer was there.

“ Where is she, then ? ”

” Again in the prison.”

” Why has she been transferred ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

the hospital, he went with determined steps toward the large gate of the prison.

At the gate he asked the officer of the day to tell the superintendent that he wished to see Mfislova. The officer of the day knew Nekhlyudov, and, being an acquaintance, he informed him of an important piece of prison news. The captain had asked his discharge, and in his place was now another, a severe chief.

” There are terrible severities practised here now,” said the warden. ” He is here now, and will be informed at once.”

The superintendent was really in the prison, and soon came out to Nekhlyudov. The new superintendent was a tall, bony man, with protruding cheek-bones, very slow in his movements, and gloomy.

” Interviews are granted only on stated days in the visiting-room,” he said, without looking at Nekhlyudov.

” But I have to give her a petition to his Majesty to sign.”

” You can give it to me.”

” I have to see the prisoner myself. I have been granted the permission before.”

” That was before,” said the superintendent, looking cursorily at Nekhlyudov.

” I have a permit from the governor,” Nekhlyudov insisted, taking out his pocketbook.

” Let me see it,” the superintendent kept saying, without looking at his eyes. He took the paper, which Nekhlyudov handed to him, with his dry white fingers, with a gold ring on one of them, and read it slowly.

“ Please step into the office,” he said.

This time there was nobody in the office. The superintendent sat down at the table, rummaging through the papers that were lying upon it, apparently intending to be present at the interview.

When Nekhlyudov asked him whether he could not

see the political prisoner, Miss Bogodukhovski, the superintendent curtly replied that it was impossible. ” There are no interviews granted with political prisoners,” he said, again burying himself in the reading of the papers. Having a letter to Miss Bogodukhovski in his pocket, Nckhlyudov felt himself to be in the attitude of a guilty person whose plans were discovered and destroyed.

When Maslova entered the office, the superintendent lifted his head and, without looking at either Maslova or Nckhlyudov, said, ” You may ! ” and continued to busy himself with his documents.

Maslova was dressed as before, in a white bodice, skirt, and kerchief. Upon approaching Nekhlyudov and seeing his cold, unfriendly face, she grew red in her face and, fingering the edge of her bodice, lowered her eyes.

Her embarrassment was to Nckhlyudov a confirmation of the words of the hospital porter.

Nekhlyudov wanted to address her as at the previous meeting ; but he could not, however much he wished it, give her his hand, because she was so repulsive to him.

” I have brought you bad news,” he said, in an even voice, without looking at her, or giving her his hand. “ The Senate has refused the appeal.”

” I knew it,” she said, in a strange voice, as though choking.

At any former time Nekhlyudov would have asked how it was she knew ; but now he only glanced at her. Her eyes were full of tears.

But this did not appease him ; on the contrary, it only provoked him still more against her.

The superintendent arose, and began to walk up and down in the room.

In spite of the disgust which Nekhlyudov now felt for Maslova, he felt that he must express his regret to her for the Senate’s refusal.

” Do not lose your courage,” he said, ” the petition to his Majesty may be successful, and 1 hope that — ”

” I am not concerned about it,” she said, pitifully looking at him with her moist and squinting eyes.

” About what, then ? ”

” You were in the hospital, and, no doubt, they told you — ”

“ That is your affair,” coldly said Nekhlyudov, frowning. The dormant cruel feeling of offended pride arose in him with renewed vigour, the moment she mentioned the hospital. “ He, a man of the world, whom any girl of the highest circle would consider herself lucky to marry, had proposed to this woman to become her husband, and she could not wait, but had to begin intrigues with the assistant,” he thought, looking hatefully at her.

” You sign this petition,” he said, and, getting a large envelope out of his pocket, he laid it out on the table. She wiped her tears with the end of her kerchief, and sat down at the table, asking him where and what to write.

He showed her where and what to write, and she sat down, adjusting the sleeve of her right arm with her left hand ; he stood over her and silently looked at her bending back, which now and then was convulsed from repressed sobs, and in his soul struggled the feelings of evil and of good : of offended pride and pity for her suffering, and the latter feeling came out victorious.

He did not remember what happened first, whether his heart felt pity for her, or whether he first thought of himself, his sins, his own villainy in that of which he accused her. But he suddenly became conscious both of his guilt and of his pity for her.

Having signed the petition and wiped her soiled finger on her skirt, she arose and looked at him.

“ Whatever may be the issue of this, nothing will change my determination,” said Nekhlyudov. The thought of his forgiving her intensified in him the feeling of pity and tenderness, and he wished to console her. “ I will do what I have told you I would. I shall be with you, wherever you may be.”

” In vain,” she interrupted him, and all beamed with joy-

” Think of what you need for your journey.”

” I think, nothing special. Thank you.”

The superintendent walked over to them, but Nekhlyudov did not wait for him to make any remarks and bade her goodbye. lie went out, experiencing an entirely new sensation of quiet joy, calm, and love for all men. Nekhlyudov was rejoiced to find himself elevated to such an unaccustomed height where no acts of Maslova’s could change his love for her. Let her have intrigues with the assistant, — that was her business, but he loved her not for his own sake, but for hers and God’s.

The intrigues with the assistant, for which Mdslova had been expelled from the hospital, and in the existence of which Nekhlyudov believed, consisted in this : at the request of the female assistant, she went to the apothecaryroom, which was at the end of the corridor, to get some pectoral tea; there she found an assistant, Ustinov by name, a tall fellow with a blistered face, who had long been annoying her with his attentions ; in trying to escape from him, she pushed him so hard that he struck against a shelf, from which two bottles fell down and broke.

The senior doctor, who happened to pass along the corridor, heard the sound of broken glass and called out angrily at Maslova, who was running out, with her face all red.

” Motherkin, if you are going to start intrigues here, I’ll have you taken away. What is it ? ” he turned to the assistant, looking severely at him over his glasses.

The assistant smiled, and began to justify himself. The doctor did not listen to all he had to say, but, raising his head in such a way that he began to look through his glasses, went to the hospital rooms ; he told the superintendent that very day to send him another attendant in Maslova’s place, one that would be more reliable.

That was all there was to Maslova’s intrigues with the assistant. This expulsion from the hospital, under the pretext of her having started intrigues with men, was particularly painful to Maslova, since after her meeting with Nekhlyudov all relations with men, distasteful as they had been, had become unusually repulsive to her. She was especially offended to see everybody, and among them the assistant with the blistered face, judge her from her past, and from her present position, considering it proper to insult her and wondering at her refusal, and this provoked her pity for herself, and tears. As she had come out to see Nekhlyudov, she had intended to explain away the unjust accusation which, no doubt, he must have heard. But, as she began to justify herself, she saw that he did not believe her and that her vindication only confirmed his suspicion, and the tears rose in her throat, and she grew silent.

Màslova was still under the impression, and she continued to assure herself of it, that she had not forgiven him and that she hated him, as she had expressed it to him at their second meeting, but in reality she loved him, and loved him so that she involuntarily executed all his wishes : she stopped drinking and smoking, gave up coquetting, and had entered the hospital as an attendant. She had done it all because she knew he wished it. The reason she so firmly refused to accept his sacrifice of marrying her, every time he spoke of it, was because she wanted to repeat the proud words which she had once uttered to him, but chiefly because she knew that his marrying her could only make him unhappy. She was determined not to accept his sacrifice, and yet she was pained to think that he despised her, that he thought that she continued to be such as she had been, and that

he did not see the change which had taken place in her. She was more pained by the fact that he was convinced she had done something wrong in the hospital than by the news that she had finally been condemned to hard labour.

XXX.

Maslova could be sent away with the first deportation party, and therefore Nekhlyudov was getting ready for the journey. He had so many things to attend to, that he felt that no matter how much free time he should have, he would never finish them. Everything was different from what it had been before. In former days he had to think of what to do, and the centre of interest was always the same Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov ; and yet, notwithstanding the fact that all the interests of life centred upon that Dmitri Ivanovich, all these matters were uninteresting to him. Now, all his business was in reference to other people than Dmitri Ivanovich, and they were all interesting and attractive, and there was plenty to do. More than that, — all the previous occupations and affairs of Dmitri Ivanovich had always provoked annoyance and petulance, while these affairs of other people generally put him in a pleasant mood.

The affairs which at that time occupied Nekhlyudov were divided in three categories; he himself, with his customary pedantry, divided them in that manner, arranging them, in accordance with that division, in three portfolios.

The first affair was in reference to Maslova and the aid to be accorded her. This consisted in bringing influence to bear on the petition to his Majesty, which he had sent in, and in making preparations for the journey to Siberia.

The second affair was in reference to his estates. In Pànovo the land had been given to the peasants, on condition that the rental thereof was to be used for the common needs of the village. But, in order to confirm them in their rights, he had to write out and sign the conditions and testament. In Kuzminskoe matters were left as he had arranged them, that is, he was to receive the money for the land ; so he had to determine yet on the periods of payment, and how much of that money he was to take for his own use, and how much was to be left for the benefit of the peasants. As he did not know what expenses he would have in the proposed journey to Siberia, he could not decide to give up this income, which was already cut down by half.

The third affair was in reference to the aid he was to bestow on the prisoners who kept turning to him ever more frequently.

When he at first came in contact with the prisoners, who invoked his aid, he at once set out to intercede for them, trying to alleviate their fate ; but later there was such a large number of petitioners that he felt his inability to succour all of them, and so he was involuntarily led to a fourth affair, which occupied him of late more than any other.

This fourth affair consisted in the solution of the question what was, for what purpose existed, and whence came that remarkable institution, called the criminal court, the result of which was that prison, with the inmates of which he had partly become acquainted, and all those places of confinement, from the Petropavlovsk fortress to Sakhalin, where hundreds and thousands of victims of that to him wonderful criminal law were pining.

From his personal relations with the prisoners, from the stories of the lawyer, the prison priest, the superintendent, and from the lists of those confined, Nekhlyudov came to the conclusion that the composition of the prisoners, the so-called criminals, could be divided into five categories. One of these, the first, consisted of entirely innocent people, victims of judicial error, like the suspected incendiary Menshdv, like Mdslova, and others. There were not very many of that category, — according to the priest’s observation, about seven per cent., but the position of these people evoked a special interest. The second category consisted of people who were condemned for crimes committed under exceptional circumstances, such as excitement, jealousy, drunkenness, and so on, that is, crimes which would be, no doubt, committed by those who judged and punished them, if subjected to the same conditions. This category, according to Nekhluydov’s observations, was formed by more than one-half of all the criminals. The third was composed of people who were punished for doing that which, in their opinion, constituted very common and even good acts, which, in the opinion of the strangers who had written the laws, were crimes. To this category belonged people who secretly trafficked in liquor, who smuggled, and who mowed glass and picked up wood in the large proprietary and Crown forests. To this same category also belonged the thieving mountaineers and such infidels as robbed churches.

The fourth category was formed by people who were considered criminals only because they stood morally above the level of society. Such were the sectarians, the Poles, the Circassians, who rebelled for their freedom ; such were also the political prisoners, socialists and strikers, who were condemned for opposing the authorities. The percentage of such people, the very best of society, was, according to Nekhlyudov’s observation, very large.

Finally, the fifth category was composed of people before whom society was much more guilty than they were before society. Those were the outcasts who were dulled by constant oppressions and temptations like the boy with the foot-mats and hundreds of other people, whom Nekhlyudov had seen in the prison and outside the prison, whom the conditions of life systematically lead to the unavoidable act which is called a crime. To such people belonged, according to Nekhlyudov’s observation, very many thieves and murderers, with some of whom he had during this time come in contact. In this category he, having closely examined the matter, counted also all those corrupt and debauched men whom the new school calls a criminal type, and the presence of which in society is regarded as the chief proof of the necessity for criminal law and punishment. These so-called corrupt, criminal, abnormal types were, in Nekhlyudov’s opinion, nothing else than those other people, against whom society had sinned more than they had sinned against society, but toward whom society was not guilty directly, but against whose parents and ancestors society had shined long ago.

In reference to this latter point, Nekhlyudov was struck, among these people, by the confirmed criminal, Okhdtin the thief, the illegitimate son of a prostitute, the alumnus of a night lodging-house, who apparently, up to his thirtieth year, had never met men of higher morality than that of policemen, who had early joined a gang of thieves, and who, at the same time, was endowed with an unusual comic talent, by which he attracted people to himself. He asked Nekhlyudov to intercede for him, all the while scoffing at himself, at the judges, at the prison, and at all laws, not only criminal, but also divine. Another was handsome Fédorov, who, with a gang, of which he was the leader, had killed and robbed an old official. He was a peasant, whose father had been quite illegally deprived of his house, and who later served in the army, where he suffered for falling in love with the mistress of an officer. He had an attractive, impassioned nature, and was a man who wished to enjoy himself at whatsoever cost, who had never seen any people who in any way restrained themselves in their enjoyments, and who had never heard that there was any other aim in life than that of enjoyment. It was evident to Nekhlyudov that both were rich natures that were neglected and twisted, as are rankly growing plants. He also saw a tramp and a woman, who repelled him by their stupidity and seeming cruelty, but he could not bring himself to see in them that criminal type, of which the Italian school speaks, but saw only people in them who were personally repulsive to him, just as those were whom he had seen at large in dress coats, epaulets, and laces.

So the fourth business which interested Nekhlyudov at that time consisted in the investigation of the question why these many different people were imprisoned, while others, just such people as these, were not only at liberty, but sitting in judgment over them.

