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Title: Resurrection

Author: graf Leo Tolstoy

Translator: Louise Maude

Release date: October 1, 1999 [eBook #1938]
Most recently updated: January 27, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1938

Credits: Produced by Jim Tinsley

HTML file produced by David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
RESURRECTION ***

RESURRECTION
By Leo Tolstoy

Translated by Mrs. Louise Maude

[Transcriber’s Note: The following paragraph is on a page of its own, in cursive writing,
apparently in Tolstoy’s own hand.]

This English version
of “Resurrection” is pub-
lished by Dodd, Mead and
Company by my authority.
Leo Tolstoy

CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
RESURRECTION
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I. MASLOVA IN PRISON.
CHAPTER II. MASLOVA’S EARLY LIFE.
CHAPTER III. NEKHLUDOFF.
CHAPTER IV. MISSY.
CHAPTER V. THE JURYMEN.
CHAPTER VI. THE JUDGES.

CHAPTER VII. THE OFFICIALS OF THE COURT.
CHAPTER VIII. SWEARING IN THE JURY.
CHAPTER IX. THE TRIAL—THE PRISONERS
QUESTIONED.
CHAPTER X. THE TRIAL—THE INDICTMENT.
CHAPTER XI. THE TRIAL—MASLOVA CROSS-
EXAMINED.
CHAPTER XII. TWELVE YEARS BEFORE.
CHAPTER XIII. LIFE IN THE ARMY.
CHAPTER XIV. THE SECOND MEETING WITH MASLOVA.
CHAPTER XV. THE EARLY MASS.
CHAPTER XVI. THE FIRST STEP.
CHAPTER XVII. NEKHLUDOFF AND KATUSHA.
CHAPTER XVIII. AFTERWARDS.
CHAPTER XIX. THE TRIAL—RESUMPTION.
CHAPTER XX. THE TRIAL—THE MEDICAL REPORT.
CHAPTER XXI. THE TRIAL—THE PROSECUTOR AND THE
ADVOCATES.
CHAPTER XXII. THE TRIAL—THE SUMMING UP.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE TRIAL—THE VERDICT.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE TRIAL—THE SENTENCE.
CHAPTER XXV. NEKHLUDOFF CONSULTS AN
ADVOCATE.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE HOUSE OF KORCHAGIN.

CHAPTER XXVII. MISSY’S MOTHER.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE AWAKENING.
CHAPTER XXIX. MASLOVA IN PRISON.
CHAPTER XXX. THE CELL.
CHAPTER XXXI. THE PRISONERS.
CHAPTER XXXII. A PRISON QUARREL.
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LEAVEN AT WORK—
NEKHLUDOFF’S DOMESTIC CHANGES.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE ABSURDITY OF LAW—
REFLECTIONS OF A JURYMAN.
CHAPTER XXXV. THE PROCUREUR—NEKHLUDOFF
REFUSES TO SERVE.
CHAPTER XXXVI. NEKHLUDOFF ENDEAVOURS TO VISIT
MASLOVA.
CHAPTER XXXVII. MASLOVA RECALLS THE PAST.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. SUNDAY IN PRISON—PREPARING
FOR MASS.
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE PRISON CHURCH—BLIND
LEADERS OF THE BLIND.
CHAPTER XL. THE HUSKS OF RELIGION.
CHAPTER XLI. VISITING DAY—THE MEN’S WARD.
CHAPTER XLII. VISITING DAY—THE WOMEN’S WARD.
CHAPTER XLIII. NEKHLUDOFF VISITS MASLOVA.
CHAPTER XLIV. MASLOVA’S VIEW OF LIFE.

