Resurrection
those who spoil and rob them,” Nekhludoff thought, while looking at the
house.
“Yes, it is a stupid house,” he said, uttering his thought out aloud.
“Why stupid?” replied the isvostchik, in an offended tone. “Thanks to
it, the people get work; it’s not stupid.”
“But the work is useless.”
“It can’t be useless, or why should it be done?” said the isvostchik.
“The people get bread by it.”
Nekhludoff was silent, and it would have been difficult to talk because
of the clatter the wheels made.
When they came nearer the prison, and the isvostchik turned off the
paved on to the macadamised road, it became easier to talk, and he again
turned to Nekhludoff.
“And what a lot of these people are flocking to the town nowadays; it’s
awful,” he said, turning round on the box and pointing to a party of
peasant workmen who were coming towards them, carrying saws, axes,
sheepskins, coats, and bags strapped to their shoulders.
“More than in other years?” Nekhludoff asked.
“By far. This year every place is crowded, so that it’s just terrible.
The employers just fling the workmen about like chaff. Not a job to be
got.”
“Why is that?”
“They’ve increased. There’s no room for them.”
“Well, what if they have increased? Why do not they stay in the
village?”
“There’s nothing for them to do in the village--no land to be had.”
Nekhludoff felt as one does when touching a sore place. It feels as if
the bruised part was always being hit; yet it is only because the place
is sore that the touch is felt.
“Is it possible that the same thing is happening everywhere?” he
thought, and began questioning the isvostchik about the quantity of land
in his village, how much land the man himself had, and why he had left
the country.
“We have a desiatin per man, sir,” he said. “Our family have three men’s
shares of the land. My father and a brother are at home, and manage the
land, and another brother is serving in the army. But there’s nothing to
manage. My brother has had thoughts of coming to Moscow, too.”
“And cannot land be rented?”
“How’s one to rent it nowadays? The gentry, such as they were, have
squandered all theirs. Men of business have got it all into their own
hands. One can’t rent it from them. They farm it themselves. We have
a Frenchman ruling in our place; he bought the estate from our former
landlord, and won’t let it--and there’s an end of it.”
“Who’s that Frenchman?”
“Dufour is the Frenchman’s name. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He makes
wigs for the actors in the big theatre; it is a good business, so he’s
prospering. He bought it from our lady, the whole of the estate, and now
he has us in his power; he just rides on us as he pleases. The Lord be
thanked, he is a good man himself; only his wife, a Russian, is such a
brute that--God have mercy on us. She robs the people. It’s awful. Well,
here’s the prison. Am I to drive you to the entrance? I’m afraid they’ll
not let us do it, though.”
CHAPTER XIII.
NURSE MASLOVA.
When he rang the bell at the front entrance Nekhludoff’s heart stood
still with horror as he thought of the state he might find Maslova in
to-day, and at the mystery that he felt to be in her and in the people
that were collected in the prison. He asked the jailer who opened the
door for Maslova. After making the necessary inquiry the jailer informed
him that she was in the hospital. Nekhludoff went there. A kindly old
man, the hospital doorkeeper, let him in at once and, after asking
Nekhludoff whom he wanted, directed him to the children’s ward. A young
doctor saturated with carbolic acid met Nekhludoff in the passage and
asked him severely what he wanted. This doctor was always making all
sorts of concessions to the prisoners, and was therefore continually
coming into conflict with the prison authorities and even with the head
doctor. Fearing lest Nekhludoff should demand something unlawful, and
wishing to show that he made no exceptions for any one, he pretended to
be cross. “There are no women here; it is the children’s ward,” he said.
“Yes, I know; but a prisoner has been removed here to be an assistant
nurse.”
“Yes, there are two such here. Then whom do you want?”
“I am closely connected with one of them, named Maslova,” Nekhludoff
answered, “and should like to speak to her. I am going to Petersburg to
hand in an appeal to the Senate about her case and should like to give
her this. It is only a photo,” Nekhludoff said, taking an envelope out
of his pocket.
“All right, you may do that,” said the doctor, relenting, and turning to
an old woman with a white apron, he told her to call the prisoner--Nurse
Maslova.
“Will you take a seat, or go into the waiting-room?”
“Thanks,” said Nekhludoff, and profiting by the favourable change in
the manner of the doctor towards him asked how they were satisfied with
Maslova in the hospital.
“Oh, she is all right. She works fairly well, if you the conditions of
her former life into account. But here she is.”
The old nurse came in at one of the doors, followed by Maslova, who wore
a blue striped dress, a white apron, a kerchief that quite covered her
hair. When she saw Nekhludoff her face flushed, and she stopped as if
hesitating, then frowned, and with downcast eyes went quickly towards
him along the strip of carpet in the middle of the passage. When she
came up to Nekhludoff she did not wish to give him her hand, and then
gave it, growing redder still. Nekhludoff had not seen her since the
day when she begged forgiveness for having been in a passion, and he
expected to find her the same as she was then. But to-day she was
quite different. There was something new in the expression of her face,
reserve and shyness, and, as it seemed to him, animosity towards him. He
told her what he had already said to the doctor, i.e., that he was going
to Petersburg, and he handed her the envelope with the photograph which
he had brought from Panovo.