At first, Nekhlyudov had hoped to find an answer to this question in books, and so he bought everything that touched upon this subject. He bought the books of Lombroso, and Garofalo, and Ferry, and Liszt, and Maudsley, and Tarde, and carefully perused these books.

But the more he read them, the more he was disappointed in them. There happened to him that which always happens to people who turn to science, not in order to play a rôle in science, to write, to discuss, to teach, but to get answers to straight, simple, living questions : science gave him answer to thousands of various extremely clever and wise questions, which stood in some relation to criminology, but not to the question for which he was trying to find an answer.

He propounded a very simple question : Why and by what right does one class of people confine, torture, deport, flog, and kill another, when they themselves are no better than those whom they torture, flog, and kill ? To which he received replies in the shape of reflections like these : Is man possessed of freedom of the will, or not ? Can a man be declared a criminal from cranial measurements, and so forth, or not ? What part does heredity play in crime ? Is there an innate immorality ? What is morality ? What is insanity ? What is degeneration ? What is temperament ? What influence on crime have climate, food, ignorance, suggestion, hypnotism, the passions ? What is society ? What are its duties ? and so forth.

These reflections reminded Nekhlyudov of an answer he had once received from a small boy who was returning from school. Nekhlyudov asked the boy whether he had learned to spell. “ I have, ” replied the boy. ” Well, spell ‘ foot.’ ” ” What kind of a foot, a dog’s ? ” the boy answered, with a cunning face. Just such answers in the shape of questions Nekhlyudov found in scientific works to his fundamental question. There was in them much which was clever, learned, and interesting, but there was no answer to the chief question : By what right do they punish others ? Not only was there no answer to it, but all discussions took place in order to explain and justify punishment, the necessity for which was assumed as an axiom. Nekhlyudov read a great deal, by snatches, and he ascribed the absence of an answer to this superficial reading, hoping later to find a reply, and so he did not permit himself to believe the justice of the answer which of late presented itself to him ever more frequently.

XXXI.

The party with which Maslova was to be deported was to start on July 5th. Nekhlyudov was getting ready to leave on the same day. On the day before his departure, Nekhlyudov’s sister and her husband came to town to see him.

Nekhlyudov’s sister, Natdlya Ivdnovna Ragozlnnski, was ten years older than her brother. He had partly grown up under her influence. She loved him very much as a boy, and later, just before her marriage, when she was twenty-five years old and he fifteen, they met almost like equals. She was then in love with his deceased friend, Nikolenka Irténev. Both of them loved Nikdlenka, loving in him and in themselves that which was good in them, and which unites all people.

Since then they had both become corrupted : he by his military service, and she by her marrying a man whom she loved in a sensual way, but who not only did not love all that which had been most sacred and dear to her and Dmitri, but who even could not understand what it was, and ascribed all her striving for moral perfection and for serving people, which had formed the basis of her life, to vanity and a desire to excel among people, the only sentiment he was capable of comprehending.

Ragozlnnski was a man without a name or fortune, but a very subservient official, who had managed to make a comparatively brilliant judicial career, by artfully steering between liberalism and conservatism, making use of the one or the other of the two tendencies which at a given moment and in a given case gave him the best results for his life, and, chiefly, by something especial by which he pleased the ladies. He was a man past his first youth, when he met the Nekhlyudovs abroad ; he made Natalya, who was not very young then, fall in love with him, and married her, almost against her mother’s will, who saw a ‘mesalliance in this marriage.

Nekhlyudov, however much he concealed his feeling from himself and struggled against it, hated his brother-in-law. He had an antipathy for him on account of the vulgarity of his sentiments, his self-confident narrowness, and, chiefly, for the sake of his sister, who was able to love this barren mind so passionately, selfishly, and sensually, and, to please him, to choke all the good that had been in her.

It was always an anguish for him to think that Natdlya was the wife of that bearded, self-confident man, with the shining bald spot on his head. He even could not repress a feeling of disgust for their children. Every time he heard she was about to become a mother, he experienced a feeling akin to regret for having once more become infected from this man who was strange to all their interests.

The Ragozhfnskis arrived without their children (they had two, a boy and a girl), and they stopped in the best room of the best hotel. Natalya Ivanovna at once went to her mother’s old quarters, but not finding her brother there, and learning from Agrafdna Petrovna that he had taken furnished rooms, at once drove there to see him. A dirty servant, who met her in the dark, oppressive-smelling corridor, which had to be lighted in the daytime, told her that the prince was not at home.

Natalya Ivanovna wanted to go to her brother’s room, in order to leave a note there. The servant took her there.

Upon entering his two small rooms, Natalya Ivanovna surveyed them attentively. She saw the familiar order and cleanliness in everything, but was struck by the simplicity of the furnishing, which was so unusual for him. On the writing-desk she saw the familiar paperweight with the bronze dog ; equally familiar to her were the properly placed portfolios and papers, and the writingmaterial ; and there were some volumes of criminal jurisprudence, and an English book by Henry George, and a French book by Tarde, with a large, crooked ivory paper-knife between its leaves.

She sat down at the table and wrote a note to him, asking him to be sure and come to see them that very day ; shaking her head in surprise at what she saw, she returned to her hotel.

Two questions now interested Natalya Ivanovna in reference to her brother: his marriage to Katyusha, of which she had heard in her town, as everybody was speaking of it, and his distribution of land among the peasants, which was also known to everybody, and which appeared to many to have a political and dangerous significance. For one reason, his intended marriage to Katyusha pleased Natdlya Ivanovna. She admired this determination, and recognized him and herself in it, such as they had been in those good days before her marriage ; at the same time she was horrified at the thought that her brother was going to marry such a terrible woman. The latter feeling was the stronger, and she decided to use all her influence to keep him from it, although she knew that this would be difficult.

The other matter, his distribution of the land to the peasants, was not so near to her heart, but her husband was incensed by it, and asked her to use her influence with her brother. Ignati Nikiforovich said that such an act was the acme of inconsistency, frivolity, and pride, that this act could only be explained — if there was any possibility at all of explaining it — as a desire to show off, and brag, and make people talk of himself. ” What sense is there in giving land to peasants with the

rental to revert to them ? ” he said. ” If he wanted to do it, he could have sold it through the rural bank. There would have been some sense in that. Taken altogether, this act verges on abnormality,” said Ignati Nikiforovich, with an eye to the guardianship, insisting that his wife should have a serious talk with her brother about this strange intention of his.

XXXII.

When Nekhlyudov returned home and found the note on his table, he immediately went to see her. It was in the evening. Ignati Nikiforovich was resting in another room, and Natalya Ivanovna met her brother alone. She was dressed in a black silk garment fitting her closely, with a red ribbon over her chest, and her black hair was puffed up and combed according to the latest fashion. She evidently tried to appear as young as possible before her husband, who was of her age. When she saw her brother, she jumped up from the divan, and rapidly walked up to him, producing a whistling sound with her silk skirt. They kissed and looked at each other with smiles. There took place that mysterious, inexpressible, significant exchange of looks, in which everything was truth, and there began an exchange of words, in which there was not that truth. They had not seen each other since the death of their mother.

” You have grown stouter and younger,” he said.

Her bps puckered with delight.

” And you look thinner.”

“ How is Ignati Nikiforovich ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” He is resting. He did not sleep last night.”

There was much to be said, but the words said nothing, while the glances said that much which ought to have been told had been left untold.

” I was at your room.”

” Yes, I know.”

” I have left the house. It is too large for me, and

lonely, and dull. I need none of those things, so you had better take them, the furniture, and all that.”

“ Yes, Agraféna Petrovna has told me about it. I was there. I am very grateful to you, but — ”

Just then the hotel waiter brought a silver tea service. They kept silent as long as the waiter was busy about the service. Natalya Ivanovna walked over to a chair near a small table, and silently poured in the tea. Nekhlyudov was silent, too.

“Dmitri, I know it all,” Natalya said, looking at him with determination.

” I am very glad that you do.”

” Can you hope to correct her after such a life ? ” she said.

He was sitting straight, without leaning, on a small chair, and attentively listened to her, trying to catch all her meaning and to give her good answers. The mood evoked in him by his last meeting with Mdslova continued to fill his soul with calm joy and good-will to all men.

” I am not after correcting her, but myself,” he answered.

Natalya Ivanovna heaved a sigh.

” There are other means than marriage.”

” I think this is the best means ; and, besides, it takes me into that world where I can be useful.”

“I do not think,” said Natalya Ivanovna, “that you can be happy there.”

“ It is not a question of my happiness.”

“ Of course. But she, if she has a heart, cannot be happy, and cannot even wish it.”

” She does not wish it — “

” I understand, but life — “

” What about life ? “

“ Demands it.”

” It demands nothing but that we should do what is necessary,” said Nekhlyudov, looking at her face, which was still beautiful, though already covered with small wrinkles near the eyes and mouth.

“ I do not understand this,” she said, with a sigh.

” Poor, dear sister. How could she have changed so ? ” Nekhlyudov thought, thinking of Natalya as she was before her marriage, and drawn to her by a tender feeling made up of endless childish memories.

At this time Ignàti Nikiforovich, bearing, as always, his head high, expanding his broad chest, stepping softly and lightly, sparkling with his spectacles, his bald spot, and his black beard, entered the room, smiling.

“ Good evening, good evening,” he said, emphasizing his words in an unnatural and conscious manner. (At first after the marriage they had tried hard to say ” thou ” to each other, but they had not succeeded.)

They pressed each other’s hands, and Ignati Nikiforovich lightly fell back into an armchair.

” Am I not interfering with your conversation ? ”

“ No, I conceal from nobody that which I say and do.” The moment Nekhlyudov saw tins face, these hirsute hands, and heard his condescending, self-confident voice, his meek spirit fled from him.

“We were speaking of his intention,” said Natalya Ivanovna. ” Shall I give you a glass ? ” she added, taking hold of the teapot.

” Yes, if you please. What intention ? ”

” To go to Siberia with the party of prisoners, among whom is the woman toward whom I consider myself guilty,” said Nekhlyudov.

” I have heard that you intend not only to accompany them, but to do something more.”

” Yes, to marry her, if she wishes it.”

” I declare ! If it is not unpleasant to you, explain your motives to me. I do not understand them.”

“The motives are that this woman — that her first step on the path of immorality — ” Nekhlyudov was angry at himself for not being able to find the proper expression. ” The motives are that I am guilty, and she is punished.”

” If she is punished, she, no doubt, is not guiltless.”

“ She is absolutely innocent.” Nekhlyudov told of the whole affair with unnecessary agitation.

” Yes, it is an omission of the presiding judge, and consequently a carelessness in the reply of the jury. But there is a Senate for such a thing.”

” The Senate has refused the appeal”

” If it has refused it, there could not have been sufficient cause for an annulment,” said Ignati Nikiforovich, apparently sharing the well-known opinion that truth is a product of a judicial verdict. ” The Senate cannot enter into the merits of the case. But if there really is an error of the court,-his Majesty ought to be appealed to.”

” That has been done, but there is no probability of success. They will inquire of the ministry, the ministry will refer it to the Senate, the Senate will repeat its verdict, and, as ever, the innocent person will be punished.”

” In the first place, the ministry will not ask the Senate,” Igndti Nikiforovich said, with a smile of condescension, “ but will ask the court for the proceedings in the case, and, if an error is discovered, they will report accordingly ; and, secondly, innocent people are never punished, or, at least, only in exceptional cases. Only guilty people are punished,” said Igndti Nikiforovich, leisurely, with a smile.

” I have become convinced of the opposite,” said Nekhlyudov, with an evil feeling for his brother-in-law. ” I am convinced that the greater half of those who are condemned by courts are innocent.”

” How is that ? ”

” They are innocent in the straight sense of the word, just as this woman is innocent of poisoning, as a peasant, whose acquaintance I have just made, is innocent of murder, which he has not committed ; as a mother and her son, who came very near being convicted, are innocent of the incendiarism caused by the owner of the property.”

” Of course, there always have been and always will be judicial errors. A human institution cannot be perfect.”

” Then an immense number are innocent because, having been brought up in a certain circle, they do not regard their acts as crimes.”

” Pardon me, this is unjust. Every thief knows that stealing is not good,” Ignati Nikiforovich said, with the same calm, self-confident, and slightly contemptuous smile, which irritated Nekhlyudov.

” No, he does not. You tell him, ‘ Don’t steal ! ’ and he sees that the owners of factories steal his labour, retaining his wages, that the government, with all its officials, does not stop robbing him, by means of taxes.”

” This is anarchism,” Ignati Nikiforovich quietly defined the meaning of the words of his brother-in-law.

” I do not know what it is ; I only tell you what actually takes place,” continued Nekhlyudov. ” He knows that the government robs him ; he knows that we, the landed proprietors, have robbed him long ago, by taking away his land, which ought to be a common possession ; and then, when he gathers twigs on that land in order to make a fire in his stove with them, we put him in jail, and want to convince him that he is a thief. He knows that he is not the thief, but that the thief is he who has taken away the land from him, and that every restitution of that which has been stolen is a duty which he has to his family.”

” I do not understand you, and if I do, I do not agree with you. The land cannot help being somebody’s property. If you were to divide it up,” began Igndti Nikiforovich, with the full and calm conviction that Nekhlyudov was a socialist, and that the theory of socialism consisted in the demand that the land be divided up in equal parts, and that such a division was very foolish, and he could easily prove its inconsistencies, ” if you were to divide it up to-day in equal parts, they will tomorrow pass back into the hands of the most industrious and able men.”