CHAPTER XLV. FANARIN, THE ADVOCATE—THE
PETITION.
CHAPTER XLVI. A PRISON FLOGGING.
CHAPTER XLVII. NEKHLUDOFF AGAIN VISITS
MASLOVA.
CHAPTER XLVIII. MASLOVA REFUSES TO MARRY.
CHAPTER XLIX. VERA DOUKHOVA.
CHAPTER L. THE VICE-GOVERNOR OF THE PRISON.
CHAPTER LI. THE CELLS.
CHAPTER LII. NO. 21.
CHAPTER LIII. VICTIMS OF GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER LIV. PRISONERS AND FRIENDS.
CHAPTER LV. VERA DOUKHOVA EXPLAINS.
CHAPTER LVI. NEKHLUDOFF AND THE PRISONERS.
CHAPTER LVII. THE VICE-GOVERNOR’S “AT-HOME”.
CHAPTER LVIII. THE VICE-GOVERNOR SUSPICIOUS.
CHAPTER LIX. NEKHLUDOFF’S THIRD INTERVIEW WITH
MASLOVA IN PRISON.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I. PROPERTY IN LAND.
CHAPTER II. EFFORTS AT LAND RESTORATION.
CHAPTER III. OLD ASSOCIATIONS.
CHAPTER IV. THE PEASANTS’ LOT.
CHAPTER V. MASLOVA’S AUNT.

CHAPTER VI. REFLECTIONS OF A LANDLORD.
CHAPTER VII. THE DISINHERITED.
CHAPTER VIII. GOD’S PEACE IN THE HEART.
CHAPTER IX. THE LAND SETTLEMENT.
CHAPTER X. NEKHLUDOFF RETURNS TO TOWN.
CHAPTER XI. AN ADVOCATE’S VIEWS ON JUDGES AND
PROSECUTORS.
CHAPTER XII. WHY THE PEASANTS FLOCK TO TOWN.
CHAPTER XIII. NURSE MASLOVA.
CHAPTER XIV. AN ARISTOCRATIC CIRCLE.
CHAPTER XV. AN AVERAGE STATESMAN.
CHAPTER XVI. AN UP-TO-DATE SENATOR.
CHAPTER XVII. COUNTESS KATERINA IVANOVNA’S
DINNER PARTY.
CHAPTER XVIII. OFFICIALDOM.
CHAPTER XIX. AN OLD GENERAL OF REPUTE.
CHAPTER XX. MASLOVA’S APPEAL.
CHAPTER XXI. THE APPEAL DISMISSED.
CHAPTER XXII. AN OLD FRIEND.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR.
CHAPTER XXIV. MARIETTE TEMPTS NEKHLUDOFF.
CHAPTER XXV. LYDIA SHOUSTOVA’S HOME.
CHAPTER XXVI. LYDIA’S AUNT.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE STATE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MEANING OF MARIETTE’S
ATTRACTION.
CHAPTER XXIX. FOR HER SAKE AND FOR GOD’S.
CHAPTER XXX. THE ASTONISHING INSTITUTION
CALLED CRIMINAL LAW.
CHAPTER XXXI. NEKHLUDOFF’S SISTER AND HER
HUSBAND.
CHAPTER XXXII. NEKHLUDOFF’S ANARCHISM.
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE AIM OF THE LAW.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE PRISONERS START FOR SIBERIA.
CHAPTER XXXV. NOT MEN BUT STRANGE AND
TERRIBLE CREATURES?
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE TENDER MERCIES OF THE LORD.
CHAPTER XXXVII. SPILLED LIKE WATER ON THE
GROUND.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE CONVICT TRAIN.
CHAPTER XXXIX. BROTHER AND SISTER.
CHAPTER XL. THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF HUMAN
LIFE.
CHAPTER XLI. TARAS’S STORY.
CHAPTER XLII. LE VRAI GRAND MONDE.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I. MASLOVA MAKES NEW FRIENDS.
CHAPTER II. AN INCIDENT OF THE MARCH.

