Resurrection
Nekhludoff to be kissed. “When did you get here?” And he silently kissed
his wife on the forehead.
“_Non il est impayable_,” the Countess said, turning to her husband.
“He wants me to go and wash clothes and live on potatoes. He is an awful
fool, but all the same do what he is going to ask of you. A terrible
simpleton,” she added. “Have you heard? Kamenskaya is in such despair
that they fear for her life,” she said to her husband. “You should go
and call there.”
“Yes; it is dreadful,” said her husband.
“Go along, then, and talk to him. I must write some letters.”
Hardly had Nekhludoff stepped into the room next the drawing-room than
she called him back.
“Shall I write to Mariette, then?”
“Please, ma tante.”
“I shall leave a blank for what you want to say about the short-haired
one, and she will give her husband his orders, and he’ll do it. Do not
think me wicked; they are all so disgusting, your prologues, but _je
ne leur veux pas de mal_, bother them. Well, go, but be sure to stay at
home this evening to hear Kiesewetter, and we shall have some prayers.
And if only you do not resist _cela vous fera beaucoup de bien_. I
know your poor mother and all of you were always very backward in these
things.”
CHAPTER XV.
AN AVERAGE STATESMAN.
Count Ivan Michaelovitch had been a minister, and was a man of strong
convictions. The convictions of Count Ivan Michaelovitch consisted in
the belief that, just as it was natural for a bird to feed on worms,
to be clothed in feathers and down, and to fly in the air, so it
was natural for him to feed on the choicest and most expensive food,
prepared by highly-paid cooks, to wear the most comfortable and most
expensive clothing, to drive with the best and fastest horses, and that,
therefore, all these things should be ready found for him. Besides this,
Count Ivan Michaelovitch considered that the more money he could get out
of the treasury by all sorts of means, the more orders he had, including
different diamond insignia of something or other, and the oftener he
spoke to highly-placed individuals of both sexes, so much the better it
was.
All the rest Count Ivan Michaelovitch considered insignificant and
uninteresting beside these dogmas. All the rest might be as it was, or
just the reverse. Count Ivan Michaelovitch lived and acted according
to these lights for 40 years, and at the end of 40 years reached the
position of a Minister of State. The chief qualities that enabled
Count Ivan Michaelovitch to reach this position were his capacity of
understanding the meaning of documents and laws and of drawing up,
though clumsily, intelligible State papers, and of spelling them
correctly; secondly, his very stately appearance, which enabled him,
when necessary, to seem not only extremely proud, but unapproachable
and majestic, while at other times he could be abjectly and almost
passionately servile; thirdly, the absence of any general principles
or rules, either of personal or administrative morality, which made it
possible for him either to agree or disagree with anybody according to
what was wanted at the time. When acting thus his only endeavour was
to sustain the appearance of good breeding and not to seem too plainly
inconsistent. As for his actions being moral or not, in themselves, or
whether they were going to result in the highest welfare or greatest
evil for the whole of the Russian Empire, or even the entire world, that
was quite indifferent to him. When he became minister, not only
those dependent on him (and there were great many of them) and people
connected with him, but many strangers and even he himself were
convinced that he was a very clever statesman. But after some time had
elapsed and he had done nothing and had nothing to show, and when in
accordance with the law of the struggle for existence others, like
himself, who had learnt to write and understand documents, stately and
unprincipled officials, had displaced him, he turned out to be not
only far from clever but very limited and badly educated. Though
self-assured, his views hardly reaching the level of those in the
leading articles of the Conservative papers, it became apparent
that there was nothing in him to distinguish him from those other
badly-educated and self-assured officials who had pushed him out, and
he himself saw it. But this did not shake his conviction that he had to
receive a great deal of money out of the Treasury every year, and new
decorations for his dress clothes. This conviction was so firm that no
one had the pluck to refuse these things to him, and he received yearly,
partly in form of a pension, partly as a salary for being a member in
a Government institution and chairman of all sorts of committees
and councils, several tens of thousands of roubles, besides the
right--highly prized by him--of sewing all sorts of new cords to his
shoulders and trousers, and ribbons to wear under and enamel stars
to fix on to his dress coat. In consequence of this Count Ivan
Michaelovitch had very high connections.
Count Ivan Michaelovitch listened to Nekhludoff as he was wont to listen
to the reports of the permanent secretary of his department, and, having
heard him, said he would give him two notes, one to the Senator Wolff,
of the Appeal Department. “All sorts of things are reported of him, but
dans tous les cas c’est un homme tres comme ii faut,” he said. “He is
indebted to me, and will do all that is possible.” The other note Count
Ivan Michaelovitch gave Nekhludoff was to an influential member of
the Petition Committee. The story of Theodosia Birukoff as told by
Nekhludoff interested him very much. When Nekhludoff said that he
thought of writing to the Empress, the Count replied that it certainly
was a very touching story, and might, if occasion presented itself, he
told her, but he could not promise. Let the petition be handed in in due
form.
