Resurrection
“I was so ill myself, I nearly died,” she said, in the same quiet voice,
which Nekhludoff had not expected and could not understand.
“How could my aunts have let you go?”
“Who keeps a servant that has a baby? They sent me off as soon as
they noticed. But why speak of this? I remember nothing. That’s all
finished.”
“No, it is not finished; I wish to redeem my sin.”
“There’s nothing to redeem. What’s been has been and is passed,” she
said; and, what he never expected, she looked at him and smiled in an
unpleasantly luring, yet piteous, manner.
Maslova never expected to see him again, and certainly not here and not
now; therefore, when she first recognised him, she could not keep back
the memories which she never wished to revive. In the first moment she
remembered dimly that new, wonderful world of feeling and of thought
which had been opened to her by the charming young man who loved her
and whom she loved, and then his incomprehensible cruelty and the whole
string of humiliations and suffering which flowed from and followed that
magic joy. This gave her pain, and, unable to understand it, she did
what she was always in the habit of doing, she got rid of these memories
by enveloping them in the mist of a depraved life. In the first moment,
she associated the man now sitting beside her with the lad she had
loved; but feeling that this gave her pain, she dissociated them again.
Now, this well-dressed, carefully-got-up gentleman with perfumed beard
was no longer the Nekhludoff whom she had loved but only one of the
people who made use of creatures like herself when they needed them,
and whom creatures like herself had to make use of in their turn as
profitably as they could; and that is why she looked at him with a
luring smile and considered silently how she could best make use of him.
“That’s all at an end,” she said. “Now I’m condemned to Siberia,” and
her lip trembled as she was saying this dreadful word.
“I knew; I was certain you were not guilty,” said Nekhludoff.
“Guilty! of course not; as if I could be a thief or a robber.” She
stopped, considering in what way she could best get something out of
him.
“They say here that all depends on the advocate,” she began. “A petition
should be handed in, only they say it’s expensive.”
“Yes, most certainly,” said Nekhludoff. “I have already spoken to an
advocate.”
“No money ought to be spared; it should be a good one,” she said.
“I shall do all that is possible.”
They were silent, and then she smiled again in the same way.
“And I should like to ask you . . . a little money if you can . . . not
much; ten roubles, I do not want more,” she said, suddenly.
“Yes, yes,” Nekhludoff said, with a sense of confusion, and felt for his
purse.
She looked rapidly at the inspector, who was walking up and down the
room. “Don’t give it in front of him; he’d take it away.”
Nekhludoff took out his purse as soon as the inspector had turned his
back; but had no time to hand her the note before the inspector faced
them again, so he crushed it up in his hand.
“This woman is dead,” Nekhludoff thought, looking at this once sweet,
and now defiled, puffy face, lit up by an evil glitter in the black,
squinting eyes which were now glancing at the hand in which he held
the note, then following the inspector’s movements, and for a moment he
hesitated. The tempter that had been speaking to him in the night again
raised its voice, trying to lead him out of the realm of his inner into
the realm of his outer life, away from the question of what he should
do to the question of what the consequences would be, and what would be
practical.
“You can do nothing with this woman,” said the voice; “you will only
tie a stone round your neck, which will help to drown you and hinder you
from being useful to others.
“Is it not better to give her all the money that is here, say good-bye,
and finish with her forever?” whispered the voice.
But here he felt that now, at this very moment, something most important
was taking place in his soul--that his inner life was, as it were,
wavering in the balance, so that the slightest effort would make it sink
to this side or the other. And he made this effort by calling to his
assistance that God whom he had felt in his soul the day before, and
that God instantly responded. He resolved to tell her everything now--at
once.
“Katusha, I have come to ask you to forgive me, and you have given me no
answer. Have you forgiven me? Will you ever forgive me?” he asked.
She did not listen to him, but looked at his hand and at the inspector,
and when the latter turned she hastily stretched out her hand, grasped
the note, and hid it under her belt.
“That’s odd, what you are saying there,” she said, with a smile of
contempt, as it seemed to him.
Nekhludoff felt that there was in her soul one who was his enemy and who
was protecting her, such as she was now, and preventing him from getting
at her heart. But, strange to say, this did not repel him, but drew him
nearer to her by some fresh, peculiar power. He knew that he must waken
her soul, that this was terribly difficult, but the very difficulty
attracted him. He now felt towards her as he had never felt towards her
or any one else before. There was nothing personal in this feeling: he
wanted nothing from her for himself, but only wished that she might not
remain as she now was, that she might awaken and become again what she
had been.
“Katusha, why do you speak like that? I know you; I remember you--and
the old days in Papovo.”
“What’s the use of recalling what’s past?” she remarked, drily.
“I am recalling it in order to put it right, to atone for my sin,
Katusha,” and he was going to say that he would marry her, but,
meeting her eyes, he read in them something so dreadful, so coarse, so
repellent, that he could not go on.