CHAPTER III. MARY PAVLOVNA.
CHAPTER IV. SIMONSON.
CHAPTER V. THE POLITICAL PRISONERS.
CHAPTER VI. KRYLTZOFF’S STORY.
CHAPTER VII. NEKHLUDOFF SEEKS AN INTERVIEW
WITH MASLOVA.
CHAPTER VIII. NEKHLUDOFF AND THE OFFICER.
CHAPTER IX. THE POLITICAL PRISONERS.
CHAPTER X. MAKAR DEVKIN.
CHAPTER XI. MASLOVA AND HER COMPANIONS.
CHAPTER XII. NABATOFF AND MARKEL.
CHAPTER XIII. LOVE AFFAIRS OF THE EXILES.
CHAPTER XIV. CONVERSATIONS IN PRISON.
CHAPTER XV. NOVODVOROFF.
CHAPTER XVI. SIMONSON SPEAKS TO NEKHLUDOFF.
CHAPTER XVII. “I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY.”
CHAPTER XVIII. NEVEROFF’S FATE.
CHAPTER XIX. WHY IS IT DONE?
CHAPTER XX. THE JOURNEY RESUMED.
CHAPTER XXI. “JUST A WORTHLESS TRAMP.”
CHAPTER XXII. NEKHLUDOFF SEES THE GENERAL.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE SENTENCE COMMUTED.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE GENERAL’S HOUSEHOLD.

CHAPTER XXV. MASLOVA’S DECISION.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE ENGLISH VISITOR.
CHAPTER XXVII. KRYLTZOFF AT REST.
CHAPTER XXVIII. A NEW LIFE DAWNS FOR
NEKHLUDOFF.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
Opinions about Tolstoy and his work differ, but on one point there surely
might be unanimity. A writer of world-wide reputation should be at least
allowed to know how to spell his own name. Why should any one insist on
spelling it “Tolstoi” (with one, two or three dots over the “i”), when he
himself writes it “Tolstoy”? The only reason I have ever heard suggested is,
that in England and America such outlandish views are attributed to him,
that an outlandish spelling is desirable to match those views.
This novel, written in the rough by Tolstoy some years ago and founded
upon an actual occurrence, was completely rewritten by him during the last
year and a half, and all the proceeds have been devoted by him to aiding the
Doukhobors, a sect who were persecuted in the Caucasus (especially from
1895 to 1898) for refusing to learn war. About seven thousand three
hundred of them are settled in Canada, and about a hundred of the leaders
are exiled to the remote parts of Siberia.
Anything I may receive for my work in translating the book will go to the
same cause. “Prevention is better than cure,” and I would rather help people
to abstain from killing and wounding each other than devote the money to
patch up their wounds after the battle.

LOUISE MAUDE

RESURRECTION

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I. MASLOVA IN PRISON.
Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to disfigure the
small piece of land on which they were crowded together, by paving the
ground with stones, scraping away every vestige of vegetation, cutting
down the trees, turning away birds and beasts, and filling the air with the
smoke of naphtha and coal, still spring was spring, even in the town.
The sun shone warm, the air was balmy; everywhere, where it did not get
scraped away, the grass revived and sprang up between the paving-stones as
well as on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards. The birches, the
poplars, and the wild cherry unfolded their gummy and fragrant leaves, the
limes were expanding their opening buds; crows, sparrows, and pigeons,
filled with the joy of spring, were getting their nests ready; the flies were
buzzing along the walls, warmed by the sunshine. All were glad, the plants,
the birds, the insects, and the children. But men, grown-up men and women,
did not leave off cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. It was
not this spring morning men thought sacred and worthy of consideration not
the beauty of God’s world, given for a joy to all creatures, this beauty which
inclines the heart to peace, to harmony, and to love, but only their own
devices for enslaving one another.
Thus, in the prison office of the Government town, it was not the fact that
men and animals had received the grace and gladness of spring that was
considered sacred and important, but that a notice, numbered and with a
superscription, had come the day before, ordering that on this 28th day of
April, at 9 a.m., three prisoners at present detained in the prison, a man and
two women (one of these women, as the chief criminal, to be conducted
separately), had to appear at Court. So now, on the 28th of April, at 8
o’clock, a jailer and soon after him a woman warder with curly grey hair,
dressed in a jacket with sleeves trimmed with gold, with a blue-edged belt
round her waist, and having a look of suffering on her face, came into the
corridor.
“You want Maslova?” she asked, coming up to the cell with the jailer
who was on duty.

