Resurrection
pour votre cheval,_ for not appearing in time. I remembered it last
night after you were gone, so do not forget.
Princess M. Korchagin.
On the other side was a postscript.
_Maman vous fait dire que votre convert vous attendra jusqu’a la nuit.
Venez absolument a quelle heure que cela soit._
M. K.
Nekhludoff made a grimace. This note was a continuation of that skilful
manoeuvring which the Princess Korchagin had already practised for two
months in order to bind him closer and closer with invisible threads.
And yet, beside the usual hesitation of men past their youth to marry
unless they are very much in love, Nekhludoff had very good reasons why,
even if he did make up his mind to it, he could not propose at once. It
was not that ten years previously he had betrayed and forsaken Maslova;
he had quite forgotten that, and he would not have considered it a
reason for not marrying. No! The reason was that he had a liaison with a
married woman, and, though he considered it broken off, she did not.
Nekhludoff was rather shy with women, and his very shyness awakened in
this married woman, the unprincipled wife of the marechal de noblesse
of a district where Nekhludoff was present at an election, the desire
of vanquishing him. This woman drew him into an intimacy which entangled
him more and more, while it daily became more distasteful to him. Having
succumbed to the temptation, Nekhludoff felt guilty, and had not the
courage to break the tie without her consent. And this was the reason he
did not feel at liberty to propose to Korchagin even if he had wished to
do so. Among the letters on the table was one from this woman’s husband.
Seeing his writing and the postmark, Nekhludoff flushed, and felt his
energies awakening, as they always did when he was facing any kind of
danger.
But his excitement passed at once. The marechal do noblesse, of the
district in which his largest estate lay, wrote only to let Nekhludoff
know that there was to be a special meeting towards the end of May, and
that Nekhludoff was to be sure and come to “_donner un coup d’epaule_,”
at the important debates concerning the schools and the roads, as a
strong opposition by the reactionary party was expected.
The marechal was a liberal, and was quite engrossed in this fight, not
even noticing the misfortune that had befallen him.
Nekhludoff remembered the dreadful moments he had lived through; once
when he thought that the husband had found him out and was going to
challenge him, and he was making up his mind to fire into the air; also
the terrible scene he had with her when she ran out into the park, and
in her excitement tried to drown herself in the pond.
“Well, I cannot go now, and can do nothing until I get a reply from
her,” thought Nekhludoff. A week ago he had written her a decisive
letter, in which he acknowledged his guilt, and his readiness to atone
for it; but at the same time he pronounced their relations to be at an
end, for her own good, as he expressed it. To this letter he had as yet
received no answer. This might prove a good sign, for if she did not
agree to break off their relations, she would have written at once, or
even come herself, as she had done before. Nekhludoff had heard that
there was some officer who was paying her marked attention, and this
tormented him by awakening jealousy, and at the same time encouraged him
with the hope of escape from the deception that was oppressing him.
The other letter was from his steward. The steward wrote to tell
him that a visit to his estates was necessary in order to enter into
possession, and also to decide about the further management of his
lands; whether it was to continue in the same way as when his mother was
alive, or whether, as he had represented to the late lamented princess,
and now advised the young prince, they had not better increase their
stock and farm all the land now rented by the peasants themselves. The
steward wrote that this would be a far more profitable way of managing
the property; at the same time, he apologised for not having forwarded
the 3,000 roubles income due on the 1st. This money would be sent on by
the next mail. The reason for the delay was that he could not get the
money out of the peasants, who had grown so untrustworthy that he had
to appeal to the authorities. This letter was partly disagreeable, and
partly pleasant. It was pleasant to feel that he had power over so
large a property, and yet disagreeable, because Nekhludoff had been an
enthusiastic admirer of Henry George and Herbert Spencer. Being himself
heir to a large property, he was especially struck by the position
taken up by Spencer in Social Statics, that justice forbids private
landholding, and with the straightforward resoluteness of his age, had
not merely spoken to prove that land could not be looked upon as private
property, and written essays on that subject at the university, but had
acted up to his convictions, and, considering it wrong to hold landed
property, had given the small piece of land he had inherited from his
father to the peasants. Inheriting his mother’s large estates, and thus
becoming a landed proprietor, he had to choose one of two things: either
to give up his property, as he had given up his father’s land ten years
before, or silently to confess that all his former ideas were mistaken
and false.
He could not choose the former because he had no means but the landed
estates (he did not care to serve); moreover, he had formed luxurious
habits which he could not easily give up. Besides, he had no longer the
same inducements; his strong convictions, the resoluteness of youth, and
the ambitious desire to do something unusual were gone. As to the second
course, that of denying those clear and unanswerable proofs of the
injustice of landholding, which he had drawn from Spencer’s Social
Statics, and the brilliant corroboration of which he had at a later
period found in the works of Henry George, such a course was impossible
to him.