“I found this in Panovo--it’s an old photo; perhaps you would like it.
Take it.”
Lifting her dark eyebrows, she looked at him with surprise in her
squinting eyes, as if asking, “What is this for?” took the photo
silently and put it in the bib of her apron.
“I saw your aunt there,” said Nekhludoff.
“Did you?” she said, indifferently.
“Are you all right here?” Nekhludoff asked.
“Oh, yes, it’s all right,” she said.
“Not too difficult?”
“Oh, no. But I am not used to it yet.”
“I am glad, for your sake. Anyhow, it is better than there.”
“Than where--there?” she asked, her face flushing again.
“There--in the prison,” Nekhludoff hurriedly answered.
“Why better?” she asked.
“I think the people are better. Here are none such as there must be
there.”
“There are many good ones there,” she said.
“I have been seeing about the Menshoffs, and hope they will be
liberated,” said Nekhludoff.
“God grant they may. Such a splendid old woman,” she said, again
repeating her opinion of the old woman, and slightly smiling.
“I am going to Petersburg to-day. Your case will come on soon, and I
hope the sentence will be repealed.”
“Whether it is repealed or not won’t matter now,” she said.
“Why not now?”
“So,” she said, looking with a quick, questioning glance into his eyes.
Nekhludoff understood the word and the look to mean that she wished
to know whether he still kept firm to his decision or had accepted her
refusal.
“I do not know why it does not matter to you,” he said. “It certainly
does not matter as far as I am concerned whether you are acquitted or
not. I am ready to do what I told you in any case,” he said decidedly.
She lifted her head and her black squinting eyes remained fixed on him
and beyond him, and her face beamed with joy. But the words she spoke
were very different from what her eyes said.
“You should not speak like that,” she said.
“I am saying it so that you should know.”
“Everything has been said about that, and there is no use speaking,” she
said, with difficulty repressing a smile.
A sudden noise came from the hospital ward, and the sound of a child
crying.
“I think they are calling me,” she said, and looked round uneasily.
“Well, good-bye, then,” he said. She pretended not to see his extended
hand, and, without taking it, turned away and hastily walked along the
strip of carpet, trying to hide the triumph she felt.
“What is going on in her? What is she thinking? What does she feel? Does
she mean to prove me, or can she really not forgive me? Is it that she
cannot or that she will not express what she feels and thinks? Has she
softened or hardened?” he asked himself, and could find no answer. He
only knew that she had altered and that an important change was going on
in her soul, and this change united him not only to her but also to Him
for whose sake that change was being wrought. And this union brought on
a state of joyful animation and tenderness.
When she returned to the ward, in which there stood eight small beds,
Maslova began, in obedience to the nurse’s order, to arrange one of the
beds; and, bending over too far with the sheet, she slipped and nearly
fell down.
A little convalescent boy with a bandaged neck, who was looking at her,
laughed. Maslova could no longer contain herself and burst into loud
laughter, and such contagious laughter that several of the children also
burst out laughing, and one of the sisters rebuked her angrily.
“What are you giggling at? Do you think you are where you used to be?
Go and fetch the food.” Maslova obeyed and went where she was sent; but,
catching the eye of the bandaged boy who was not allowed to laugh, she
again burst out laughing.
Whenever she was alone Maslova again and again pulled the photograph
partly out of the envelope and looked at it admiringly; but only in the
evening when she was off duty and alone in the bedroom which she shared
with a nurse, did she take it quite out of the envelope and gaze long
at the faded yellow photograph, caressing with, her eyes every detail
of faces and clothing, the steps of the veranda, and the bushes which
served as a background to his and hers and his aunts’ faces, and could
not cease from admiring especially herself--her pretty young face with
the curly hair round the forehead. She was so absorbed that she did not
hear her fellow-nurse come into the room.
“What is it that he’s given you?” said the good-natured, fat nurse,
stooping over the photograph.
“Who’s this? You?”
“Who else?” said Maslova, looking into her companion’s face with a
smile.
“And who’s this?”
“Himself.”
“And is this his mother?”
“No, his aunt. Would you not have known me?”
“Never. The whole face is altered. Why, it must be 10 years since then.”
“Not years, but a lifetime,” said Maslova. And suddenly her animation
went, her face grew gloomy, and a deep line appeared between her brows.
“Why so? Your way of life must have been an easy one.”
“Easy, indeed,” Maslova reiterated, closing her eyes and shaking her
head. “It is hell.”
“Why, what makes it so?”
“What makes it so! From eight till four in the morning, and every night
the same!”
“Then why don’t they give it up?”
“They can’t give it up if they want to. But what’s the use of talking?”
Maslova said, jumping up and throwing the photograph into the drawer of
the table. And with difficulty repressing angry tears, she ran out into
the passage and slammed the door.
While looking at the group she imagined herself such as she was there
and dreamt of her happiness then and of the possibility of happiness
with him now. But her companion’s words reminded her of what she was now
and what she had been, and brought back all the horrors of that life,
which she had felt but dimly, and not allowed herself to realise.