The jailer, rattling the iron padlock, opened the door of the cell, from
which there came a whiff of air fouler even than that in the corridor, and
called out, “Maslova! to the Court,” and closed the door again.
Even into the prison yard the breeze had brought the fresh vivifying air
from the fields. But in the corridor the air was laden with the germs of
typhoid, the smell of sewage, putrefaction, and tar; every newcomer felt sad
and dejected in it. The woman warder felt this, though she was used to bad
air. She had just come in from outside, and entering the corridor, she at once
became sleepy.
From inside the cell came the sound of bustle and women’s voices, and
the patter of bare feet on the floor.
“Now, then, hurry up, Maslova, I say!” called out the jailer, and in a
minute or two a small young woman with a very full bust came briskly out
of the door and went up to the jailer. She had on a grey cloak over a white
jacket and petticoat. On her feet she wore linen stockings and prison shoes,
and round her head was tied a white kerchief, from under which a few locks
of black hair were brushed over the forehead with evident intent. The face
of the woman was of that whiteness peculiar to people who have lived long
in confinement, and which puts one in mind of shoots of potatoes that
spring up in a cellar. Her small broad hands and full neck, which showed
from under the broad collar of her cloak, were of the same hue. Her black,
sparkling eyes, one with a slight squint, appeared in striking contrast to the
dull pallor of her face.
She carried herself very straight, expanding her full bosom.
With her head slightly thrown back, she stood in the corridor, looking
straight into the eyes of the jailer, ready to comply with any order.
The jailer was about to lock the door when a wrinkled and severe-looking
old woman put out her grey head and began speaking to Maslova. But the
jailer closed the door, pushing the old woman’s head with it. A woman’s
laughter was heard from the cell, and Maslova smiled, turning to the little
grated opening in the cell door. The old woman pressed her face to the
grating from the other side, and said, in a hoarse voice:
“Now mind, and when they begin questioning you, just repeat over the
same thing, and stick to it; tell nothing that is not wanted.”

“Well, it could not be worse than it is now, anyhow; I only wish it was
settled one way or another.”
“Of course, it will be settled one way or another,” said the jailer, with a
superior’s self-assured witticism. “Now, then, get along! Take your places!”
The old woman’s eyes vanished from the grating, and Maslova stepped
out into the middle of the corridor. The warder in front, they descended the
stone stairs, past the still fouler, noisy cells of the men’s ward, where they
were followed by eyes looking out of every one of the gratings in the doors,
and entered the office, where two soldiers were waiting to escort her. A
clerk who was sitting there gave one of the soldiers a paper reeking of
tobacco, and pointing to the prisoner, remarked, “Take her.”
The soldier, a peasant from Nijni Novgorod, with a red, pock-marked
face, put the paper into the sleeve of his coat, winked to his companion, a
broad-shouldered Tchouvash, and then the prisoner and the soldiers went to
the front entrance, out of the prison yard, and through the town up the
middle of the roughly-paved street.
Isvostchiks [cabmen], tradespeople, cooks, workmen, and government
clerks, stopped and looked curiously at the prisoner; some shook their heads
and thought, “This is what evil conduct, conduct unlike ours, leads to.” The
children stopped and gazed at the robber with frightened looks; but the
thought that the soldiers were preventing her from doing more harm quieted
their fears. A peasant, who had sold his charcoal, and had had some tea in
the town, came up, and, after crossing himself, gave her a copeck. The
prisoner blushed and muttered something; she noticed that she was
attracting everybody’s attention, and that pleased her. The comparatively
fresh air also gladdened her, but it was painful to step on the rough stones
with the ill-made prison shoes on her feet, which had become unused to
walking. Passing by a corn-dealer’s shop, in front of which a few pigeons
were strutting about, unmolested by any one, the prisoner almost touched a
grey-blue bird with her foot; it fluttered up and flew close to her ear,
fanning her with its wings. She smiled, then sighed deeply as she
remembered her present position.

CHAPTER II. MASLOVA’S EARLY LIFE.
The story of the prisoner Maslova’s life was a very common
one.