Should there be an opportunity, and if a petit comite were called on
Thursday, he thought he would tell her the story. As soon as Nekhludoff
had received these two notes, and a note to Mariette from his aunt, he
at once set off to these different places.
First he went to Mariette’s. He had known her as a half-grown girl, the
daughter of an aristocratic but not wealthy family, and had heard how
she had married a man who was making a career, whom Nekhludoff had heard
badly spoken of; and, as usual, he felt it hard to ask a favour of a man
he did not esteem. In these cases he always felt an inner dissension
and dissatisfaction, and wavered whether to ask the favour or not, and
always resolved to ask. Besides feeling himself in a false position
among those to whose set he no longer regarded himself as belonging, who
yet regarded him as belonging to them, he felt himself getting into the
old accustomed rut, and in spite of himself fell into the thoughtless
and immoral tone that reigned in that circle. He felt that from the
first, with his aunt, he involuntarily fell into a bantering tone while
talking about serious matters.
Petersburg in general affected him with its usual physically
invigorating and mentally dulling effect.
Everything so clean, so comfortably well-arranged and the people so
lenient in moral matters, that life seemed very easy.
A fine, clean, and polite isvostchik drove him past fine, clean, polite
policemen, along the fine, clean, watered streets, past fine, clean
houses to the house in which Mariette lived. At the front door stood
a pair of English horses, with English harness, and an English-looking
coachman on the box, with the lower part of his face shaved, proudly
holding a whip. The doorkeeper, dressed in a wonderfully clean livery,
opened the door into the hall, where in still cleaner livery with gold
cords stood the footman with his splendid whiskers well combed out,
and the orderly on duty in a brand-new uniform. “The general does not
receive, and the generaless does not receive either. She is just going
to drive out.”
Nekhludoff took out Katerina Ivanovna’s letter, and going up to a table
on which lay a visitors’ book, began to write that he was sorry not to
have been able to see any one; when the footman went up the staircase
the doorkeeper went out and shouted to the coachman, and the orderly
stood up rigid with his arms at his sides following with his eyes a
little, slight lady, who was coming down the stairs with rapid steps not
in keeping with all the grandeur.
Mariette had a large hat on, with feathers, a black dress and cape, and
new black gloves. Her face was covered by a veil.
When she saw Nekhludoff she lifted the veil off a very pretty face with
bright eyes that looked inquiringly at him.
“Ah, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff,” she said, with a soft,
pleasant voice. “I should have known--”
“What! you even remember my name?”
“I should think so. Why, I and my sisters have even been in love with
you,” she said, in French. “But, dear me, how you have altered. Oh, what
a pity I have to go out. But let us go up again,” she said and stopped
hesitatingly. Then she looked at the clock. “No, I can’t. I am going to
Kamenskaya’s to attend a mass for the dead. She is terribly afflicted.”
“Who is this Kamenskaya?”
“Have you not heard? Her son was killed in a duel. He fought Posen. He
was the only son. Terrible I The mother is very much afflicted.”
“Yes. I have heard of it.”
“No, I had better go, and you must come again, to-night or to-morrow,”
she said, and went to the door with quick, light steps.
“I cannot come to-night,” he said, going out after her; “but I have
a request to make you,” and he looked at the pair of bays that were
drawing up to the front door.
“What is this?”
“This is a letter from aunt to you,” said Nekhludoff, handing her
a narrow envelope, with a large crest. “You’ll find all about it in
there.”
“I know Countess Katerina Ivanovna thinks I have some influence with my
husband in business matters. She is mistaken. I can do nothing and do
not like to interfere. But, of course, for you I am willing to be false
to my principle. What is this business about?” she said, searching in
vain for her pocket with her little black gloved hand.
“There is a girl imprisoned in the fortress, and she is ill and
innocent.”
“What is her name?”
“Lydia Shoustova. It’s in the note.”
“All right; I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and lightly jumped into
her little, softly upholstered, open carriage, its brightly-varnished
splash-guards glistening in the sunshine, and opened her parasol. The
footman got on the box and gave the coachman a sign. The carriage moved,
but at that moment she touched the coachman with her parasol and the
slim-legged beauties, the bay mares, stopped, bending their beautiful
necks and stepping from foot to foot.
“But you must come, only, please, without interested motives,” and she
looked at him with a smile, the force of which she well knew, and, as if
the performance over and she were drawing the curtain, she dropped
the veil over her face again. “All right,” and she again touched the
coachman.
Nekhludoff raised his hat, and the well-bred bays, slightly snorting,
set off, their shoes clattering on the pavement, and the carriage rolled
quickly and smoothly on its new rubber tyres, giving a jump only now and
then over some unevenness of the road.
CHAPTER XVI.
AN UP-TO-DATE SENATOR.
When Nekhludoff remembered the smiles that had passed between him and
Mariette, he shook his head.
“You have hardly time to turn round before you are again drawn into
this life,” he thought, feeling that discord and those doubts which the
necessity to curry favour from people he did not esteem caused.
After considering where to go first, so as not to have to retrace his