” Nobody intends to divide the land up equally. The land ought to be nobody’s property ; it ought not to be the subject of purchase and sale, or of mortgaging.”

“The right of property is inborn in man. Without property rights there will be no interest in working the land. Take away the right of ownership, and we return to the savage state,” Ignàti Nikiforovich said, authoritatively, repeating the customary argument in favour of the ownership of land, which is considered incontestable, and which consists in the assumption that the greed for the ownership of land is a sign of its necessity.

” On the contrary. The land will not lie idle, as it does now, when the proprietors, like dogs in the manger, do not allow those to make use of it who can, and them- • selves do not know how to exploit it.”

” Listen, Dmitri Ivanovich ! Tills is absolutely senseless ! Is it possible in our day to do away with the ownership of land ? I know this is your hobby. But let me tell you straight — ” Ignéti Nikiforovich grew pale, and his voice trembled ; this question evidently touched him closely. ” I should advise you to consider this subject carefully, before you enter on its practical solution.”

” Are you speaking of my own personal affairs ? ”

” Yes. I assume that we are all placed in a certain position, that we must carry out the duties which flow from this position, that we must maintain the conditions of existence under which we were born, which we have inherited from our ancestors, and which we must transmit to our posterity.”

” I consider my duty to be — ”

” Excuse me,” Igndti Nikiforovich continued, not allowing himself to be interrupted. “ I am not speaking for myself, nor for my children, who are securely provided for ; I am earning enough to live comfortably, and I suppose my children will not have to suffer; therefore my protest against your ill-advised actions, permit me to say, originates not in my personal interests, but because I cannot agree with you from principle. I should advise you to think about them a little more carefully, and to read — ”

” You will permit me to attend to my own business, and to decide for myself what I am to read, and what not,” said Nekhlyudov, growing pale. He felt his hands becoming cold, and that he was losing control of himself, so he grew silent, and began to drink tea.

XXXIII.

” How are the children ? ” Nekhlyudov asked his sister, after he had somewhat composed himself.

She told him that they had been left with their grandmother, her husband’s mother. Happy to see that the discussion with her husband had come to an end, she began to tell him how her children played travelling just as he had done with his dolls,— one a negro, and the other called a Frenchwoman.

” Do you remember that ? ” said Nekhlyudov, smiling.

“Just think of it, they are playing in precisely the same manner.”

The disagreeable conversation was not renewed. Natalya calmed herself, but she did not wish to speak in the presence of her husband of that which her brother alone could understand ; in order to introduce a general subject, she mentioned the St. Petersburg news that had just reached them in reference to the sorrow of Madame Kâmenski, who had lost her only son in the duel. Ignati Nikiforovich expressed his disapproval of the order of things which excluded murder in a duel from the common order of capital crimes.

This remark called forth a retort from Nekhlyudov, and there again flamed up a discussion on the same theme, where everything was only half said, and both interlocutors did not express their full views, but persisted in their mutually condemnatory convictions. Ignati Nikiforovich felt that Nekhlyudov condemned him and despised all his activity, and he was anxious to show him the whole injustice of his judgments. Nekhlyudov again, independently of the annoyance he experienced from his brother-in-law’s interference in his land affairs (in the depth of his soul he felt that his brother-in-law and his sister and their children, as his heirs, had a right to it), fretted because this narrow-minded man continued, with the greatest confidence and composure, to regard that as regular and legal which to Nekhlyudov now appeared as unquestionably senseless and criminal. This self-confidence irritated Nekhlyudov.

” What would the court have done ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” It would have convicted one of the two duellists as a common murderer, and would have sent him to hard labour.”

Nekhlyudov’s hands again grew cold, and he said, excitedly :

“ What would have been then ? ”

“Justice would have been done.”

“As though justice formed the aim of a court’s activity,” said Nekhlyudov.

“ What else, if not that ? ”

“The maintenance of class interests. The courts, in my opinion, are only an administrative tool for the maintenance of the existing order of things, which is advantageous for our class.”

“This is an entirely novel view,” Ignati Nikiforovich said, with a calm smile. “ A somewhat different meaning is commonly ascribed to the courts.”

“ Theoretically, and not practically, as I have had occasion to see. The purpose of the courts is the maintenance of society in its present condition, and so they prosecute and punish equally those who stand higher than the common average, and who wish to lift it up, the so-called political criminals, and those who stand below it, the so-called criminal types.”

“ I cannot agree with you, first, that all so-called political prisoners are punished for standing higher than the common average. They are chiefly outcasts of society, just as corrupt, although somewhat differently, as those criminal types, whom you consider to be below the average.”

” I know many people who stand incomparably higher than their judges ; all the sectarians are moral, firm people — “

But Ignati Nikiforovich, with the habit of a man who is not interrupted, when he is speaking, was not listening to Nekhlyudov, and continued to speak at the same time with Nekhlyudov, which especially irritated him.

” Nor can I agree with your statement that the purpose of the courts is the maintenance of the existing order. The courts pursue their aims, which are the correction — ”

” The correction they receive in jail is fine,” interposed Nekhlyudov.

“ Or the removal,” stubbornly proceeded Ignati Nikiforovich, ” of those corrupt and beastly people who threaten the existence of society.”

“ The trouble is they do neither the one nor the other. Society has not the means for accomplishing it.”

” How is that ? I do not understand,” said Ignati Nikiforovich, with a forced smile.

“ I mean to say that there are only two really sensible punishments, those that were in vogue in ancient days, the corporal and capital punishments, which, on account of the refinement of manners, are going ever more out of use,” said Nekhlyudov.

” This is new, and rather remarkable from your mouth.”

” There is some sense in causing a man bodily pain, so that he may abstain in the future from doing that for which he has received the punishment, and there is good reason to chop off the head of a dangerous and hurtful member of society. Both these punishments have a sensible purpose. But what sense is there in locking up a man, who is corrupt through indolence and bad example, subjecting him to conditions of secure and obligatory indolence, in company with exceedingly corrupt people ? Or to transport them at the expense of the Crown,— each costs more than five hundred roubles, — from the Government of Tula to Irkutsk, or from the Government of Kursk — ”

” But the people are afraid of this journey at the Crown’s expense, and if it were not for these journeys and prisons, we should not be sitting here as securely as we are.”

” These prisons cannot ensure our security, because these people do not stay there all the time, but are let out again. On the contrary, in these institutions these people are made acquainted with the highest degree of vice and corruption, that is, the danger is only increased.”

” You mean to say that the penitentiary system ought to be improved.”

” It cannot be improved. The improved prisons would cost more than what is spent on popular education, and would impose a new burden on the people.”

” But the imperfections of the penitentiary system by no means invalidate the courts,” Ignati Nikiforovich continued his speech, paying no attention to his brother-in-law.

” These imperfections cannot be corrected,” Nekhlyudov said, raising his voice.

” So, according to you, we shall have to kill ? Or, as a statesman has proposed, we ought to put out their eyes,” said Ignati Nikiforovich, with a victorious smile.

“ This would be cruel, but to the point. But that which is being done now is not only not to the point, but so stupid that it is impossible to understand how mentally healthy people can take part in so stupid and cruel a business as a criminal court.”

” I am taking part in it,” Ignati Nikiforovich said, growing pale.

” That is your business. But I do not understand it.”

” I think there are many things which you do not understand,” Ignati Nikiforovich said, in a trembling voice.

” I saw the associate prosecutor use all his endeavour at court to convict an unfortunate boy, who in any un corrupted man ought to provoke nothing but compassion. I know how another prosecutor examined a sectarian and made out the reading of the Gospel a criminal offence. The whole activity of the courts consists in such senseless and cruel acts.”

“ I should not serve, if I thought so,” said Ignati Nikiforovich, rising.

Nekhlyudov noticed a peculiar sparkle under the spectacles of his brother-in-law. ” Can it be tears ? ” thought Nekhlyudov. Indeed, those were tears of affront. Ignati Nikiforovich went up to the window, took out his handkerchief, and, clearing his throat, began to clean his glasses, at the same time wiping his eyes. Upon returning to the sofa, Ignati Nikiforovich lighted a cigar, and never said another word. Nekhlyudov was ashamed and pained at having grieved his brother-in-law and his sister to such an extent, especially since he was to leave on the next day, and would not see them again. He bade them farewell in embarrassment, and went home.

” It may be that what I said was true, at least he has not successfully answered me ; but I ought not to have spoken to him in such a manner. I have changed little enough, if I can allow myself to be so carried away by an evil passion, and so insult him and grieve poor Natalya,” thought he.

XXXIV.

The party with which Maslova went was to start from the station at three o’clock, and therefore, in order to see them depart from the prison and to reach the’ station with them, Nekhlyudov intended to arrive at the prison before noon.

As Nekhlyudov was putting away his things and his papers, he stopped at his diary and began to read some passages in it, and what he had last written in it. The last thing he had noted down before his departure for St. Petersburg ran as follows : ” Katyusha does not wish my sacrifice, but her own. She has conquered, and so have I. I rejoice in that internal change which I think — I hardly dare believe it — is taking place within her. I hardly dare believe it, but it seems to me she is reviving” Immediately after it was written : ” I have passed through a very heavy and a very joyful experience. I have learned that she did not behave well in the hospital. It gave me a sudden pang. I spoke to her in disgust and hatred, and then I suddenly thought of myself and of how often I have even now been, in thought, guilty before her of the very thing for which I hated her, and immediately I loathed myself and pitied her, and I was happy. How much better we should be if we succeeded in time in seeing the beam in our own eye.” On the last day he had written : ” I saw Natalya, and my contentment made me unkind and cross, and a heavy feeling is left behind. What is to be done ? With tomorrow a new life begins. Goodbye, old life, for ever.

There is an accumulation of many impressions, but I cannot yet harmonize them.”

Upon awakening on the following morning, Nekhlyudov’s first feeling was regret at what had happened between him and his brother-in-law. ” I cannot leave thus,” he thought. “ I must go to see them and smooth it over.” But when he looked at his watch, he saw that it was too late, and that he had to hurry, in order not to miss the departure of the party. He quickly collected all his things and sent them by the porter and by Taras, Fedosya’s husband, who was travelling with him, straight to the station ; then he took the first cab he could get, and drove to the prison.

As the train of the prisoners left within two hours of the express on which Nekhlyudov was to travel, he settled his bill at the hotel, not intending to come back again.

It was an oppressive July day. The stones of the streets and houses, and the iron sheets of the roofs, which had not cooled off after the sultry night, reflected their heat into the close, immovable air. There was no wind ; whenever a breeze started, it wafted a hot and malodorous air, saturated with dust and the stench of oilpaint. There were but few people in the streets, and those that were out tried to walk in the shade of the houses. Only the tawny, sunburnt peasant street-pavers in their bast shoes were sitting in the middle of the street and striking their hammers on the cobblestones that were placed in the hot sand ; gloomy policemen, in unbleached blouses and with the orange-coloured ribbons of their revolvers, stood along the streets, sullenly changing their places ; and the tram-cars, shaded by blinds on the sunny side, and drawn by horses in white capotes, with their ears sticking through the openings in the cloth, ran, tinkling, up and down the streets.

When Nekhlyudov reached the prison, the convoy cf prisoners had not yet started, and within the jail the transfer of the prisoners to be taken away, which had begun at four o’clock in the morning, was still causing busy work. In the party were 623 men and sixty-four women. They had all to be checked off on the lists ; the ailing and feeble had to be segregated ; and they had to be handed over to the soldiers of the guard. The new superintendent, two assistants of his, the doctor, with his assistant, the officer of the guard, and the scribe were seated at a table, which was placed in the yard, in the shade of a wall ; on it were lying papers and appurtenances of the chancery. They called out, examined, and noted down one prisoner after another, as they walked up to the table.

The sun was now falling over half the table. It was growing hot and extremely sultry, both from the absence of a breeze and from the exhalations of the throng of prisoners who were standing there.

” Will there ever be an end of it ? ” said, puffing at his cigarette, the tall, stout, redfaced officer of the guard, with his raised shoulders and short arms, who never stopped smoking through his moustache, which covered his mouth. “ They are tiring me out. Where did you get such a lot of them ? How many more will there be ? “

The scribe looked up the matter.

“ Twenty-four men more, and the women.”

” Don’t stand there, but walk up here ! ” cried the officer to the prisoners who had not yet been checked off, and who were crowding each other. They had been standing for three hours in rows, not in the shade, but in the sun, waiting for their turns.

This was the work which was going on within the precincts of the prison ; without, at the gate, stood, as always, a sentry with a gun, and about twenty drays for the belongings of the prisoners and for the feeble, and at the comer there was a throng of relatives and friends, who were waiting for the prisoners to come out, in order to see them, and, if possible, to say a few words and give them something for their journey. Nekhlyudov joined this crowd.