At this moment the visitors began to go. The inspector came up to
Nekhludoff and said that the time was up.
“Good-bye; I have still much to say to you, but you see it is impossible
to do so now,” said Nekhludoff, and held out his hand. “I shall come
again.”
“I think you have said all.”
She took his hand but did not press it.
“No; I shall try to see you again, somewhere where we can talk, and then
I shall tell you what I have to say-something very important.”
“Well, then, come; why not?” she answered, and smiled with that
habitual, inviting, and promising smile which she gave to the men whom
she wished to please.
“You are more than a sister to me,” said Nekhludoff.
“That’s odd,” she said again, and went behind the grating.
CHAPTER XLIV.
MASLOVA’S VIEW OF LIFE.
Before the first interview, Nekhludoff thought that when she saw him
and knew of his intention to serve her, Katusha would be pleased and
touched, and would be Katusha again; but, to his horror, he found
that Katusha existed no more, and there was Maslova in her place. This
astonished and horrified him.
What astonished him most was that Katusha was not ashamed of her
position--not the position of a prisoner (she was ashamed of that), but
her position as a prostitute. She seemed satisfied, even proud of it.
And, yet, how could it be otherwise? Everybody, in order to be able to
act, has to consider his occupation important and good. Therefore, in
whatever position a person is, he is certain to form such a view of the
life of men in general which will make his occupation seem important and
good.
It is usually imagined that a thief, a murderer, a spy, a prostitute,
acknowledging his or her profession as evil, is ashamed of it. But the
contrary is true. People whom fate and their sin-mistakes have placed in
a certain position, however false that position may be, form a view of
life in general which makes their position seem good and admissible. In
order to keep up their view of life, these people instinctively keep to
the circle of those people who share their views of life and their own
place in it. This surprises us, where the persons concerned are thieves,
bragging about their dexterity, prostitutes vaunting their depravity, or
murderers boasting of their cruelty. This surprises us only because the
circle, the atmosphere in which these people live, is limited, and we
are outside it. But can we not observe the same phenomenon when the rich
boast of their wealth, i.e., robbery; the commanders in the army pride
themselves on victories, i.e., murder; and those in high places vaunt
their power, i.e., violence? We do not see the perversion in the views
of life held by these people, only because the circle formed by them is
more extensive, and we ourselves are moving inside of it.
And in this manner Maslova had formed her views of life and of her own
position. She was a prostitute condemned to Siberia, and yet she had a
conception of life which made it possible for her to be satisfied with
herself, and even to pride herself on her position before others.
According to this conception, the highest good for all men without
exception--old, young, schoolboys, generals, educated and uneducated,
was connected with the relation of the sexes; therefore, all men, even
when they pretended to be occupied with other things, in reality
took this view. She was an attractive woman, and therefore she was an
important and necessary person. The whole of her former and present life
was a confirmation of the correctness of this conception.
With such a view of life, she was by no means the lowest, but a very
important person. And Maslova prized this view of life more than
anything; she could not but prize it, for, if she lost the importance
that such a view of life gave her among men, she would lose the meaning
of her life. And, in order not to lose the meaning of her life, she
instinctively clung to the set that looked at life in the same way as
she did. Feeling that Nekhludoff wanted to lead her out into another
world, she resisted him, foreseeing that she would have to lose her
place in life, with the self-possession and self-respect it gave her.
For this reason she drove from her the recollections of her early youth
and her first relations with Nekhludoff. These recollections did not
correspond with her present conception of the world, and were therefore
quite rubbed out of her mind, or, rather, lay somewhere buried and
untouched, closed up and plastered over so that they should not escape,
as when bees, in order to protect the result of their labour, will
sometimes plaster a nest of worms. Therefore, the present Nekhludoff
was not the man she had once loved with a pure love, but only a rich
gentleman whom she could, and must, make use of, and with whom she could
only have the same relations as with men in general.
“No, I could not tell her the chief thing,” thought Nekhludoff, moving
towards the front doors with the rest of the people. “I did not tell her
that I would marry her; I did not tell her so, but I will,” he thought.
The two warders at the door let out the visitors, counting them again,
and touching each one with their hands, so that no extra person should
go out, and none remain within. The slap on his shoulder did not offend
Nekhludoff this time; he did not even notice it.
CHAPTER XLV.
FANARIN, THE ADVOCATE--THE PETITION.
Nekhludoff meant to rearrange the whole of his external life, to let
his large house and move to an hotel, but Agraphena Petrovna pointed out
that it was useless to change anything before the winter. No one would
rent a town house for the summer; anyhow, he would have to live and keep
his things somewhere. And so all his efforts to change his manner
of life (he meant to live more simply: as the students live) led to
nothing. Not only did everything remain as it was, but the house was