Maslova’s mother was the unmarried daughter of a village woman,
employed on a dairy farm, which belonged to two maiden ladies who were
landowners. This unmarried woman had a baby every year, and, as often
happens among the village people, each one of these undesired babies, after
it had been carefully baptised, was neglected by its mother, whom it
hindered at her work, and left to starve. Five children had died in this way.
They had all been baptised and then not sufficiently fed, and just left to die.
The sixth baby, whose father was a gipsy tramp, would have shared the
same fate, had it not so happened that one of the maiden ladies came into
the farmyard to scold the dairymaids for sending up cream that smelt of the
cow. The young woman was lying in the cowshed with a fine, healthy, new-
born baby. The old maiden lady scolded the maids again for allowing the
woman (who had just been confined) to lie in the cowshed, and was about
to go away, but seeing the baby her heart was touched, and she offered to
stand godmother to the little girl, and pity for her little god-daughter
induced her to give milk and a little money to the mother, so that she should
feed the baby; and the little girl lived. The old ladies spoke of her as “the
saved one.” When the child was three years old, her mother fell ill and died,
and the maiden ladies took the child from her old grandmother, to whom
she was nothing but a burden.
The little black-eyed maiden grew to be extremely pretty, and so full of
spirits that the ladies found her very entertaining.
The younger of the ladies, Sophia Ivanovna, who had stood godmother to
the girl, had the kinder heart of the two sisters; Maria Ivanovna, the elder,
was rather hard. Sophia Ivanovna dressed the little girl in nice clothes, and
taught her to read and write, meaning to educate her like a lady. Maria
Ivanovna thought the child should be brought up to work, and trained her to
be a good servant. She was exacting; she punished, and, when in a bad
temper, even struck the little girl. Growing up under these two different

influences, the girl turned out half servant, half young lady. They called her
Katusha, which sounds less refined than Katinka, but is not quite so
common as Katka. She used to sew, tidy up the rooms, polish the metal
cases of the icons and do other light work, and sometimes she sat and read
to the ladies.
Though she had more than one offer, she would not marry. She felt that
life as the wife of any of the working men who were courting her would be
too hard; spoilt as she was by a life of case.
She lived in this manner till she was sixteen, when the nephew of the old
ladies, a rich young prince, and a university student, came to stay with his
aunts, and Katusha, not daring to acknowledge it even to herself, fell in love
with him.
Then two years later this same nephew stayed four days with his aunts
before proceeding to join his regiment, and the night before he left he
betrayed Katusha, and, after giving her a 100-rouble note, went away. Five
months later she knew for certain that she was to be a mother. After that
everything seemed repugnant to her, her only thought being how to escape
from the shame that awaited her. She began not only to serve the ladies in a
half-hearted and negligent way, but once, without knowing how it
happened, was very rude to them, and gave them notice, a thing she
repented of later, and the ladies let her go, noticing something wrong and
very dissatisfied with her. Then she got a housemaid’s place in a police-
officer’s house, but stayed there only three months, for the police officer, a
man of fifty, began to torment her, and once, when he was in a specially
enterprising mood, she fired up, called him “a fool and old devil,” and gave
him such a knock in the chest that he fell. She was turned out for her
rudeness. It was useless to look for another situation, for the time of her
confinement was drawing near, so she went to the house of a village
midwife, who also sold wine. The confinement was easy; but the midwife,
who had a case of fever in the village, infected Katusha, and her baby boy
had to be sent to the foundlings’ hospital, where, according to the words of
the old woman who took him there, he at once died. When Katusha went to
the midwife she had 127 roubles in all, 27 which she had earned and 100
given her by her betrayer. When she left she had but six roubles; she did not
know how to keep money, but spent it on herself, and gave to all who
asked. The midwife took 40 roubles for two months’ board and attendance,

