Resurrection
Their faces looked haggard and cross. The dark faces of the carters
jolting along in their carts bore the same expression, and so did the
faces of the tattered men and women who stood begging at the street
corners. The same kind of faces were to be seen at the open, windows of
the eating-houses which Nekhludoff passed. By the dirty tables on which
stood tea things and bottles, and between which waiters dressed in white
shirts were rushing hither and thither, sat shouting and singing red,
perspiring men with stupefied faces. One sat by the window with
lifted brows and pouting lips and fixed eyes as if trying to remember
something.
“And why are they all gathered here?” Nekhludoff thought, breathing
in together with the dust which the cold wind blew towards him the air
filled with the smell of rank oil and fresh paint.
In one street he met a row of carts loaded with something made of iron,
that rattled so on the uneven pavement that it made his ears and head
ache. He started walking still faster in order to pass the row of carts,
when he heard himself called by name. He stopped and saw an officer with
sharp pointed moustaches and shining face who sat in the trap of a swell
isvostchik and waved his hand in a friendly manner, his smile disclosing
unusually long, white teeth.
“Nekhludoff! Can it be you?”
Nekhludoff’s first feeling was one of pleasure. “Ah, Schonbock!” he
exclaimed joyfully; but he knew the next moment that there was nothing
to be joyful about.
This was that Schonbock who had been in the house of Nekhludoff’s aunts
that day, and whom Nekhludoff had quite lost out of sight, but about
whom he had heard that in spite of his debts he had somehow managed to
remain in the cavalry, and by some means or other still kept his place
among the rich. His gay, contented appearance corroborated this report.
“What a good thing that I have caught you. There is no one in town. Ah,
old fellow; you have grown old,” he said, getting out of the trap and
moving his shoulders about. “I only knew you by your walk. Look here, we
must dine together. Is there any place where they feed one decently?”
“I don’t think I can spare the time,” Nekhludoff answered, thinking only
of how he could best get rid of his companion without hurting him.
“And what has brought you here?” he asked.
“Business, old fellow. Guardianship business. I am a guardian now. I am
managing Samanoff’s affairs--the millionaire, you know. He has softening
of the brain, and he’s got fifty-four thousand desiatins of land,”
he said, with peculiar pride, as if he had himself made all these
desiatins. “The affairs were terribly neglected. All the land was let
to the peasants. They did not pay anything. There were more than eighty
thousand roubles debts. I changed it all in one year, and have got 70
per cent. more out of it. What do you think of that?” he asked proudly.
Nekhludoff remembered having heard that this Schonbock, just because, he
had spent all he had, had attained by some special influence the post of
guardian to a rich old man who was squandering his property--and was now
evidently living by this guardianship.
“How am I to get rid of him without offending him?” thought Nekhludoff,
looking at this full, shiny face with the stiffened moustache and
listening to his friendly, good-humoured chatter about where one gets
fed best, and his bragging about his doings as a guardian.
“Well, then, where do we dine?”
“Really, I have no time to spare,” said Nekhludoff, glancing at his
watch.
“Then, look here. To-night, at the races--will you be there?”
“No, I shall not be there.”
“Do come. I have none of my own now, but I back Grisha’s horses. You
remember; he has a fine stud. You’ll come, won’t you? And we’ll have
some supper together.”
“No, I cannot have supper with you either,” said Nekhludoff with a
smile.
“Well, that’s too bad! And where are you off to now? Shall I give you a
lift?”
“I am going to see an advocate, close to here round the corner.”
“Oh, yes, of course. You have got something to do with the prisons--have
turned into a prisoners’ mediator, I hear,” said Schonbock, laughing.
“The Korchagins told me. They have left town already. What does it all
mean? Tell me.”
“Yes, yes, it is quite true,” Nekhludoff answered; “but I cannot tell
you about it in the street.”
“Of course; you always were a crank. But you will come to the races?”
“No. I neither can nor wish to come. Please do not be angry with me.”
“Angry? Dear me, no. Where do you live?” And suddenly his face became
serious, his eyes fixed, and he drew up his brows. He seemed to be
trying to remember something, and Nekhludoff noticed the same dull
expression as that of the man with the raised brows and pouting lips
whom he had seen at the window of the eating-house.
“How cold it is! Is it not? Have you got the parcels?” said Schonbock,
turning to the isvostchik.
“All right. Good-bye. I am very glad indeed to have met you,” and
warmly pressing Nekhludoff’s hand, he jumped into the trap and waved
his white-gloved hand in front of his shiny face, with his usual smile,
showing his exceptionally white teeth.
“Can I have also been like that?” Nekhludoff thought, as he continued
his way to the advocate’s. “Yes, I wished to be like that, though I was
not quite like it. And I thought of living my life in that way.”
CHAPTER XI.
AN ADVOCATE’S VIEWS ON JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS.
Nekhludoff was admitted by the advocate before his turn. The advocate at
once commenced to talk about the Menshoffs’ case, which he had read with
indignation at the inconsistency of the accusation.