He stood there about an hour. At the end of that time there was heard the clanking of chains within the gate, the sound of steps, the voices of the officers, clearing of throats, and the subdued conversation of a large throng. This lasted about five minutes, during which the wardens walked in and out through a small door. Finally a command was given. The gate opened with a crash, the clanking of the chains became louder, and the soldiers of the guard, in white blouses and with their guns, came out and, apparently executing a familiar and habitual evolution, took up a position in a large semicircle around the gate. When they had taken their stand, another command was heard, and the prisoners began to come out in pairs : they wore pancake-shaped caps on their shaven heads, and carried bags on their backs ; they dragged along their fettered legs, swung their one free arm, and with the other held the bags over -their shoulders. First came the male prisoners, who were to be deported to hard labour, — all of them wearing the same gray trousers and cloaks, with black marks on their backs. All of them — whether they were young, old, lean, stout, pale, red, black, bearded, mustachioed, beardless, Russians, Tartars, or Jews — came out rattling with their chains and briskly swinging their arms, as though going out for a long walk, but after making about ten steps they stopped and docilely arranged themselves in rows of four, one behind the other. After these, without interruption, there were poured forth from the gate just such shaven prisoners, without their leg-fetters, but chained to each other by handcuffs, and wearing the same kind of garb. These were the prisoners to be deported for settlement. They walked out just as briskly, stopped, and also arranged themselves in rows of four. Then came those deported by the Communes. Then the women, also in successive order : first the hard labour convicts, in gray prison caftans and kerchiefs, then the deportation convicts, and those who voluntarily followed their husbands, in their city and peasant attires. A few of the women carried babes in the folds of their gray caftans.

With the women walked their children, boys and girls. These children pressed close to the prisoners, like colts in a herd of horses. The men stood silent, now and then clearing their throats, or making abrupt remarks. But the women chattered incessantly. Nekhlyudov thought he had recognized Maslova as she came out of the gate, but later she was lost in the large throng of the women who were placed back of the men, and he saw only a crowd of gray beings, which seemed to have lost all human, especially all feminine, qualities, with their children and their sacks.

Notwithstanding the fact that all the prisoners had been counted within the walls of the prison, the soldiers of the guard began to count them again, in order to see whether they tallied with the previous number. This recounting lasted for a long time, especially since some of the prisoners kept moving about and confusing the counts of the soldiers. The soldiers cursed and pushed the submissive, but angry prisoners, and began to count anew. After they had all been counted, the officer of the guard gave a command, and then there was a disturbance in the crowd. Feeble men, women, and children, trying to outrun each other, hurried to the wagons, where they deposited their bags, and themselves climbed in. Into them also climbed the women with the crying suckling babes, the cheerful children, who were contending for their seats, and grim, gloomy prisoners.

A few prisoners doffed their caps, and walked over to the officer of the guard, to ask him for something. Nekhlyudov later learned that they were asking to be

allowed to ride in the wagons. Nekhlyudov saw the officer calmly puff at his cigarette, without looking at the speaker, and then suddenly lift his short arm, as though to strike the prisoner, and the latter, ducking Iris head, in expectation of a blow, jump away from him.

” I will make such a nobleman of you that you will remember me ! You will get there on foot ! ” cried the officer.

The officer permitted only one tottering tall old man, in leg-fetters, to take a seat in a wagon, and Nekhlyudov saw this old man take off his pancake-shaped cap and make the sign of the cross, as he was walking toward the wagon. He had a hard time getting in, as the chains made it hard for him to lift his weak, fettered legs, and a woman, who was already seated in the wagon, helped him, by pulling him up by his arms.

When all the wagons were filled with the bags, and those who were permitted had taken their seats in them, the officer of the guard took off Iris cap, wiped his forehead, his bald pate, and his stout red neck with Iris handkerchief, and made the sign of the cross.

” The party, march ! ” he commanded. The soldiers clattered with their guns; the prisoners took off their caps, some doing so with their left hands, and began to cross themselves; the friends who were seeing them off called out something ; the prisoners cried something in reply; among the women weeping was heard, — and the party, surrounded by soldiers in white blouses, started, raising the dust with their fettered legs. In front were soldiers ; behind them, clanking with their chains, were the fettered men, four in a row ; then came the deportation convicts, then the communal prisoners, handcuffed by twos; and then the women. After these followed the wagons with the bags and the feeble prisoners. On one of these, on a high load, sat a woman, who was all wrapped up, and who did not stop wailing and sobbing.

XXXV.

The procession was so long that only when the men in front had disappeared from view, the wagons began to move. When these started, Nekhlyudov seated himself in the cab, which was waiting for him, and ordered the driver to drive past the party, in order to see whether there were no men among them whom he knew, and then, to find Maslova among the women and to ask her whether she had received the things which he had sent her.

It was very hot. There was no breeze, and the dust which was raised by a thousand feet hovered all the time above the prisoners who were walking in the middle of the street. They marched rapidly, and the dobbin of the cab, in which Nekhlyudov was riding, took a long time in getting ahead of the procession. There were rows and rows of unfamiliar creatures of strange and terrible aspect, moving in even measure their similarly clad legs, and swinging their free arms, as though to give themselves courage. There were so many of them, and they so resembled each other, and were placed in such exceptional and strange conditions, that it seemed to Nekhlyudov that they were not men, but some peculiar, terrible beings. This impression was shattered by his espying, in the throng of the hard labour convicts, murderer Fédorov, and, among the deportation convicts his acquaintance, the comedian Okhotin, and another, a tramp, who had invoked his aid.

Nearly all the prisoners turned around, eyeing the vehicle which was driving past them, and the gentleman in it, who was looking closely at them. Fedorov gave an upward shake of the head in token of his having recognized Nekhlyudov ; Okhotin only winked. Neither the one nor the other bowed, considering this to be against the regulation. Upon coming abreast with the women, Nekhlyudov at once recognized Mdslova. She was walking in the second row. On the outside walked a redfaced, short-legged, black-eyed, ugly woman ; it was Beauty. Then followed a pregnant woman, who with difficulty dragged her legs along ; the third was Maslova. She was carrying a bag over her shoulder, and was looking straight ahead of her. Her face was calm and determined. The fourth one in the same row was a young, handsome woman, in a short cloak and with her kerchief tied in peasant fashion, stepping briskly, — that was Fedosya. Nekhlyudov got down from the vehicle and walked over to the moving women, wishing to ask Mdslova whether she had received the things, and how she felt ; but the under-officer of the guard, who was walking on the same side of the party, having at once noticed him, ran up to him.

” It is not permitted, sir, to walk up to the party, — it is against the law,” he cried, as he was coming up.

Having come close, and recognizing Nekhlyudov (everybody in the prison knew him), the under-officer put his fingers to his cap, and, stopping near Nekhlyudov, said, ” Here it is not permitted. At the station you may, but here it is against the law. Don’t stop ! March ! ” he cried to the prisoners, and, trying to appear dashing, in spite of the heat, galloped off in his new foppish boots to his place.

Nekhlyudov walked down to the sidewalk, and, ordering the vehicle to follow him, kept in the sight of the party. Wherever the procession passed it attracted attention mingled with compassion and terror. People in their carriages put out their heads and followed the prisoners with their eyes. Pedestrians stopped and looked in amazement and fear at this terrible spectacle. Some walked up and offered alms. The soldiers of the guard received these gifts. Some followed in the wake of the procession, as though hypnotized, and then they stopped and, shaking their heads, accompanied the party with their eyes only. People rushed out from the front steps and gates, calling to each other, or hung out of the windows, and immovably and silently watched the terrible procession.

At a cross street the party stopped the passage for an elegant carriage. On the box sat a broad-backed coachman, with a shining face and a row of buttons on his back ; in the carriage, on the back seat, sat a man with his wife ; the wife was thin and pale, in a bright-coloured hat, with a coloured parasol, and her husband wore a silk bat and a bright-coloured foppish overcoat. In front, opposite them, sat their children : a little girl, dressed up and shining like a flower, with loosely hanging blond hair, also with a bright-coloured parasol, and an eight-year-old boy with a long, thin neck and protruding shoulder-bones ; he wore a sailor hat, adorned with ribbons. The father angrily upbraided the coachman for not having passed in time ahead of the procession, while the mother finically blinked and frowned, shielding herself against the sun and dust with her silk parasol, which she put close to her face. The broad-backed coachman scowled angrily, listening to the unjust accusation of his master, who had himself ordered him to drive by that street, and with difficulty restrained the glossy black stallions, lathered at their bits and necks, that were eager to start. A policeman was very anxious to serve the owner of the elegant carriage and to let him pass, by stopping the prisoners, but he felt that in this procession there was a gloomy solemnity, which could not be violated even for that rich gentleman. He only saluted, in sign of his respect for wealth, and sternly looked at the prisoners, as though promising under all conditions to protect the persons in the carriage from them.

Thus, the carriage was compelled to wait for the passing of the whole procession, and it went on only when the last dray with the bags and prisoners upon it had gone by; the hysterical woman, who was sitting upon the wagon, and who had quieted down, at the sight of the elegant carriage again burst out into tears and sobs. Only then the coachman lightly touched his reins, and the black chargers, tinkling with their hoofs on the pavement, whisked off the softly swaying carriage, with its rubber tires, into the country, whither the gentleman, and his wife, his girl, and the boy with the thin neck and protruding shoulder-bones were driving for an outing.

Neither the father nor the mother gave their children an explanation of what they saw ; thus the children were compelled to solve for themselves the question what this spectacle meant.

The girl, taking into consideration the expression of her parents’ faces, came to the conclusion that these were very different people from what her parents and acquaintances were ; that they were bad people, and that, consequently, they had to be treated as they were. Therefore the girl felt terribly, and was glad when she no longer saw them.

But the boy with the long, thin neck, who did not take his eyes off the prisoners, as long as the procession went by, found a different answer to this question. He knew firmly and beyond any doubt, having learned it directly from God, that they were just such people as he himself and all other people were, and that, consequently, something very bad had been done to them, something that ought not to have been done to them, and he was sorry for them and experienced terror both before the people who were fettered and shaven, and before those who had fettered and shaved them. And so the boy’s lips kept swelling more and more, and he made great efforts to keep from crying, assuming that it was shameful to weep under such circumstances.

XXXVI.

Nekhlyudov walked with as rapid a gait as the prisoners, but even though he was lightly clad, and wearing a light overcoat, he felt dreadfully hot, and oppressed by the dust and motionless sultry air in the streets. Having walked about an eighth of a mile, he seated himself in the vehicle and drove ahead, but in the middle of the street, in the cab, he felt even warmer. He tried to recall his thoughts about his last conversation with his brother-in-law, but now they no longer agitated him as they had in the morning. They were overshadowed by the impressions of the start from the prison and the procession of the prisoners. Above everything else, it was oppressively hot. At a fence, in the shade of trees, two students of the Real Gymnasium were standing with their caps off, before a squatting ice-cream seller. One of the boys was already enjoying the feast, licking off the bone spoon, while the other was waiting for the glass to be Idled to the top with something yellow.

” I wonder where I can get a drink here ? ” Nekhlyudov asked the cabman, being overcome by irrepressible thirst.

“There is a good inn not far from here’” said the driver, and, turning around the corner, he took Nekhlyudov to a building with a large sign. A puffy clerk in a shirt, who was standing back of the counter, and waiters, who had once looked clean and white and who were now sitting at the tables, as there were no guests present, looked with curiosity at the unusual guest and offered their services to him. Nekhlyudov asked for seltzer water, and sat down a distance away from the window, at a small table with a dirty cloth. Two men were sitting at a table, on which stood a tea service and a bottle of white glass. They kept wiping off the perspiration from their brows, and figuring at something in a peaceable manner. One of these was swarthy and bald-headed, with just such a border of black hair on the back of his head as Ignati Nikiforovich had. This impression again reminded Nekhlyudov of his conversation with his brother-in-law on the previous day, and of his desire to see him and his sister before his departure. ” I shall hardly have enough time before the train leaves,” he thought. ” I had better write her a letter.” He asked for paper and an envelope, and a stamp, and, sipping the fresh, effervescent water, was thinking what to write. Rut his thoughts were distracted, and he was unable to compose the letter.

“Dear Natalya, — I cannot leave under the heavy impression of yesterday’s conversation with Ignati Nikiforovich,” he began. ” What next ? Shall I ask forgiveness for what I said yesterday ? But I said what I thought. And he will imagine that I recant. No, I cannot — ” and, feeling again a rising hatred for this, to him, strange, self-confident man, who did not understand him, Nekhlyudov put the unfinished letter in his pocket and, paying for what he had used, went out into the street, and told the driver to catch up with the party.

The heat had become even more intense. The walls and stones seemed to exhale hot air. The feet burnt against the heated pavement, and Nekhlyudov felt as though he burnt his hand when he put it to the lacquered wing of the vehicle.

The horse dragged himself along the streets in an indifferent amble, evenly striking the dusty and uneven pavement with his hoofs ; the cabman kept dozing off ; Nekhlyudov sat, thinking of nothing in particular and looking indifferently in front of him. At a turn of the Street, opposite the gate of a large house, stood a throng of people aud a soldier of the guard with his gun.

Nekhlyudov stopped the cab.

” What is it ? ” he asked a janitor.

” Something the matter with a prisoner.”

Nekhlyudov left the vehicle and walked up to the crowd. On the uneven stones of the inclined pavement, near the sidewalk, lay, with his head lower than his feet, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged prisoner, with a red beard, red face, and flat nose, in a gray cloak and gray trousers. He lay on his back, stretching out his freckled hands, with their palms down, and at long intervals evenly heaved his broad, high chest and sobbed, looking at the sky with his staring, bloodshot eyes. Over him stood a frowning policeman, a peddler, a letter-carrier, a clerk, an old woman with a parasol, and a short-haired boy with an empty basket.