25 went to get the baby into the foundlings’ hospital, and 40 the midwife
borrowed to buy a cow with. Twenty roubles went just for clothes and
dainties. Having nothing left to live on, Katusha had to look out for a place
again, and found one in the house of a forester. The forester was a married
man, but he, too, began to annoy her from the first day. He disgusted her,
and she tried to avoid him. But he, more experienced and cunning, besides
being her master, who could send her wherever he liked, managed to
accomplish his object. His wife found it out, and, catching Katusha and her
husband in a room all by themselves, began beating her. Katusha defended
herself, and they had a fight, and Katusha got turned out of the house
without being paid her wages.
Then Katusha went to live with her aunt in town. The aunt’s husband, a
bookbinder, had once been comfortably off, but had lost all his customers,
and had taken to drink, and spent all he could lay hands on at the public-
house. The aunt kept a little laundry, and managed to support herself, her
children, and her wretched husband. She offered Katusha the place of an
assistant laundress; but seeing what a life of misery and hardship her aunt’s
assistants led, Katusha hesitated, and applied to a registry office for a place.
One was found for her with a lady who lived with her two sons, pupils at a
public day school. A week after Katusha had entered the house the elder, a
big fellow with moustaches, threw up his studies and made love to her,
continually following her about. His mother laid all the blame on Katusha,
and gave her notice.
It so happened that, after many fruitless attempts to find a situation,
Katusha again went to the registry office, and there met a woman with
bracelets on her bare, plump arms and rings on most of her fingers. Hearing
that Katusha was badly in want of a place, the woman gave her her address,
and invited her to come to her house. Katusha went. The woman received
her very kindly, set cake and sweet wine before her, then wrote a note and
gave it to a servant to take to somebody. In the evening a tall man, with
long, grey hair and a white beard, entered the room, and sat down at once
near Katusha, smiling and gazing at her with glistening eyes. He began
joking with her. The hostess called him away into the next room, and
Katusha heard her say, “A fresh one from the country,” Then the hostess
called Katusha aside and told her that the man was an author, and that he
had a great deal of money, and that if he liked her he would not grudge her
anything. He did like her, and gave her 25 roubles, promising to see her

often. The 25 roubles soon went; some she paid to her aunt for board and
lodging; the rest was spent on a hat, ribbons, and such like. A few days later
the author sent for her, and she went. He gave her another 25 roubles, and
offered her a separate lodging.
Next door to the lodging rented for her by the author there lived a jolly
young shopman, with whom Katusha soon fell in love. She told the author,
and moved to a little lodging of her own. The shopman, who promised to
marry her, went to Nijni on business without mentioning it to her, having
evidently thrown her up, and Katusha remained alone. She meant to
continue living in the lodging by herself, but was informed by the police
that in this case she would have to get a license. She returned to her aunt.
Seeing her fine dress, her hat, and mantle, her aunt no longer offered her
laundry work. As she understood things, her niece had risen above that sort
of thing. The question as to whether she was to become a laundress or not
did not occur to Katusha, either. She looked with pity at the thin, hard-
worked laundresses, some already in consumption, who stood washing or
ironing with their thin arms in the fearfully hot front room, which was
always full of soapy steam and draughts from the windows, and thought
with horror that she might have shared the same fate.
Katusha had begun to smoke some time before, and since the young
shopman had thrown her up she was getting more and more into the habit of
drinking. It was not so much the flavour of wine that tempted her as the fact
that it gave her a chance of forgetting the misery she suffered, making her
feel more unrestrained and more confident of her own worth, which she was
not when quite sober; without wine she felt sad and ashamed. Just at this
time a woman came along who offered to place her in one of the largest
establishments in the city, explaining all the advantages and benefits of the
situation. Katusha had the choice before her of either going into service or
accepting this offer—and she chose the latter. Besides, it seemed to her as
though, in this way, she could revenge herself on her betrayer and the
shopman and all those who had injured her. One of the things that tempted
her, and was the cause of her decision, was the woman telling her she might
order her own dresses—velvet, silk, satin, low-necked ball dresses,
anything she liked. A mental picture of herself in a bright yellow silk
trimmed with black velvet with low neck and short sleeves conquered her,
and she gave up her passport. On the same evening the procuress took an

isvostchik and drove her to the notorious house kept by Carolina Albertovna
Kitaeva.
From that day a life of chronic sin against human and divine laws
commenced for Katusha Maslova, a life which is led by hundreds of
thousands of women, and which is not merely tolerated but sanctioned by
the Government, anxious for the welfare of its subjects; a life which for
nine women out of ten ends in painful disease, premature decrepitude, and
death.
Katusha Maslova lived this life for seven years. During these years she
twice changed houses, and had once been to the hospital. In the seventh
year of this life, when she was twenty-six years old, happened that for
which she was put in prison and for which she was now being taken to be
tried, after more than three months of confinement with thieves and
murderers in the stifling air of a prison.