“This case is perfectly revolting,” he said; “it is very likely that
the owner himself set fire to the building in order to get the insurance
money, and the chief thing is that there is no evidence to prove the
Menshoffs’ guilt. There are no proofs whatever. It is all owing to the
special zeal of the examining magistrate and the carelessness of the
prosecutor. If they are tried here, and not in a provincial court, I
guarantee that they will be acquitted, and I shall charge nothing.
Now then, the next case, that of Theodosia Birukoff. The appeal to the
Emperor is written. If you go to Petersburg, you’d better take it with
you, and hand it in yourself, with a request of your own, or else they
will only make a few inquiries, and nothing will come of it. You must
try and get at some of the influential members of the Appeal Committee.”
“Well, is this all?”
“No; here I have a letter . . . I see you have turned into a pipe--a
spout through which all the complaints of the prison are poured,” said
the advocate, with a smile. “It is too much; you’ll not be able to
manage it.”
“No, but this is a striking case,” said Nekhludoff, and gave a brief
outline of the case of a peasant who began to read the Gospels to the
peasants in the village, and to discuss them with his friends. The
priests regarded this as a crime and informed the authorities. The
magistrate examined him and the public prosecutor drew up an act of
indictment, and the law courts committed him for trial.
“This is really too terrible,” Nekhludoff said. “Can it be true?”
“What are you surprised at?”
“Why, everything. I can understand the police-officer, who simply obeys
orders, but the prosecutor drawing up an act of that kind. An educated
man . . .”
“That is where the mistake lies, that we are in the habit of considering
that the prosecutors and the judges in general are some kind of liberal
persons. There was a time when they were such, but now it is quite
different. They are just officials, only troubled about pay-day.
They receive their salaries and want them increased, and there their
principles end. They will accuse, judge, and sentence any one you like.”
“Yes; but do laws really exist that can condemn a man to Siberia for
reading the Bible with his friends?”
“Not only to be exiled to the less remote parts of Siberia, but even to
the mines, if you can only prove that reading the Bible they took the
liberty of explaining it to others not according to orders, and in this
way condemned the explanations given by the Church. Blaming the Greek
orthodox religion in the presence of the common people means, according
to Statute . . . the mines.”
“Impossible!”
“I assure you it is so. I always tell these gentlemen, the judges,”
the advocate continued, “that I cannot look at them without gratitude,
because if I am not in prison, and you, and all of us, it is only owing
to their kindness. To deprive us of our privileges, and send us all to
the less remote parts of Siberia, would be an easy thing for them.”
“Well, if it is so, and if everything depends on the Procureur and
others who can, at will, either enforce the laws or not, what are the
trials for?”
The advocate burst into a merry laugh. “You do put strange questions.
My dear sir, that is philosophy. Well, we might have a talk about that,
too. Could you come on Saturday? You will meet men of science, literary
men, and artists at my house, and then we might discuss these general
questions,” said the advocate, pronouncing the words “general questions”
with ironical pathos. “You have met my wife? Do come.”
“Thank you; I will try to,” said Nekhludoff, and felt that he was saying
an untruth, and knew that if he tried to do anything it would be to keep
away froth the advocate’s literary evening, and the circle of the men of
science, art, and literature.
The laugh with which the advocate met Nekhludoff’s remark that trials
could have no meaning if the judges might enforce the laws or not,
according to their notion, and the tone with which he pronounced the
words “philosophy” and “general questions” proved to Nekhludoff how very
differently he and the advocate and, probably, the advocate’s friends,
looked at things; and he felt that in spite of the distance that now
existed between himself and his former companions, Schonbock, etc.,
the difference between himself and the circle of the advocate and his
friends was still greater.
CHAPTER XII.
WHY THE PEASANTS FLOCK TO TOWN.
The prison was a long way off and it was getting late, so Nekhludoff
took an isvostchik. The isvostchik, a middle-aged man with an
intelligent and kind face, turned round towards Nekhludoff as they were
driving along one of the streets and pointed to a huge house that was
being built there.
“Just see what a tremendous house they have begun to build,” he said, as
if he was partly responsible for the building of the house and proud of
it. The house was really immense and was being built in a very original
style. The strong pine beams of the scaffolding were firmly fixed
together with iron bands and a plank wall separated the building from
the street.
On the boards of the scaffolding workmen, all bespattered with plaster,
moved hither and thither like ants. Some were laying bricks, some hewing
stones, some carrying up the heavy hods and pails and bringing them down
empty. A fat and finely-dressed gentleman--probably the architect--stood
by the scaffolding, pointing upward and explaining something to a
contractor, a peasant from the Vladimir Government, who was respectfully
listening to him. Empty carts were coming out of the gate by which the
architect and the contractor were standing, and loaded ones were going
in. “And how sure they all are--those that do the work as well as those
that make them do it--that it ought to be; that while their wives at
home, who are with child, are labouring beyond their strength, and their
children with the patchwork caps, doomed soon to the cold grave, smile
with suffering and contort their little legs, they must be building this
stupid and useless palace for some stupid and useless person--one of