CHAPTER IV.
MISSY.
When Nekhludoff had finished his coffee, he went to his study to look
at the summons, and find out what time he was to appear at the court,
before writing his answer to the princess. Passing through his studio,
where a few studies hung on the walls and, facing the easel, stood an
unfinished picture, a feeling of inability to advance in art, a sense of
his incapacity, came over him. He had often had this feeling, of late,
and explained it by his too finely-developed aesthetic taste; still, the
feeling was a very unpleasant one. Seven years before this he had given
up military service, feeling sure that he had a talent for art, and had
looked down with some disdain at all other activity from the height of
his artistic standpoint. And now it turned out that he had no right
to do so, and therefore everything that reminded him of all this was
unpleasant. He looked at the luxurious fittings of the studio with a
heavy heart, and it was in no cheerful mood that he entered his study,
a large, lofty room fitted up with a view to comfort, convenience,
and elegant appearance. He found the summons at once in a pigeon hole,
labelled “immediate,” of his large writing table. He had to appear at
the court at 11 o’clock.
Nekhludoff sat down to write a note in reply to the princess, thanking
her for the invitation, and promising to try and come to dinner. Having
written one note, he tore it up, as it seemed too intimate. He wrote
another, but it was too cold; he feared it might give offence, so he
tore it up, too. He pressed the button of an electric bell, and his
servant, an elderly, morose-looking man, with whiskers and shaved chin
and lip, wearing a grey cotton apron, entered at the door.
“Send to fetch an isvostchik, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And tell the person who is waiting that I send thanks for the
invitation, and shall try to come.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It is not very polite, but I can’t write; no matter, I shall see her
today,” thought Nekhludoff, and went to get his overcoat.
When he came out of the house, an isvostchik he knew, with india-rubber
tires to his trap, was at the door waiting for him. “You had hardly gone
away from Prince Korchagin’s yesterday,” he said, turning half round,
“when I drove up, and the Swiss at the door says, ‘just gone.’” The
isvostchik knew that Nekhludoff visited at the Korchagins, and called
there on the chance of being engaged by him.
“Even the isvostchiks know of my relations with the Korchagins,” thought
Nekhludoff, and again the question whether he should not marry Princess
Korchagin presented itself to him, and he could not decide it either
way, any more than most of the questions that arose in his mind at this
time.
It was in favour of marriage in general, that besides the comforts
of hearth and home, it made a moral life possible, and chiefly that a
family would, so Nekhludoff thought, give an aim to his now empty life.
Against marriage in general was the fear, common to bachelors past
their first youth, of losing freedom, and an unconscious awe before this
mysterious creature, a woman.
In this particular case, in favour of marrying Missy (her name was Mary,
but, as is usual among a certain set, a nickname had been given her)
was that she came of good family, and differed in everything, manner
of speaking, walking, laughing, from the common people, not by anything
exceptional, but by her “good breeding”--he could find no other term
for this quality, though he prized it very highly---and, besides, she
thought more of him than of anybody else, therefore evidently understood
him. This understanding of him, i.e., the recognition of his superior
merits, was to Nekhludoff a proof of her good sense and correct
judgment. Against marrying Missy in particular, was, that in all
likelihood, a girl with even higher qualities could be found, that she
was already 27, and that he was hardly her first love. This last idea
was painful to him. His pride would not reconcile itself with the
thought that she had loved some one else, even in the past. Of course,
she could not have known that she should meet him, but the thought that
she was capable of loving another offended him. So that he had as many
reasons for marrying as against it; at any rate, they weighed equally
with Nekhludoff, who laughed at himself, and called himself the ass of
the fable, remaining like that animal undecided which haycock to turn
to.
“At any rate, before I get an answer from Mary Vasilievna (the
marechal’s wife), and finish completely with her, I can do nothing,” he
said to himself. And the conviction that he might, and was even obliged,
to delay his decision, was comforting. “Well, I shall consider all that
later on,” he said to himself, as the trap drove silently along the
asphalt pavement up to the doors of the Court.
“Now I must fulfil my public duties conscientiously, as I am in the
habit of always doing, and as I consider it right to do. Besides, they
are often interesting.” And he entered the hall of the Law Courts, past
the doorkeeper.
CHAPTER V.
THE JURYMEN.
The corridors of the Court were already full of activity. The attendants
hurried, out of breath, dragging their feet along the ground without
lifting them, backwards and forwards, with all sorts of messages and
papers. Ushers, advocates, and law officers passed hither and thither.
Plaintiffs, and those of the accused who were not guarded, wandered
sadly along the walls or sat waiting.
“Where is the Law Court?” Nekhludoff asked of an attendant.
“Which? There is the Civil Court and the Criminal Court.”
“I am on the jury.”
“The Criminal Court you should have said. Here to the right, then to the
left--the second door.”