CHAPTER III. NEKHLUDOFF.
When Maslova, wearied out by the long walk, reached the building,
accompanied by two soldiers, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff, who
had seduced her, was still lying on his high bedstead, with a feather bed on
the top of the spring mattress, in a fine, clean, well-ironed linen night shirt,
smoking a cigarette, and considering what he had to do to-day, and what
had happened yesterday.
Recalling the evening he had spent with the Korchagins, a wealthy and
aristocratic family, whose daughter every one expected he would marry, he
sighed, and, throwing away the end of his cigarette, was going to take
another out of the silver case; but, changing his mind, he resolutely raised
his solid frame, and, putting down his smooth, white legs, stepped into his
slippers, threw his silk dressing gown over his broad shoulders, and passed
into his dressing-room, walking heavily and quickly. There he carefully
cleaned his teeth, many of which were filled, with tooth powder, and rinsed
his mouth with scented elixir. After that he washed his hands with perfumed
soap, cleaned his long nails with particular care, then, from a tap fixed to
his marble washstand, he let a spray of cold water run over his face and
stout neck. Having finished this part of the business, he went into a third
room, where a shower bath stood ready for him. Having refreshed his full,
white, muscular body, and dried it with a rough bath sheet, he put on his
fine undergarments and his boots, and sat down before the glass to brush his
black beard and his curly hair, that had begun to get thin above the
forehead. Everything he used, everything belonging to his toilet, his linen,
his clothes, boots, necktie, pin, studs, was of the best quality, very quiet,
simple, durable and costly.
Nekhludoff dressed leisurely, and went into the dining-room. A table,
which looked very imposing with its four legs carved in the shape of lions’
paws, and a huge side-board to match, stood in the oblong room, the floor
of which had been polished by three men the day before. On the table,
which was covered with a fine, starched cloth, stood a silver coffeepot full
of aromatic coffee, a sugar basin, a jug of fresh cream, and a bread basket

filled with fresh rolls, rusks, and biscuits; and beside the plate lay the last
number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, a newspaper, and several letters.
Nekhludoff was just going to open his letters, when a stout, middle-aged
woman in mourning, a lace cap covering the widening parting of her hair,
glided into the room. This was Agraphena Petrovna, formerly lady’s maid to
Nekhludoff’s mother. Her mistress had died quite recently in this very
house, and she remained with the son as his housekeeper. Agraphena
Petrovna had spent nearly ten years, at different times, abroad with
Nekhludoff’s mother, and had the appearance and manners of a lady. She
had lived with the Nekhludoffs from the time she was a child, and had
known Dmitri Ivanovitch at the time when he was still little Mitinka.
“Good-morning, Dmitri Ivanovitch.”
“Good-morning, Agraphena Petrovna. What is it you want?” Nekhludoff
asked.
“A letter from the princess; either from the mother or the daughter. The
maid brought it some time ago, and is waiting in my room,” answered
Agraphena Petrovna, handing him the letter with a significant smile.
“All right! Directly!” said Nekhludoff, taking the letter and frowning as
he noticed Agraphena Petrovna’s smile.
That smile meant that the letter was from the younger Princess
Korchagin, whom Agraphena Petrovna expected him to marry. This
supposition of hers annoyed Nekhludoff.
“Then I’ll tell her to wait?” and Agraphena Petrovna took a crumb brush
which was not in its place, put it away, and sailed out of the room.
Nekhludoff opened the perfumed note, and began reading it.
The note was written on a sheet of thick grey paper, with rough edges;
the writing looked English. It said:
Having assumed the task of acting as your memory, I take the liberty of
reminding you that on this the 28th day of April you have to appear at the
Law Courts, as juryman, and, in consequence, can on no account
accompany us and Kolosoff to the picture gallery, as, with your habitual
flightiness, you promised yesterday; a moins que vous ne soyez dispose a
payer la cour d’assise les 300 roubles d’amende que vous vous refusez pour
votre cheval, for not appearing in time. I remembered it last night after you
were gone, so do not forget.

