Resurrection
my sacrifice; she wishes to make a sacrifice herself. She has conquered,
and so have I. She makes me happy by the inner change, which seems
to me, though I fear to believe it, to be going on in her. I fear to
believe it, yet she seems to be coming back to life.” Then further on
he read. “I have lived through something very hard and very joyful. I
learnt that she has behaved very badly in the hospital, and I suddenly
felt great pain. I never expected that it could be so painful. I spoke
to her with loathing and hatred, then all of a sudden I called to mind
how many times I have been, and even still am, though but in thought,
guilty of the thing that I hated her for, and immediately I became
disgusting to myself, and pitied her and felt happy again. If only we
could manage to see the beam in our own eye in time, how kind we
should be.” Then he wrote: “I have been to see Nathalie, and again
self-satisfaction made me unkind and spiteful, and a heavy feeling
remains. Well, what is to be done? Tomorrow a new life will begin. A
final good-bye to the old! Many new impressions have accumulated, but I
cannot yet bring them to unity.”
When he awoke the next morning Nekhludoff’s first feeling was regret
about the affair between him and his brother-in-law.
“I cannot go away like this,” he thought. “I must go and make it up with
them.” But when he looked at his watch he saw that he had not time to
go, but must hurry so as not to be too late for the departure of the
gang. He hastily got everything ready, and sent the things to the
station with a servant and Taras, Theodosia’s husband, who was going
with them. Then he took the first isvostchik he could find and drove off
to the prison.
The prisoners’ train started two hours before the train by which he was
going, so Nekhludoff paid his bill in the lodgings and left for good.
It was July, and the weather was unbearably hot. From the stones, the
walls, the iron of the roofs, which the sultry night had not cooled, the
heat streamed into the motionless air. When at rare intervals a slight
breeze did arise, it brought but a whiff of hot air filled with dust and
smelling of oil paint.
There were few people in the streets, and those who were out tried to
keep on the shady side. Only the sunburnt peasants, with their bronzed
faces and bark shoes on their feet, who were mending the road, sat
hammering the stones into the burning sand in the sun; while the
policemen, in their holland blouses, with revolvers fastened with
orange cords, stood melancholy and depressed in the middle of the road,
changing from foot to foot; and the tramcars, the horses of which wore
holland hoods on their heads, with slits for the ears, kept passing up
and down the sunny road with ringing bells.
When Nekhludoff drove up to the prison the gang had not left the yard.
The work of delivering and receiving the prisoners that had commenced
at 4 A.M. was still going on. The gang was to consist of 623 men and 64
women; they had all to be received according to the registry lists.
The sick and the weak to be sorted out, and all to be delivered to the
convoy. The new inspector, with two assistants, the doctor and medical
assistant, the officer of the convoy, and the clerk, were sitting in the
prison yard at a table covered with writing materials and papers, which
was placed in the shade of a wall. They called the prisoners one by one,
examined and questioned them, and took notes. The rays of the sun had
gradually reached the table, and it was growing very hot and oppressive
for want of air and because of the breathing crowd of prisoners that
stood close by.
“Good gracious, will this never come to an end!” the convoy officer,
a tall, fat, red-faced man with high shoulders, who kept puffing the
smoke, of his cigarette into his thick moustache, asked, as he drew in
a long puff. “You are killing me. From where have you got them all? Are
there many more?” the clerk inquired.
“Twenty-four men and the women.”
“What are you standing there for? Come on,” shouted the convoy officer
to the prisoners who had not yet passed the revision, and who stood
crowded one behind the other. The prisoners had been standing there more
than three hours, packed in rows in the full sunlight, waiting their
turns.
While this was going on in the prison yard, outside the gate, besides
the sentinel who stood there as usual with a gun, were drawn up about 20
carts, to carry the luggage of the prisoners and such prisoners as were
too weak to walk, and a group of relatives and friends waiting to see
the prisoners as they came out and to exchange a few words if a chance
presented itself and to give them a few things. Nekhludoff took his
place among the group. He had stood there about an hour when the
clanking of chains, the noise of footsteps, authoritative voices, the
sound of coughing, and the low murmur of a large crowd became audible.
This continued for about five minutes, during which several jailers went
in and out of the gateway. At last the word of command was given. The
gate opened with a thundering noise, the clattering of the chains became
louder, and the convoy soldiers, dressed in white blouses and carrying
guns, came out into the street and took their places in a large, exact
circle in front of the gate; this was evidently a usual, often-practised
manoeuvre. Then another command was given, and the prisoners began
coming out in couples, with flat, pancake-shaped caps on their shaved
heads and sacks over their shoulders, dragging their chained legs and
swinging one arm, while the other held up a sack.
First came the men condemned to hard labour, all dressed alike in grey
trousers and cloaks with marks on the back. All of them--young and old,
thin and fat, pale and red, dark and bearded and beardless, Russians,
Tartars, and Jews--came out, clattering with their chains and briskly
swinging their arms as if prepared to go a long distance, but stopped
after having taken ten steps, and obediently took their places behind
each other, four abreast. Then without interval streamed out more shaved
men, dressed in the same manner but with chains only on their legs.