” He has grown weak sitting in jail, quite feeble, — and they take him through a very hell,” the clerk condemned somebody, turning to Nekhlyudov, who had stepped up.

” He will, no doubt, die,” said the woman with the parasol, in a tearful voice.

“ You ought to untie his shirt,” said the letter-carrier.

The policeman began with trembling, stout fingers awkwardly to loosen the tape on his venous, red neck. He was apparently agitated and embarrassed, but, nevertheless, he deemed it necessary to address the crowd.

“ Why have you gathered there ? It is hot enough even without you. You are cutting off the breeze.”

” The doctor ought to inspect the weak and keep them back. Instead, they have taken a man who is half-dead,” said the clerk, evidently displaying his knowledge of the law. Having untied the tape of the shirt, the policeman straightened himself up and looked about him.

« Step aside, I say. It is none of your business. What is there to be seen here ? ” he said, turning with a glance of compassion to Nekhlyudov, but not getting any sympathy from him, he looked at the soldier of the guard. But the soldier was standing to one side, and, examining the worn-off heel of his boot, was quite indifferent to the trouble the policeman was in.

” People who know better don’t take the proper trouble. Is it right to kill a man that way ? ”

” A prisoner is a prisoner, but still he is a man,” somebody remarked in the crowd.

” Put his head higher, and give him some water,” said Nekhlyudov.

” They have gone to bring some,” said the policeman, and, taking the prisoner under his arms, with difficulty raised his body.

” What is this gathering for? ” suddenly was heard a commanding voice, and to the crowd collected around the prisoner strode with rapid steps a sergeant of police, in an exceedingly clean and shining blouse and even more shining long boots.

” Move on ! You have no business standing here ! ” he cried to the crowd, before he knew what they were doing there. When he came close and saw the dying prisoner, he nodded his head approvingly as though he had expected that very thing, and turned to the policeman.

“ What is the matter ? ”

The policeman informed him that a party of prisoners had walked past, and that he had fallen down, and the officer of the guard left him there.

” Well, take him to the station. Get a cab ! “

” A janitor has run to fetch one,” said the policeman, saluting.

The clerk began to say something about the heat.

” That is not your business, is it ? Walk along,” exclaimed the sergeant, looking so sternly at the clerk that he grew silent.

“ You ought to give him some water to drink,” said Nekhlyudov. The sergeant looked as sternly at Nekhlyudov, without saying anything. When a janitor brought some water in a cup, he ordered the policeman to give it to the prisoner. The policeman raised the man’s listless head, and tried to pour the water into his mouth, but the prisoner would not take it ; the water streamed down his beard, wetting the blouse and the dusty hempen shirt on his chest.

” Pour it out on his head ! ” commanded the sergeant, and the policeman took off his pancake-shaped cap, and poured out the water on his red curly hair and bare skull. The prisoner’s eyes opened wide, as though frightened, but the position of his body did not change. Down his face trickled dirty streams, but the same sobs escaped from his mouth, and his body kept jerking convulsively.

” What about this one ? Take it,” the sergeant addressed the policeman, pointing to Nekhlyudov’s cab. “ Ho there, come along ! ”

” I am hired,” gloomily said the driver, without raising his eyes.

” This is my cab,” said Nekhlyudov, ” but you may take it. I shall pay for it,” he added, turning to the driver.

” Don’t stand here ! ” cried the sergeant. ” Move on ! ” The policeman, some janitors, and the soldier raised the dying man, carried him to the vehicle, and placed him on the seat. He could not hold himself ; his head fell back, and his body slipped off the seat.

” Lay him down,” commanded the sergeant.

“ Never mind, your Honour. I will take him down,” said the policeman, firmly seating himself at the side of the dying man and putting his strong right hand under his arm.

The soldier lifted his - feet, which were clad in prison shoes without leg-rags, and straightened them out under the box.

The sergeant looked about him, and, noticing on the pavement the prisoner’s pancake-shaped cap, lifted it and put it on his dirty, flabbily hanging head. “ March ! ” he commanded.

The cabman looked back angrily, shook his head, and, accompanied by the soldier, slowly moved toward the police station. The policeman, who was sitting with the prisoner, kept adjusting the slipping body, with its head shaking in all directions. The soldier, who was walking near by, stuck the feet back under the box. Nekhlyudov walked behind him.

XXXVII.

Passing by a sentry of the fire-brigade, the cab with the prisoner drove into the yard of the police station and stopped before a building.

In the yard, firemen, with rolled-up sleeves, were conversing aloud and laughing, while washing a wagon. The moment the cab stopped, several policemen surrounded it, took the lifeless body of the prisoner under his arms and by his legs, and raised him from the squeaking vehicle. The policeman who had brought him jumped down from the cab, waved his stiffened arm, doffed his cap, and made the sign of the cross. The dead man was carried through the door up-stairs. Nekhlyudov followed them. In the small dirty room, to which the body was carried, there were four cots. Two sick men in cloaks were sitting on two of them, — one, a wry-mouthed fellow with his neck wrapped up, and the other, a consumptive man. Two cots were unoccupied. The prisoner was placed on one of these. A small man, with sparkling eyes and continually moving brows, in nothing but his underwear and stockings, walked over to the prisoner with soft, rapid steps, looked at him, then at Nekhlyudov, and burst out laughing.

This was an insane person who was kept in the waiting-room.

” They want to frighten me,” he said. ” Only, they won’t succeed.”

Soon after the policemen, who had brought in the body, came the sergeant and a surgeon’s assistant.

The assistant walked up to the prisoner, touched the cold, yellow, freckled, still soft, but deathly pale hand of the man, held it awhile, and then dropped it. It fell lifelessly upon the dead man’s abdomen.

” He is done with,” said the assistant, shaking his head, but, apparently to comply with the rules, he pushed aside the wet, coarse shirt of the dead man, and, brushing his curly hair away from his ear, leaned over the prisoner’s yellowish, immovable, high breast. Everybody was silent. The assistant arose, again shook his head, and put his finger, now on one, now on the other lid of the open and staring blue eyes.

” You will not frighten me, you will not frighten me,” said the insane man, all the time spitting out in the direction of the assistant.

” Well ? ” asked the sergeant.

“Well?” repeated the assistant. “He ought to be taken to the dead-house.”

” Be sure it is so ! ” said the sergeant.

” It is time I should know,” said the assistant, for some reason covering the dead man’s open breast. ” I shall send for Matvyéy Ivanych, and let him take a look. Petrdv, go for him,” said the assistant, walking away from the body.

” Carry him to the dead-house,” said the sergeant. ” You come to the chancery, and sign a receipt,” he added to the soldier of the guard, who all this time stuck closely to the prisoner.

” Yes, sir,” replied the soldier.

The policemen lifted the dead man and carried him down-stairs. Nekhlyudov wanted to follow them, but the insane person stopped him.

” You are not in the conspiracy, so give me a cigarette,” he said. Nekhlyudov took out his cigarette-holder, and gave him one. The insane man, moving his eyebrows, began to speak rapidly and to tell him that they tortured him with suggestions.

“ They are all against me, and they torment me through their mediums — “

” Pardon me,” said Nekhlyudov, and, without waiting to hear what he had to say, went out. He wanted to know whither they would take the body.

The policemen had already crossed the yard with their burden, and were about to walk down into a basement. Nekhlyudov wanted to walk up to them, but the sergeant stopped him.

” What do you want ? ”

” Nothing,” said Nekhlyudov.

” If nothing, step aside.”

Nekhlyudov obeyed and went back to his cab. The driver was dozing. Nekhlyudov woke him, and again started for the railway station.

He had not gone one hundred steps, when he came to a dray accompanied by a soldier with his gun, on which another prisoner, apparently dead, was lying. The prisoner was on his back, and his shaven head, with its black beard, covered by the pancake-shaped cap, which had slipped down to his nose, shook and tossed at every jolt of the wagon. The drayman, in stout boots, guided the horse, walking at its side. Back of the wagon walked a policeman. Nekhlyudov touched his driver’s shoulder.

“ Terrible things they are doing ! ” said the driver, stopping his horse.

Nekhlyudov climbed down from his vehicle, and followed the dray, again past the sentry of the fire-brigade, to the yard of the police station. The firemen had finished washing the wagon, and in their place stood a tall, bony firecaptain, in a visorless cap. He stuck his hands in his pocket and was sternly looking at a fat, stout-necked dun stallion, which a fireman was leading up and down in front of him. He was lame on his fore leg, and the firecaptain was angrily saying something to the veterinary surgeon, who was standing near him.

The sergeant of police was there, too. Upon noticing another dead man, he walked over to the dray.

” Where did you pick him up ? ” he asked, disapprovingly shaking his head.

” On the Old Gorbatovskaya,” answered the policeman.

” A prisoner ? ” asked the firecaptain.

” Yes, sir. This is the second to-day,” said the sergeant of police.

” A fine way ! And the heat ! ” said the firecaptain, and, turning to the fireman, who was leading away the lame dun stallion, he cried : ” Put him in the corner stall ! I will teach you, son of a dog, how to maim horses that are worth more than you are, you rascal ! “

The policemen lifted the body, just as they had the one before, and carried it to the waiting-room. Nekhlyudov followed them, as though hypnotized.

” What do you wish ? ” one of the policemen asked him.

He went, without answering, to the place where they were carrying the dead man.

The insane man was sitting on a cot, eagerly smoking the cigarette which Nekhlyudov had given him.

” Ah, you have come back,” he said, laughing out loud. Upon seeing the dead man, he scowled. ” Again,” he said. ” I am tired of them. I am not a boy, am I ? ” he turned to Nekhlyudov, with a questioning smile.

Nekhlyudov was, in the meantime, looking at the dead man, around whom nobody was standing, and whose face, covered by the cap before, was now plainly visible. As the first prisoner had been ugly, so this one was unusually handsome in body and face. He was a man in the full bloom of his strength. In spite of the disfigured, halfshaven head, the low, abrupt forehead, with elevations above the black, now lifeless eyes, was very beautiful, and so was the small, slightly curved nose above the thin, black moustache. The livid lips were drawn back into a smile ; a small beard fringed only the lower part of the face, and on the shaven side of the skull could be seen a small, firm, and handsome ear.

The face had a calm, severe, and good expression. Let alone the fact that it was evident from his face what possibilities of spiritual life had been lost in this man, one could see, by the strong muscles of his well-proportioned limbs, what a handsome, strong, agile human animal he had been, — in its way a much more perfect animal than that dun stallion, whose lameness so angered the firecaptain. And yet, he died, and no one pitied him, neither as a man, nor even as an unfortunately ruined beast of burden. The only feeling which had been evoked in people by his death was the feeling of annoyance caused by the necessity of disposing of this rapidly decaying body.

The doctor, the assistant, and a captain of police entered the waiting-room. The doctor was a thick-set, stocky man, in a China silk frock coat, and narrow pantaloons of the same material, that fitted closely over his muscular loins. The captain was a stout little man, with a globe-shaped red face, which grew rounder still from his habit of filling his cheeks with air and slowly emitting it. The doctor sat down on the cot on which the dead man lay, and, just as the assistant had done, he touched the hands, listened for the heart-beat, and arose, adjusting his pantaloons.

” They are never deader,” he said.

The captain filled his cheeks with air and slowly emitted it.

” From what prison ? ” he turned to the soldier.

The soldier answered him, and reminded him of the fetters, which were on the dead man.

” I shall order them to be taken off. Thank the Lord there are blacksmiths,” said the captain, and, again puffing up his cheeks, he went to the door, slowly letting out the air.

“ Why is this so ? ” Nekhlyudov turned to the doctor.

The doctor looked at him above his spectacles.

” Why is what so ? Why do they die from sunstroke ? It is like this: they are locked up all winter, without motion or light, and suddenly they are let out in the sun, and on such a day as this ; then they walk in such crowds, where there is no breeze. And the result of it is a sunstroke.”

” Why, then, do they send them out ? “

” You ask them ! But who are you, anyway ? ”

“lama private individual.”

” Ah ! — My regards to you, I am busy,” said the doctor, and, angrily pulling his trousers in shape, he walked over to the cots of the patients.

” Well, how goes it with you ? ” he turned to the wry-mouthed, pale man, with neck all wrapped up.

The insane man, in the meantime, was sitting on his cot and spitting in the direction of the doctor, after he got through with his cigarette.

Nekhlyudov went out into the yard, and, past the fire-brigade’s horses and chickens, and the sentry in a brass helmet, walked through the gate, where he seated himself in his cab, the driver of which was again asleep, and had himself driven to the railway station.

XXXVIII.

When Nekhlyudov reached the station, the prisoners were already sitting in cars, behind grated windows. On the platform stood a number of men who were seeing off the prisoners: the soldiers of the guard did not let him walk up to the cars. The officers of the guard were very much disturbed. On the way to the station there had died from sunstroke three men besides the two which Nekhlyudov had seen : one of these had been taken to the nearest police station, like the other two, while two more fell at the station.1 The officers of the guard were not concerned about the five men which they had lost, and who might have lived. This did not interest them. They were interested only in executing all that the law demanded of them under these circumstances : to deliver the dead persons and their papers and things where it was necessary, and to exclude them from the count of those who were to be taken to Nfzhni-Ndvgorod, — and this was quite troublesome, especially in such hot weather.

