Resurrection
had for him, her brother, and that every misunderstanding between them
caused her deep suffering.
“Thank you, thank you. Oh! what I have seen to-day!” he said, suddenly
recalling the second of the dead convicts. “Two prisoners have been done
to death.”
“Done to death? How?”
“Yes, done to death. They led them in this heat, and two died of
sunstroke.”
“Impossible! What, to-day? just now?”
“Yes, just now. I have seen their bodies.”
“But why done to death? Who killed them?” asked Nathalie.
“They who forced them to go killed them,” said Nekhludoff, with
irritation, feeling that she looked at this, too, with her husband’s
eyes.
“Oh, Lord!” said Agraphena Petrovna, who had come up to them.
“Yes, we have not the slightest idea of what is being done to these
unfortunate beings. But it ought to be known,” added Nekhludoff, and
looked at old Korchagin, who sat with a napkin tied round him and a
bottle before him, and who looked round at Nekhludoff.
“Nekhludoff,” he called out, “won’t you join me and take some
refreshment? It is excellent before a journey.”
Nekhludoff refused, and turned away.
“But what are you going to do?” Nathalie continued.
“What I can. I don’t know, but I feel I must do something. And I shall
do what I am able to.”
“Yes, I understand. And how about them?” she continued, with a smile and
a look towards Korchagin. “Is it possible that it is all over?”
“Completely, and I think without any regret on either side.”
“It is a pity. I am sorry. I am fond of her. However, it’s all right.
But why do you wish to bind yourself?” she added shyly. “Why are you
going?”
“I go because I must,” answered Nekhludoff, seriously and dryly, as if
wishing to stop this conversation. But he felt ashamed of his coldness
towards his sister at once. “Why not tell her all I am thinking?” he
thought, “and let Agraphena Petrovna also hear it,” he thought, with
a look at the old servant, whose presence made the wish to repeat his
decision to his sister even stronger.
“You mean my intention to marry Katusha? Well, you see, I made up my
mind to do it, but she refuses definitely and firmly,” he said, and his
voice shook, as it always did when he spoke of it. “She does not wish
to accept my sacrifice, but is herself sacrificing what in her position
means much, and I cannot accept this sacrifice, if it is only a
momentary impulse. And so I am going with her, and shall be where she
is, and shall try to lighten her fate as much as I can.”
Nathalie said nothing. Agraphena Petrovna looked at her with a
questioning look, and shook her head. At this moment the former
procession issued from the ladies’ room. The same handsome footman
(Philip). and the doorkeeper were carrying the Princess Korchagin. She
stopped the men who were carrying her, and motioned to Nekhludoff to
approach, and, with a pitiful, languishing air, she extended her white,
ringed hand, expecting the firm pressure of his hand with a sense of
horror.
“Epouvantable!” she said, meaning the heat. “I cannot stand it! Ce
climat me tue!” And, after a short talk about the horrors of the Russian
climate, she gave the men a sign to go on.
“Be sure and come,” she added, turning her long face towards Nekhludoff
as she was borne away.
The procession with the Princess turned to the right towards the
first-class carriages. Nekhludoff, with the porter who was carrying his
things, and Taras with his bag, turned to the left.
“This is my companion,” said Nekhludoff to his sister, pointing to
Taras, whose story he had told her before.
“Surely not third class?” said Nathalie, when Nekhludoff stopped in
front of a third-class carriage, and Taras and the porter with the
things went in.
“Yes; it is more convenient for me to be with Taras,” he said. “One
thing more,” he added; “up to now I have not given the Kousminski
land to the peasants; so that, in case of my death, your children will
inherit it.”
“Dmitri, don’t!” said Nathalie.
“If I do give it away, all I can say is that the rest will be theirs,
as it is not likely I shall marry; and if I do marry I shall have no
children, so that--”
“Dmitri, don’t talk like that!” said Nathalie. And yet Nekhludoff
noticed that she was glad to hear him say it.
Higher up, by the side of a first-class carriage, there stood a group of
people still looking at the carriage into which the Princess Korchagin
had been carried. Most of the passengers were already seated. Some of
the late comers hurriedly clattered along the boards of the platform,
the guard was closing the doors and asking the passengers to get in and
those who were seeing them off to come out.
Nekhludoff entered the hot, smelling carriage, but at once stepped out
again on to the small platform at the back of the carriage. Nathalie
stood opposite the carriage, with her fashionable bonnet and cape,
by the side of Agraphena Petrovna, and was evidently trying to find
something to say.
She could not even say ecrivez, because they had long ago laughed
at this word, habitually spoken by those about to part. The short
conversation about money matters had in a moment destroyed the tender
brotherly and sisterly feelings that had taken hold of them. They felt
estranged, so that Nathalie was glad when the train moved; and she
could only say, nodding her head with a sad and tender look, “Goodbye,
good-bye, Dmitri.” But as soon as the carriage had passed her she
thought of how she should repeat her conversation with her brother to
her husband, and her face became serious and troubled.