These were condemned to exile. They came out as briskly and stopped as
suddenly, taking their places four in a row. Then came those exiled by
their Communes. Then the women in the same order, first those condemned
to hard labour, with grey cloaks and kerchiefs; then the exiled women,
and those following their husbands of their own free will, dressed in
their own town or village clothing. Some of the women were carrying
babies wrapped in the fronts of their grey cloaks.
With the women came the children, boys and girls, who, like colts in a
herd of horses, pressed in among the prisoners.
The men took their places silently, only coughing now and then, or
making short remarks.
The women talked without intermission. Nekhludoff thought he saw Maslova
as they were coming out, but she was at once lost in the large crowd,
and he could only see grey creatures, seemingly devoid of all that was
human, or at any rate of all that was womanly, with sacks on their backs
and children round them, taking their places behind the men.
Though all the prisoners had been counted inside the prison walls, the
convoy counted them again, comparing the numbers with the list. This
took very long, especially as some of the prisoners moved and changed
places, which confused the convoy.
The convoy soldiers shouted and pushed the prisoners (who complied
obediently, but angrily) and counted them over again. When all had
been counted, the convoy officer gave a command, and the crowd became
agitated. The weak men and women and children rushed, racing each
other, towards the carts, and began placing their bags on the carts
and climbing up themselves. Women with crying babies, merry children
quarrelling for places, and dull, careworn prisoners got into the carts.
Several of the prisoners took off their caps and came up to the convoy
officer with some request. Nekhludoff found out later that they were
asking for places on the carts. Nekhludoff saw how the officer, without
looking at the prisoners, drew in a whiff from his cigarette, and then
suddenly waved his short arm in front of one of the prisoners, who
quickly drew his shaved head back between his shoulders as if afraid of
a blow, and sprang back.
“I will give you a lift such that you’ll remember. You’ll get there on
foot right enough,” shouted the officer. Only one of the men was granted
his request--an old man with chains on his legs; and Nekhludoff saw the
old man take off his pancake-shaped cap, and go up to the cart crossing
himself. He could not manage to get up on the cart because of the chains
that prevented his lifting his old legs, and a woman who was sitting in
the cart at last pulled him in by the arm.
When all the sacks were in the carts, and those who were allowed to get
in were seated, the officer took off his cap, wiped his forehead, his
bald head and fat, red neck, and crossed himself.
“March,” commanded the officer. The soldiers’ guns gave a click; the
prisoners took off their caps and crossed themselves, those who were
seeing them off shouted something, the prisoners shouted in answer, a
row arose among the women, and the gang, surrounded by the soldiers in
their white blouses, moved forward, raising the dust with their chained
feet. The soldiers went in front; then came the convicts condemned to
hard labour, clattering with their chains; then the exiled and those
exiled by the Communes, chained in couples by their wrists; then the
women. After them, on the carts loaded with sacks, came the weak. High
up on one of the carts sat a woman closely wrapped up, and she kept
shrieking and sobbing.
CHAPTER XXXV.
NOT MEN BUT STRANGE AND TERRIBLE CREATURES?
The procession was such a long one that the carts with the luggage and
the weak started only when those in front were already out of sight.
When the last of the carts moved, Nekhludoff got into the trap that
stood waiting for him and told the isvostchik to catch up the prisoners
in front, so that he could see if he knew any of the men in the gang,
and then try and find out Maslova among the women and ask her if she had
received the things he sent.
It was very hot, and a cloud of dust that was raised by a thousand
tramping feet stood all the time over the gang that was moving down
the middle of the street. The prisoners were walking quickly, and the
slow-going isvostchik’s horse was some time in catching them up. Row
upon row they passed, those strange and terrible-looking creatures, none
of whom Nekhludoff knew.
On they went, all dressed alike, moving a thousand feet all shod alike,
swinging their free arms as if to keep up their spirits. There were so
many of them, they all looked so much alike, and they were all placed in
such unusual, peculiar circumstances, that they seemed to Nekhludoff
to be not men but some sort of strange and terrible creatures. This
impression passed when he recognised in the crowd of convicts the
murderer Federoff, and among the exiles Okhotin the wit, and another
tramp who had appealed to him for assistance. Almost all the prisoners
turned and looked at the trap that was passing them and at the gentleman
inside. Federoff tossed his head backwards as a sign that he had
recognised Nekhludoff, Okhotin winked, but neither of them bowed,
considering it not the thing.
As soon as Nekhludoff came up to the women he saw Maslova; she was in
the second row. The first in the row was a short-legged, black-eyed,
hideous woman, who had her cloak tucked up in her girdle. This was
Koroshavka. The next was a pregnant woman, who dragged herself along
with difficulty. The third was Maslova; she was carrying her sack on