It was this which gave the men of the guard so much trouble, and it was for this reason that neither Nekhlyudov, nor the others, were permitted to walk up to the cars. Nekhlyudov, however, was permitted to go up, because he bribed an under-officer of the guard. The under-officer let Nekhlyudov pass, and only asked him to say what he wished to say and walk away as soon as possible, so that the superior officer should not see him.

There were eighteen cars in all, and all of them, except the car of the officers, were filled to suffocation with prisoners.

Passing by the windows of the cars, Nekhlyudov listened to what was going on within. In all of them could be heard the clanking of chains, bustle, and conversation, mixed with senseless profanity, but nowhere was a word said about the sunstruck companions, which was what Nekhlyudov had expected to hear. They were talking mainly about their bags,- about water to drink, and about the choice of a seat.

Upon looking inside one window, Nekhlyudov saw in the middle of the car, in the passageway, some soldiers who were taking off the handcuffs from the prisoners. The prisoners extended their hands, and a soldier opened the manacles with a key, and took them off. Another gathered them up.

Having walked along the whole train, Nekhlyudov walked up to the women’s car. In the second one of these, he heard the even groans of a woman, interrupted by exclamations, “ Oh, oh, oh ! Help me ! Oh, oh, oh ! Help me ! “

Nekhlyudov went past it, and, following the indication of a soldier, went up to a third car. As Nekhlyudov put his head to the window, he was stifled by a hot breath, saturated with a dense odour of human exhalations, and he could clearly hear squeaking feminine voices. Perspiring women, red in their faces, were sitting on all the benches, dressed in cloaks and jackets, and chattering away. Nekhlyudov’s face at the grated window attracted their attention. Those that were nearest grew silent and moved up to him. Maslova, in her bodice only and without a kerchief, was seated at the opposite window. Nearest to him sat white, smiling Feddsya.

Upon recognizing Nekhlyudov, she nudged Maslova and indicated the window to her.

Maslova arose hurriedly, threw the kerchief over her black hair, and with an animated, red, perspiring, smiling face went up to the window and held on to the iron bars.

” It is hot,” she said, with a smile of delight.

” Did you get the things ? “

” I did, thank you.”

“ Do you need anything,” asked Nekhlyudov, feeling as though the car were heated inside like a bathroom oven.

” Thank you, nothing.”

” If we could only get a drink,” said Fedosya.

” Yes, a drink,” repeated Maslova.

” Have you no water there ? ”

” They have put in some, but it has all been used up.”

” Directly,” said Nekhlyudov, ” I will ask a soldier. We sha’n’t see each other before Nizhni-Novgorod.”

” Are you going there ? ” said Maslova, as though not knowing it, and casting a joyful glance at Nekhlyudov.

” I go with the next train.”

Maslova said nothing, and only a few seconds later drew a deep sigh.

” Tell me, sir, is it true that they have killed twelve prisoners ? ” said an old, rough woman, in a coarse man’s voice.

This was Korabléva.

” I have not heard of twelve. I saw two,” said Nekhlyudov.

“ They say, twelve. Won’t they be punished for it ? They are devils.”

” Did none of the women get ill ? ” asked Nekhlyudov.

” The women are tougher,” said another, an undersized prisoner, smiling. ” Only one has taken it into her head to have a baby. You hear her moan,” she said, pointing to the next car, from which the groans were still proceeding.

“ You ask me whether I do not want something ? ” said Maslova, trying to keep her lips from a smile of joy. ” Can’t this woman be kept here ? She is suffering so much. Can’t you tell the authorities ? ”

” Yes, I will.”

“Another thing. Could she not see Taras, her husband?” she added, indicating smiling Fedosya with her eyes. “ I understand he is travelling with you.”

” Mister, no talking allowed,” was heard the voice of an under-officer of the guard.

This was not the one who had given Nekhlyudov the permission. Nekhlyudov stepped aside and went to find the officer, in order to intercede for the lying-in woman and for Taras, but he could not find him for a long time, nor could he get any answer out of the soldiers of the guard. They were in a great turmoil : some were taking a prisoner somewhere ; others were running to buy provisions for themselves, or placing their things in the cars ; others again were attending to a lady who was travelling with the officer of the guard. They all answered unwillingly to Nekhlyudov’s questions.

Nekhlyudov saw the guard officer after the second bell.

The officer, wiping with his short hand his moustache, which concealed his mouth, and raising his shoulder, was reproaching the sergeant for something.

” What is it you want ? ” he asked Nekhlyudov.

” There is a woman who is in labour pains in the car, so I thought she ought to — ”

” Let her be. We shall see then,” said the officer, walking to his car, and briskly swinging his short arms.

Just then the conductor, with the whistle in his hand, passed by. The last bell was rung, the whistle blown, and among those who were waiting on the platform and in the women’s car were heard weeping and lamentations. Nekhlyudov was standing with Taras on the platform, and watching the cars with the grated windows, and the

shaven heads of men behind them, pass one after another. Then the first woman’s car came abreast of them, and in the window were seen the heads of several women in kerchiefs and without them ; then the second car, in which Mdslova was. She was standing at the window with others and looking at Nekhlyudov, with a pitiable smile on her face.

XXXIX.

There were two hours left before the passenger train, on which Nekhlyudov was to travel, would start. At first he had intended to drive down in the meantime to his sister’s, but now, under the impressions of the morning, he felt so agitated and crushed that, upon sitting down on a sofa in the waiting-room of the first class, he was suddenly so overcome by sleepiness that he turned on his side, put his hand under his cheek, and immediately fell asleep.

He was awakened by a waiter in a dress coat, holding a napkin.

” Mister, mister, are you not Prince Nekhlyudov ? A lady is looking for you.”

Nekhlyudov jumped up, and, rubbing his eyes, recalled where he was and all that had happened on that morning.

In his recollection were the procession of the prisoners, the dead men, the cars with the grated windows, and the women shut up inside, of whom one was in the agony of labour, without receiving any aid, and another pitiably smiled from behind the iron bars.

In reality there was something entirely different in front of him : a table, covered with bottles, vases, candelabra, and dishes, and agile waiters bustling near it. In the back of the hall, in front of a safe, and behind some vases filled with fruit and behind bottles were the buffet-keeper and the backs of travellers at the counter.

Just as Nekhlyudov was changing his lying position for a sitting one, and slowly coming to, he noticed that those who were in the room were looking with curiosity

at something that was taking place at the door. He looked in that direction, and saw a procession of people carrying a lady in a chair, her head being loosely covered with a shawl. The front bearer was a lackey and seemed familiar to Nekhlyudov. The one in the back was also a familiar porter, with galloons on his cap. Back of the chair walked an elegant chambermaid, in apron and curls, carrying a bundle, a round object in a leather case, and umbrellas. Farther behind walked Prince Korchagin in a travelling-cap, displaying his thick lips and apoplectic neck, and expanding his chest ; after him walked Missy, Misha, a cousin, and diplomatist Ôsten, whom Nekhlyudov knew, with his long neck and prominent Adam’s apple, and an ever jolly expression on his face. While walking, he was proving something impressively and, apparently, jocularly, to smiling Missy. Behind them came the doctor, angrily puffing his cigarette.

The Korchagins were moving from their suburban estate to the estate of the prince’s sister, which was down on the Nizhni-Novgorod line.

The procession of the bearers, of the chambermaid, and the doctor proceeded to the ladies’ room, evoking the curiosity and respect of everybody present. The old prince sat down at the table, immediately called a lackey, and began to order something to eat and drink. Missy and Ûsten also stopped in the dining-room and were on the point of sitting down when they noticed a lady of their acquaintance in the door, whom they went up to meet. This lady was Natalya Ivanovna.

Natalya Ivanovna, accompanied by Agraféna Petrovna, looked all around her, as she entered the dining-room. She noticed Missy and her brother about the same time. She first went up to Missy, nodding her head to Nekhlyudov. But, having kissed Missy, she at once went up to her brother.

” At last I have found you,” she said.

Nekhlyudov arose, greeted Missy, Misha, and Ôsten, and stopped to talk to them. Missy told him of the fire on their estate which compelled them to go to her aunt’s. Ôsten used this opportunity to tell a funny anecdote about the fire, z

Nekhlyudov was not listening to Osten, but turned to his sister : ” How glad I am that you have come,” he said.

“ I have been quite awhile here,” she said. ” Agrafena Petrdvna is with me.” She pointed to Agraféna Petrovna, who wore a hat and a mackintosh, and with gracious dignity was bowing confusedly to Nekhlyudov from a distance, not wishing to be in his way. ” We have been looking for you everywhere.”

“ I fell asleep in here. How glad I am you have come,” repeated Nekhlyudov. ” I had begun to write a letter to you,” he said.

” Really ? ” she said, frightened. “ About what ? “

Missy and the gentlemen, noticing that an intimate conversation had begun between brother and sister, walked aside. Nekhlyudov and his sister sat down near the window, on a velvet divan, near somebody’s things, — a plaid and paper boxes.

“ Yesterday, after I left you, I wanted to come back and express my regrets, but I did not know how he would take it,” said Nekhlyudov. ” I did not treat your husband right, and this worried me,” he added.

” I knew, I was convinced,” said his sister, ” that you did not mean to. You know yourself,” and tears stood in her eyes, and she touched his arm. The phrase was not clear, but he understood her quite well, and was touched by what she meant by it. These words meant that in addition to her love which had possession of her, — her love for her husband, — her love for him, her brother, was important and dear to her, and that every misunderstanding with him was a source of great suffering to her.

“Thank, thank you. Ah, what I have seen to-day!” he said, suddenly recalling the second dead prisoner. “Two prisoners were killed.”

“ How do you mean killed ? ”

” I tell you, killed. They were taken out through this heat. Two of them died from sunstroke.”

“ Impossible ! What ? To-day ? A little while ago ? ”

” Yes, a little while ago. I saw their dead bodies.”

” But why did they kill them ? Who killed them ? ” said Natalya Ivdnovna.

“Those killed them who took them by force,” Nekhlyudov said, with irritation, feeling that she looked even at this with the eyes of her husband.

“ All, my God ! ” said Agraféna Petrdvna, coming up to them.

“ Yes, we have not the slightest idea of what is done with these unfortunates, and yet it ought to be known,” added Nekhlyudov, looking at the old prince, who, having tied a napkin around himself, was sitting at the table at a small pitcher, and at the same time glancing at Nekhlyudov.

“Nekhlyudov!” he cried. “Do you want to cool yourself off? It is good for the journey!”

Nekhlyudov declined, and turned away.

“What are you going to do?” proceeded Natalya Ivanovna.

“ Whatever I can. I do not know, but I feel that I must do something. And I will do what I can.”

“ Yes, yes, I understand that. Well, and with these,” she said, smiling and indicating the Korchagins with her eyes, “ is it all absolutely ended ? ”

” Absolutely so, and I think that there are no regrets on either side.”

“ A pity. I am sorry. I love her. Granted it is so. But why do you want to tie yourself ? ” she added, timidly. “Why are you leaving?”

” I am going away because I must,” Nekhlyudov said, dryly and seriously, as though wishing to interrupt the conversation, but he at once felt ashamed of his coldness to his sister. “ Why can’t I tell her everything I think ? ” he thought. “ Let Agrafena Petrovna hear it, too,” he said to himself, looking at the old chambermaid. Agraféna Petrovna’s presence urged him on to repeat his decision to his sister..

“Are you speaking of my intention to marry Katyusha? You see, I have determined to do so, but she lias definitely and firmly refused me,” he said, and his voice trembled, as it always did whenever he thought of it. ” She does not want my sacrifice, and herself sacrifices very much, for one in her situation, but I cannot accept that sacrifice, if that is but a whim. And so 1 am following her up, and will be there where she is, and will do all in my power to help her and to alleviate her lot.”

Natalya Ivdnovna said nothing. Agraféna Petrovna looked questioningly at Natalya Ivanovna and shook her head. Just then the procession started again from the ladies’ room. The same handsome lackey, Filipp, and the porter were carrying the princess. She stopped the bearers, beckoned to Nekhlyudov to come up to her, and, with an expression of pity and pining, gave him her white, ring-bedecked hand, in terror expecting a firm pressure.

“ Épouvantable ! ” she said about the heat, “ I can’t stand it. Ce climat me tue.” Having talked awhile about the terrors of the Russian climate, and having invited him to visit them, she gave a sign to the bearers.

” Be sure and come,” she added, turning her long face to him, while being carried away.

Nekhlyudov went out on the platform. The procession of the princess turned to the right, to the cars of the first class. Nekhlyudov with the porter, who was carrying his things, and with Taras with his bag, went to the left.

” This is my companion,” Nekhlyudov said to his sister, pointing to Taras, whose history he had told her before.

“ You don’t mean to say you will travel third class,” said Natalya Ivanovna, when Nekhlyudov stopped in front of a car of the third class, and the porter with the things and Taras entered it.

“It is more comfortable for me, and Taras and I will be together,” he said. “ By the way,” he added, ” I have not yet given the Kuzminskoe land to the peasants, so, in case of my death, your children will inherit it.”

” Dmitri, stop,” said Natalya Ivanovna.

” And if I should give it to them, 1 must tell you that everything else will be theirs, because there is little chance of my marrying, and if 1 should, there will be no children — so that — ”

“ Dmitri, please don’t say that,” said Natalya Ivdnovna, but Nekhlyudov saw that she was glad to hear that which he told her.

Ahead, in front of the first class, stood a small throng of people, still looking at the car into which Princess Korchagin had been carried. All the other people had already taken their seats. Belated passengers, hurrying, clattered on the boards of the platform ; the conductors slammed the doors and asked the passengers to be seated and their friends to leave.