Nekhludoff, too, though he had nothing but the kindest feelings for
his sister, and had hidden nothing from her, now felt depressed and
uncomfortable with her, and was glad to part. He felt that the Nathalie
who was once so near to him no longer existed, and in her place was only
a slave of that hairy, unpleasant husband, who was so foreign to him. He
saw it clearly when her face lit up with peculiar animation as he spoke
of what would peculiarly interest her husband, i.e., the giving up of
the land to the peasants and the inheritance.
And this made him sad.
CHAPTER XL.
THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF HUMAN LIFE.
The heat in the large third-class carriage, which had been standing in
the burning sun all day, was so great that Nekhludoff did not go in,
but stopped on the little platform behind the carriage which formed a
passage to the next one. But there was not a breath of fresh air here
either, and Nekhludoff breathed freely only when the train had passed
the buildings and the draught blew across the platform.
“Yes, killed,” he repeated to himself, the words he had used to his
sister. And in his imagination in the midst of all other impressions
there arose with wonderful clearness the beautiful face of the second
dead convict, with the smile of the lips, the severe expression of the
brows, and the small, firm ear below the shaved bluish skull.
And what seemed terrible was that he had been murdered, and no one knew
who had murdered him. Yet he had been murdered. He was led out like all
the rest of the prisoners by Maslennikoff’s orders. Maslennikoff had
probably given the order in the usual manner, had signed with his stupid
flourish the paper with the printed heading, and most certainly would
not consider himself guilty. Still less would the careful doctor who
examined the convicts consider himself guilty. He had performed his duty
accurately, and had separated the weak. How could he have foreseen this
terrible heat, or the fact that they would start so late in the day and
in such crowds? The prison inspector? But the inspector had only carried
into execution the order that on a given day a certain number of exiles
and convicts--men and women--had to be sent off. The convoy officer
could not be guilty either, for his business was to receive a certain
number of persons in a certain place, and to deliver up the same number.
He conducted them in the usual manner, and could not foresee that two
such strong men as those Nekhludoff saw would not be able to stand it
and would die. No one is guilty, and yet the men have been murdered by
these people who are not guilty of their murder.
“All this comes,” Nekhludoff thought, “from the fact that all these
people, governors, inspectors, police officers, and men, consider that
there are circumstances in which human relations are not necessary
between human beings. All these men, Maslennikoff, and the inspector,
and the convoy officer, if they were not _governor, inspector, officer,_
would have considered twenty times before sending people in such heat
in such a mass--would have stopped twenty times on the way, and, seeing
that a man was growing weak, gasping for breath, would have led him
into the shade, would have given him water and let him rest, and if an
accident had still occurred they would have expressed pity. But they
not only did not do it, but hindered others from doing it, because they
considered not men and their duty towards them but only the office they
themselves filled, and held what that office demanded of them to be
above human relations. That’s what it is,” Nekhludoff went on in his
thoughts. “If one acknowledges but for a single hour that anything
can be more important than love for one’s fellowmen, even in some
one exceptional case, any crime can be committed without a feeling of
guilt.”
Nekhludoff was so engrossed by his thoughts that he did not notice how
the weather changed. The sun was covered over by a low-hanging, ragged
cloud. A compact, light grey cloud was rapidly coming from the west, and
was already falling in heavy, driving rain on the fields and woods far
in the distance. Moisture, coming from the cloud, mixed with the air.
Now and then the cloud was rent by flashes of lightning, and peals of
thunder mingled more and more often with the rattling of the train. The
cloud came nearer and nearer, the rain-drops driven by the wind began
to spot the platform and Nekhludoff’s coat; and he stepped to the other
side of the little platform, and, inhaling the fresh, moist air--filled
with the smell of corn and wet earth that had long been waiting for
rain--he stood looking at the gardens, the woods, the yellow rye fields,
the green oatfields, the dark-green strips of potatoes in bloom, that
glided past. Everything looked as if covered over with varnish--the
green turned greener, the yellow yellower, the black blacker.
“More! more!” said Nekhludoff, gladdened by the sight of gardens and
fields revived by the beneficent shower. The shower did not last long.
Part of the cloud had come down in rain, part passed over, and the last
fine drops fell straight on to the earth. The sun reappeared,
everything began to glisten, and in the east--not very high above the
horizon--appeared a bright rainbow, with the violet tint very distinct
and broken only at one end.
“Why, what was I thinking about?” Nekhludoff asked himself when all
these changes in nature were over, and the train ran into a cutting
between two high banks.
“Oh! I was thinking that all those people (inspector, convoy men--all
those in the service) are for the greater part kind people--cruel only
because they are serving.” He recalled Maslennikoff’s indifference when
he told him about what was being done in the prison, the inspector’s
severity, the cruelty of the convoy officer when he refused places on
the carts to those who asked for them, and paid no attention to the fact
that there was a woman in travail in the train. All these people were
evidently invulnerable and impregnable to the simplest feelings of
compassion only because they held offices. “As officials they were
impermeable to the feelings of humanity, as this paved ground is
impermeable to the rain.” Thus thought Nekhludoff as he looked at the