Nekhlyudov walked into a sunny, hot, and malodorous car, and immediately stepped out on the brake platform. Natalya Ivanovna stood opposite the car, in her fashionable hat and wrap, by the side of Agraféna Petrdvna, and apparently was trying to find a subject for conversation, but was unable to discover any. It was not even possible to say, ” Ecrivez,” because her brother and she had long ago been making fun of this habitual phrase of parting people. That short conversation about money matters and inheritance had at once destroyed all their tender relations of brother and sister, — they now felt estranged from each other. Consequently, Natalya Ivanovna was glad when the train started, and it was possible only to nod, and, with a sad and kindly face, to say, ” Goodbye, Dmitri, goodbye ! ”

The moment the car had left, she began to think how to tell her husband of her conversation with her brother, and her face looked solemn and troubled.

Although Nekhlyudov had none but the very kindest feelings for his sister, and never concealed anything from her, he now felt awkward and oppressed in her presence, and wished to get away from her as soon as possible. He felt that there was no longer that Natalya, who once had been so near to him, but only the slave of a stranger and a disagreeable, swarthy, and hirsute man. He saw this because her face lit up with especial animation only when he said something which interested her husband, — that is, when he spoke about giving away the land to the peasants and about the inheritance, — and that pained him.

1

In the beginning of the eighties five prisoners died in one day from the effects of sunstroke, while being taken from the But/rski Prison to the station of the Nfzhni-Ndvgorod railway.—Author’s Note.

XL.

The heat in the large car of the third class, into which the sun had been shining all day long, and which now was tilled with people, was so stifling that Nekhlyudov did not enter the car, but remained on the brake platform. Even here it was not possible to breathe, and Nekhlyudov drew a deep breath only when the cars came out of the rows of houses, and a fresh breeze began to blow.

” Yes, they have killed them,” he repeated the words which he had said to his sister. In his imagination arose, through all the impressions of that day, with especial vividness, the handsome face of the second dead prisoner, with the smiling expression of his lips, the severe aspect of his forehead, and the small, firhi ear beneath the shaven, livid skull. “The most terrible thing of this all is that he has been killed, and nobody knows who it is that has killed him. There is no doubt about his having been killed. He was led, like all the prisoners, by order of Maslénnikov. Maslénnikov, no doubt, sent forth his habitual order, with his stupid flourish signed a paper with a printed heading, and, of course, in no way will regard himself as guilty. Still less can the prison doctor, who examined the prisoners, consider himself to be guilty. He accurately executed his duty, segregated the weak, and in no way could foresee this terrible heat, nor that they would be taken away so late and in such a throng. The superintendent ? — but the superintendent only executed the order to send out on such and such a day so many enforced labour and deportation convicts, men and women. Nor can the officer of the guard be guilty, whose duty consisted iu receiving a certain number of prisoners and delivering the same to such and such a place. He led the party according to the regulation, and he could not foresee that such strong men as those two whom Nekhlyudov had seen would not hold out and would die. Nobody is guilty, — but the people have been killed, and they have been killed by these very men who are innocent of their deaths.

“All this was done,” thought Nekhlyudov, “because all these people, governors, superintendents, sergeants, policemen, think that there are regulations in the world, in which the relations of man‘to man are not obligatory. If all these people — Maslénnikov, the superintendent, the officer of the guard — were not governors, superintendents, and officers, they would have considered twenty times whether they ought to take out the prisoners in such a heat and iu such large crowds ; they would have stopped twenty times during the march, in order to take out such men as were weakening and falling ill ; they would have taken them into the shade, would have given them water to drink, would have allowed them to rest, and, if a misfortune had happened, would have expressed their compassion. They have not done it, and have even interfered with others who would have done it, because they saw before them, not men and their obligations to them, but their own service and its demands, which they placed higher than the demands of human relations. That is where the trouble is,” thought Nekhlyudov. ” If it is possible to acknowledge that anything is more important than the feeling of humanity, even for one hour and in any one exceptional case, then any crime may be committed against men without a feeling of guilt.”

Nekhlyudov fell to musing, and did not notice how the weather had in the meantime changed : the sun had disappeared behind a low, tattered, advance cloud, and from the western horizon moved a solid, light gray cloud, which somewhere far away was already pouring forth its slanting, abundant rain over fields and woods. A damp, rain-fed breeze was wafted from the stormcloud. Now and then lightnings crossed the cloud, and the rumble of thunder ever more frequently mingled with the rumble of the carwheels. The cloud came nearer and nearer, and slanting drops of rain, driven by the wind, began to wet the brake platform and Nekhlyudov’s overcoat. He went over to the other side, and, inhaling the moist air and the odour of growing corn from the thirsty earth, looked at the passing gardens, forests, yellowing fields of rye, the still green strips of oats and the black furrows of the dark green, flowering potato-beds. Everything looked as though covered with lacquer; that which was green became greener, that which was yellow grew yellower, and that which was black, blacker.

” More, more,” said Nekhlyudov, rejoicing at the sight of fields, gardens, and orchards, which were reviving under the influence of the beneficent rain.

The heavy rain did not come down long. The stormcloud was partly exhausted and partly carried beyond, and only the last, straight, abundant, and tiny drops fell on the damp earth. The sun again peeped out; everything sparkled, and in the west there was arched above the horizon a low, but bright rainbow, with prominent violet hue, discontinuous at one end only.

” What was it I was thinking about ? ” Nekhlyudov asked himself, when all these changes in Nature had taken place, and the train was passing over a road-bed that was raised high above the lower ground.

” Yes, I was thinking that all these people, — the superintendent, the soldiers of the guard, — that all serving people, — most of them meek, kindly people, — have become bad only through service.”

He recalled Maslénnikov’s indifference, when he told him of what was going on in the prison, the severity of the superintendent, the cruelty of the officer of the guard, when he did not permit the men to get into the drays, and when he paid no attention to the woman who was in labour in the car. All these people were apparently immune and impervious to the simplest sense of compassion only because they served. They, as serving people, were impervious to the feeling of humanity, ” as this paved earth is to rain,” thought Nekhlyudov, looking at the incline of the embankment which was paved with many-coloured stones, over which the rain-water flowed down in runlets, without soaking into the earth. “It may be necessary to pave the embankments with stones, but it is sad to see the earth deprived of vegetation, whereas it could have brought forth grain, grass, shrubs, trees, like the land which is to be seen above the ravine. It is just so with men,” thought Nekhlyudov. “ It may be that these governors, superintendents, policemen, are necessary, but it is terrible to see people deprived of their chief human quality, — of love and pity for their fellow men.

” The trouble is,” thought Nekhlyudov, ” that these men accept as law that which is not the law, and do not acknowledge as law that which is an eternal, unchangeable, inalienable law, written by God Himself in the hearts of men. It is this which makes it so hard for me to be with these men,” thought Nekhlyudov. “I am simply afraid of them. Indeed, they are terrible people, — more terrible than robbers. A robber may have pity, — these never can ; they are ensured against pity, as these stones are against vegetation. It is this which makes them so terrible. They say Pugachév and Razin are terrible. These are a thousand times more terrible ! ” he continued to think. ” If a psychological problem were given,— what is to be done in order that people of our time, humane Christians, simply good people, should commit the most atrocious deeds without feeling themselves guilty ? — only one solution would present itself : it is necessary to do that which actually is being done; it is necessary for these people to be governors, superintendents, officers, policemen, that is, they must, in the first place, be convinced that there is a thing called government service where one may treat people as objects, without any human, fraternal relation to them, and, in the second, that the people of this government service must be so interrelated that the responsibility for their treatment of people should fall on no one separately. Outside of these conditions, it is impossible in our day to commit such atrocious deeds as those which I have seen to-day.

” The trouble is that people think that there are conditions under which one may treat men without love, whereas there are no such conditions. Things may be treated without love: one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron, without love ; but people cannot be treated without love, just as one cannot handle bees without care. Such is the property of the bees. If they are carelessly handled by a person, they hurt both themselves and him. Just so it is with people. This cannot be otherwise, because mutual love between men is the fundamental law of human existence. It is true, a man cannot make himself love as he can make himself work, but from this it does not follow that people may be treated without love, especially if something is demanded from them. If you feel no love for men, — keep your peace,” Nekhlyudov thought, addressing himself. ” Busy yourself with yourself, with things, only not with men. Just as one can eat without harm and profitably only when one is hungry, so one may profitably and harmlessly make use of men only as long as one loves them. Permit yourself to treat people without love, just as you yesterday treated your brother-in-law, and there is no limit to cruelty and bestiality in regard to other people, just as I have observed to-day, and there is no limit to suffering, as I have discovered in my own life. Yes, yes, that is so,” thought Nekhlyudov. ” It is good, it is good ! ” he repeated to himself, experiencing the double pleasure of refreshment after the sweltering heat, and of having become conscious of the highest degree of clearness in a question which had been interesting him for a long time.

XLI.

The car, in which Nekhlyüdov’s seat was, was halffilled with people. There were here servants, artisans, factory hands, butchers, Jews, clerks, women, wives of labourers, and there were a soldier, and two ladies,— one young, the other of middle age, with bracelets on her bare wrist, — and a stern-looking gentleman with a cockade in his black cap. All these people, having fixed themselves in their seats, were sitting in orderly fashion, some of them cracking pumpkin seeds, some smoking cigarettes, while others were carrying on animated conversations with their neighbours.

Taras, with happy mien, was sitting to the right of the aisle, keeping a place for Nekhlyudov, and was chatting away with a muscular man in an unbuttoned, sleeveless, cloth coat, sitting opposite him ; Nekhlyudov later learned that he was a gardener travelling to take a job. Before walking up to Tarés, Nekhlyudov stopped in the aisle near a respectable-looking old man with a white beard, in a nankeen coat, who was conversing with a young woman in village attire. At the woman’s side sat a seven-year-old girl, in a new sleeveless coat, with a braid of almost white hair. Her feet dangled way above the floor, and she cracked seeds all the time.

Upon noticing Nekhlyudov, the old man pushed aside the fold of his coat from the shining bench, on which he was sitting, and said, in a kind voice :

” Please be seated.”

Nekhlyudov thanked him and took the indicated seat When he had done that, the woman continued her interrupted story.

She was telling how her husband, from whom she was returning now, had received her in the city.

” I was there in Butter-week, and now God has granted that I should be there again,” she said. “ And now, if God shall permit it, I shall see him again at Christmas.”

” That is good,” said the old man, looking at Nekhlyudov. ” You must watch him, or else a young man, living in the city, will soon get spoiled.”

” No, grandfather, mine is not that kind of a man. He not only does not do anything foolish, he is like a maiden. He sends all his money home, to the last cent. And he was so glad to see the girl, — I can hardly tell you how happy he was,” said the woman, smiling.

The little girl, who was spitting out the shells and listening to her mother, looked with quiet, intelligent eyes at the faces of the old man and of Nekhlyudov.

“If he is clever, so much the better,” said the old man. ” And does he busy himself with this ? ” he added, with bis eyes indicating a pair, man and wife, apparently factory hands, who were sitting on the other side of the aisle.

The man had put a brandy bottle to his mouth, and, throwing his head back, was taking some swallows from it, while his wife was holding a bag in her hand, from which the bottle had been taken, and looking fixedly at her husband.

” No, mine neither drinks nor smokes,” said the woman, the old man’s interlocutrice, using the opportunity to praise up her husband once more. ” The earth brings forth few such men as he is. That’s the kind of a man he is,” she said, turning to Nekhlyudov.

” Nothing better,” repeated the old man, who was watching the drinking factory workman. The workman, having had his fill, handed the bottle to his wife. She took it and, smiling and shaking her head, put it to her mouth. Upon noticing Nekhlyudov’s and the old man’s glances, the workman turned to them.

” Ah, sir, you are wondering why we are drinking ? When we work, no one sees us, but when we drink, all watch us. When I earn money, I drink and treat my spouse, and nobody else.”

” Yes, yes,” said Nekhlyudov, not knowing what to answer.

” Is it right, sir ? My spouse is a firm woman ! I am satisfied with my spouse, because she knows how to pity. Do I say right, Mdvra ? “

” Take it ; I do not want any more,” said his wife, giving him the bottle. ” Don’t prattle senselessly,” she added.

” That’s it,” continued the workman, “ she is all right, but she squeaks like an ungreased wagon. Mavra, do I say right ? ”

Mavra, laughing, with a drunken gesture waved her hand.

” You are frisky — “

” That’s it, she is all right, as long as she is all right, but when the reins get under her tail, she carries on awfully — lam telling the truth. You must excuse me, sir. I have drunk some, — well, what is to be done ? ” said the workman. He put his head into his wife’s lap and was getting ready to fall asleep.

Nekhlyudov sat awhile with the old man, who told him about himself. He said that he was a stove-builder, that he had worked for fifty-three years, putting up an endless number of stoves in his lifetime, and that he was now trying to take a rest, but could not get the time for it. He had been in the city, where he had put the boys to work, and now he was on his way to the village, to see how his people were getting on. After having listened to the old man’s story, Nekhlyudov arose and went over to the place which Taras had reserved for him.

“ Well, sir, take a seat. I shall take the sack over here,” kindly remarked the gardener, who was sitting opposite Taras, looking up at Nekhlyudov’s face.

“Though it is crowded, no offence is meant,” smiling Tards said, in a chanting voice, lifting up his seventypound bag like a feather in his powerful hands and carrying it over to the window. ” There is plenty of room here, and we can stand, or go down under the bench. It is quiet there. What ponsense I am saying ! ” he said, beaming with good nature and kindness.

Tarés said of himself that when he did not drink he could not find words, but that liquor gave him good words, and he could express himself well. Indeed, when sober, Taras was generally silent ; but when he took some liquor, which happened rarely and only on special occasions, he became unusually communicative. He then spoke a great deal, and he spoke well, with great simplicity, truthfulness, and, above everything else, with gentleness, which shone in his kindly blue eyes, and with a pleasing smile, which did not leave his lips.

He was in such a state now. Nekhlyudov’s arrival for a moment stopped his narrative. But, having found a place for his bag, he sat down in his old place, and putting his strong working hands on his knees, and looking straight into the gardener’s eyes, continued his story. He was telling his new acquaintance all the details of his wife’s story, why she was being deported, and why he followed her up to Siberia.

Nekhlyudov had never heard all the details of this story, and so he listened with interest. The story had reached the point where the poisoning had been done, and the family found out that Feddsya had done it.

” I am telling about my sorrow,” said Taras, turning to Nekhlyudov, with an expression of friendly intimacy. ” I have fallen in with a nice man, and so I am telling him my story.”

” Yes, yes,” said Nekhlyudov.

” So, my friend, the affair was discovered in this manner. Mother took that very cake and said, ‘ I am going to the officer.’ — My father, who is a wise old man, said, ‘ Wait, old woman ! She is a mere child ; she does not know herself what she has done, and you ought to pity her. She may regret her deed.’ — No, she would not listen to his words. — ‘ While we are keeping her, she will destroy us like cockroaches.’ — So she went to the officer. He immediately made for our house, and brought the constables with him.”

“And how was it with you ?” asked the gardener.

“ My friend, I was tossing about, with a pain in my belly, and vomiting. It turned all my inside out, — it was worse than I can tell you. Father at once hitched the horses to the wagon, put Feddsya in it, and took her to the village office, and thence to the examining magistrate. And just as she had at first confessed her guilt, so she now told the magistrate everything, — where she got the arsenic, and how she had made the cake. — ‘ Why,’ says he, ‘did you do it?’ — ‘Because,’ says she, ‘I am tired of him. In Siberia,’ says she, ‘ I shall be better off than with him,’ — that’s me, you see,” Tards said, smiling. — “ She confessed everything. Of course, she was sent to jail. Father came back alone. And there came working time, and all the women we had was mother, and she was not strong. We wondered whether we could not get her out on bail. Father went to see some officer, but nothing came of it ; then father went to see another. He saw five men that way, but all in vain. He had just about given up trying, when he fell in with a clerk. He was sleek, — a rare man. — ‘Give me,’ says he,‘a five, and I will help you.’ — They made a bargain at three roubles. My friend, I had to pawn her linen to get the money. And so he wrote a document,” Tards stretched out his arm, as though he were speaking of a shot, “ and it came out all at once. By that time I was already up from bed, and I myself went to town for her.

“ And so, my friend, I came to town. I left my mare at a hostelry, took my document, and went to the prison.

— * What do you want ?’ — ‘So and so,’ says I, ‘ my wife is locked up here.’ — ‘Have you a document?’ says he.

— I gave it to him. He looked at it. ‘ Wait,’ says he. I sat down on a bench. The sun was past noon. Comes in the chief. ‘ Are you,’ says he, ‘ Vargushdv ? ’— ‘I am.’

— ‘ Take her,’ says he. — They opened the gate. They brought her out in her garb, as is proper. — ‘ Come, let us go.’ — ‘Are you on foot?’ — ‘No, I have brought the horse with me.’ — We went to the hostelry ; I paid my bill, harnessed the mare, and put what hay there was left under the mat. She took her seat, wrapped herself in her kerchief, and off we went. She was silent, and so was I. As we were getting near the house, she said : ‘ Is mother alive ? ’ — ‘ She is.’ — ‘ Forgive me, Taras, my stupidity. I did not know myself what 1 was doing.’ — But I said : ‘ Whatever you may say, you will make very little change, because I have forgiven you long ago.’ — She did not say another word. When we came home, she fell down at mother’s feet. Says mother: ‘What is the use recalling the past ? Do the best you can. Now,’ says she, ‘ there is no time, — we have to reap the field. Back of Skorddnoe,’ says she, ‘on the manured plot, God has given us such a crop of rye that you can’t get at it with a hook ; it is all tangled up and lying flat. It has to be reaped. So you go there with Taras tomorrow, and reap it.’ — And so she went and began to work. It was a sight to see her work. We had then three rented desyatmas, and God had given us a rare crop of rye and oats. I would cut with the sickle, and she would bind, or we would both cut with the scythe. I am a good hand at work, but she is better still at anything she may do. She is a quick worker and young. And she grew so industrious that I had to hold her back. When we came to the house, our fingers would be swollen, and our hands would smart, so that we ought to have taken a rest, but she would run to the barn, without eating supper, in order to get the sheaf-cords ready for the morrow. It was just dreadful !”

” And was she kind to you ? ” asked the gardener.

” You would not believe me how she stuck to me, — she just became one soul with me. I would barely think of a thing, when she would understand me. Even my mother, who is a cross woman, used to say : ‘ Feddsya acts as though she were somebody else, — she is a different woman.’ — Once we were both going for sheaves, and we were sitting both together. So I said to her : ‘What made you do it, Feddsya?’— ‘ I just did it,’ says she, ‘ because I did not want to live with you. I would rather die, thought I, than live with you.’ — ‘Well, and now ? ‘ says I. — ‘ And now,’ says she, ‘ you are deep in my heart.’ ” Tards stopped and, smiling joyfully, shook his head in surprise. “ We had returned from the field, and I had gone to soak some hemp; just as I came home,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “ behold, a summons : the trial was on. We had in the meantime forgotten that there was to be a trial.”

“This was no other but the unclean one,” said the gardener. “ No man would have thought of ruining a soul. There was once a man in our village — ” and the gardener began to tell a story, but the train stopped. “ Here is a station,” he said, “ I must go and get a drink.”

The conversation was interrupted, and Nekhlyudov followed the gardener out of the car, upon the wet planks of the platform.

XLIL

Even before coming out of the car, Nekhlyudov had noticed several elegant carriages, drawn by sets of three and of four well-fed horses tinkling with their bells. When he came out on the wet platform, which looked black from the rain, he saw a gathering of people in front of the first class. Among them was most prominent a tall, stout lady in a mackintosh, with a hat of expensive feathers, and a lank young man with thin legs, in bicycle costume, with an immense well-fed dog with an expensive collar. Back of them stood lackeys with wraps and umbrellas, and a coachman, who had come to meet somebody. On all that crowd, from the stout lady to the coachman, who with one hand was supporting the skirts of his long caftan, lay the seal of quiet self-confidence and superabundance. About this point soon was formed a circle of curious men, servilely admiring wealth : they were the chief of the station, a gendarme, a haggard maid in a native costume, with glass beads, always present in the summer at the arrival of trains, the despatch er, and passengers, men and women.

In the young man with the dog, Nekhlyudov recognized a gymnasiast, young Korchagin. The stout lady was the princess’s sister, to whose estate the Korchdgins were going. The chief conductor, in shining galloons and boots, opened the door of the car and held the door, in token of respect, while Filipp and a labourer in a white apron carefully carried out the long-faced princess in her folding chair. The sisters greeted each other ; there were heard French phrases about whether the princess would travel in a carriage or in a barouche ; and the procession, which was ended by the chambermaid with the curls, carrying the umbrellas and the box, moved to the door of the station.

Nekhlyudov, who did not wish to meet them, because he did not wish to bid them farewell again, did not walk up as far as the door, but waited for the procession to pass. The princess with her son, Missy, the doctor, and the chambermaid went first, while the prince stopped to talk to his sister-in-law, and Nekhlyudov, who did not walk up close, caught only broken sentences of their conversation, which was in French. One of these phrases, as frequently is the case, impressed itself deeply on Nekhlyudov’s memory, with all its intonations and sounds. “Oh, il est du vrai grand monde, du vrai grand monde” the prince was saying of some one, in his loud, self-confident voice. He passed with his sister-in-law through the station door, accompanied by the respectful conductors and porters.

Just then a throng of workingmen in bast shoes and short fur coats, with bags over their shoulders, made their appearance on the platform from somewhere around the corner of the station. The workingmen with firm, soft steps walked up to the first car and wanted to enter, but were driven off by the conductor. They did not stop, but, hastening, and stepping on each other’s feet, went to the next car, and, catching with their bags in the corners and doors of the car, were making their way in, when a conductor standing in the door of the station noticed their intention and angrily called out to them. The workingmen hastily retreated, and with the same soft steps went on to the next car, the one Nekhlyudov was in. Again a conductor stopped them. They stopped, intending to move on, but Nekhlyudov told them that there were unoccupied seats in the car, and that they should go in. They did so, and Nekhlyudov went in after them. The workingmen were on the point of seating themselves, but the gentleman with the cockade and the two ladies, taking their attempt to seat themselves in this car as a personal affront, resolutely opposed them and began to drive them out. The workingmen, — there were about twenty of them, — both old and young men, with tired, sunburnt, lean faces, catching with their bags against the benches, walls, and doors, apparently feeling themselves absolutely guilty, passed on through the car, evidently ready to walk to the end of the world, and to sit down anywhere they should be permitted to, even on nails.

“ Where are you going, devils ? Sit down,” cried another conductor, who came from the opposite direction.

” Voilà encore des nouvelles,” said the younger of the two ladies, quite convinced that she would attract Nekhlyudov’s attention with her good French.

The lady with the bracelets kept sniffing and frowning, saying something about the pleasure of sitting in the same car with stinking peasants.

The workingmen, experiencing joy and peace, such as people experience who have passed a great peril, stopped and began to seat themselves, with a motion of their shoulders throwing down the heavy bags from their shoulders and pushing them under the benches.

The gardener who had been speaking with Taras went back to his seat, which was not the one he had occupied, and so, near Taras and opposite him, three places were free. Three workingmen sat down on these seats, but when Nekhlyudov came up to them, the sight of his fine clothes so confused them that they got up ; Nekhlyudov asked them to keep their seats, and himself sat down on the arm of the bench, near the aisle.

One of two workingmen, a man of about fifty years of age, in dismay and fright looked at the younger man. They were very much surprised and baffied to see a

gentleman give up his seat to them, instead of calling them names and driving them away, as gentlemen generally do. They were even afraid lest something bad should come from it. Seeing, however, that there was no trickery in it, and that Nekhlyudov conversed in a simple manner with Taras, they quieted down, told a youngster to sit down on a bag, and insisted on Nekhlyudov’s taking the seat. At first the elderly workingman, who was seated opposite Nekhlyudov, pressed himself in the corner, and carefully drew back his feet, which were clad in bast shoes, in order not to push the gentleman, but later he entered into such a friendly chat with Nekhlyudov and Taras that he even struck Nekhlyudov’s knee with the back of his hand, whenever he wished to attract his attention to some particular point in his story. He was telling about all his affairs, and about his work in the peat-bogs, from which they were now returning, having worked there for two months and a half. They were taking home about ten roubles each, as part of the wages had been given them when they were hired.

Their work, as he told it, was done in water which stood knee-deep, and lasted from daybreak until night, with two hours intermission at dinner.

“ Those who are not used to it naturally find it hard,” he said, ” but if you are used to it, it is not bad. If only the grub were good. At first it was bad. But the workingmen objected, and then the grub was better, and it was easier to work.”

Then he told how he had been working out for twentyeight years, and how he gave his earnings, first to his father, then to his elder brother, and now to his nephew, who was in charge of the farm, while he himself spent, out of the fifty or sixty roubles which he earned a year, two or three roubles on foolishness, — on tobacco and matches.

“ I, sinful man, sometimes take a drink of brandy, when work stops,” he added, smiling a guilty smile.

He also told how the women looked after things at home ; how the contractor had treated them before their journey to half a bucket ; how one had died ; and how they were taking one sick man home. The sick man, of whom he spoke, was sitting in the same car, in a corner. He was a young boy, grayish pale in his face, with blue lips. He was apparently suffering with the ague.

Nekhlyudov went up to him, but the boy looked with such a stern, suffering glance at him, that Nekhlyudov did not trouble him with questions, but only advised an elder man to buy quinine, and wrote out the name of the medicine on a piece of paper for him. He wanted to give him money, but the old workingman said that it was not necessary, that he would give his. *

” As much as I have travelled, I have not seen such gentlemen. He not only did not kick me, but even gave me his seat. Apparently there are all kinds of gentlemen,” he concluded, addressing Taras.

” Yes, it is a new, a different and a new, world,” thought Nekhlyudov, looking at these drawn, muscular limbs, these coarse, homemade garments, and these sunburnt, kindly, and exhausted faces, and feeling himself surrounded on all sides by entirely new men, with then-serious interests, joys, and sufferings of a real, busy, and human life.

” Here it is, le vrai grand monde ” thought Nekhlyudov, recalling the phrase which had been used by Prince Korchagin, and all that empty, luxurious world of the Korchdgins, with their petty, miserable interests. And he experienced the sensation of a traveller who has discovered a new, unknown, and beautiful world.