Princess M. Korchagin.

On the other side was a postscript.
Maman vous fait dire que votre convert vous attendra jusqu’a la nuit.
Venez absolument a quelle heure que cela soit.

M. K.

Nekhludoff made a grimace. This note was a continuation of that skilful
manoeuvring which the Princess Korchagin had already practised for two
months in order to bind him closer and closer with invisible threads. And
yet, beside the usual hesitation of men past their youth to marry unless they
are very much in love, Nekhludoff had very good reasons why, even if he
did make up his mind to it, he could not propose at once. It was not that ten
years previously he had betrayed and forsaken Maslova; he had quite
forgotten that, and he would not have considered it a reason for not
marrying. No! The reason was that he had a liaison with a married woman,
and, though he considered it broken off, she did not.
Nekhludoff was rather shy with women, and his very shyness awakened
in this married woman, the unprincipled wife of the marechal de noblesse of
a district where Nekhludoff was present at an election, the desire of
vanquishing him. This woman drew him into an intimacy which entangled
him more and more, while it daily became more distasteful to him. Having
succumbed to the temptation, Nekhludoff felt guilty, and had not the
courage to break the tie without her consent. And this was the reason he did
not feel at liberty to propose to Korchagin even if he had wished to do so.
Among the letters on the table was one from this woman’s husband. Seeing
his writing and the postmark, Nekhludoff flushed, and felt his energies
awakening, as they always did when he was facing any kind of danger.
But his excitement passed at once. The marechal do noblesse, of the
district in which his largest estate lay, wrote only to let Nekhludoff know
that there was to be a special meeting towards the end of May, and that
Nekhludoff was to be sure and come to “donner un coup d’epaule,” at the
important debates concerning the schools and the roads, as a strong
opposition by the reactionary party was expected.
The marechal was a liberal, and was quite engrossed in this fight, not
even noticing the misfortune that had befallen him.

Nekhludoff remembered the dreadful moments he had lived through;
once when he thought that the husband had found him out and was going to
challenge him, and he was making up his mind to fire into the air; also the
terrible scene he had with her when she ran out into the park, and in her
excitement tried to drown herself in the pond.
“Well, I cannot go now, and can do nothing until I get a reply from her,”
thought Nekhludoff. A week ago he had written her a decisive letter, in
which he acknowledged his guilt, and his readiness to atone for it; but at the
same time he pronounced their relations to be at an end, for her own good,
as he expressed it. To this letter he had as yet received no answer. This
might prove a good sign, for if she did not agree to break off their relations,
she would have written at once, or even come herself, as she had done
before. Nekhludoff had heard that there was some officer who was paying
her marked attention, and this tormented him by awakening jealousy, and at
the same time encouraged him with the hope of escape from the deception
that was oppressing him.
The other letter was from his steward. The steward wrote to tell him that
a visit to his estates was necessary in order to enter into possession, and also
to decide about the further management of his lands; whether it was to
continue in the same way as when his mother was alive, or whether, as he
had represented to the late lamented princess, and now advised the young
prince, they had not better increase their stock and farm all the land now
rented by the peasants themselves. The steward wrote that this would be a
far more profitable way of managing the property; at the same time, he
apologised for not having forwarded the 3,000 roubles income due on the
1st. This money would be sent on by the next mail. The reason for the delay
was that he could not get the money out of the peasants, who had grown so
untrustworthy that he had to appeal to the authorities. This letter was partly
disagreeable, and partly pleasant. It was pleasant to feel that he had power
over so large a property, and yet disagreeable, because Nekhludoff had been
an enthusiastic admirer of Henry George and Herbert Spencer. Being
himself heir to a large property, he was especially struck by the position
taken up by Spencer in Social Statics, that justice forbids private
landholding, and with the straightforward resoluteness of his age, had not
merely spoken to prove that land could not be looked upon as private
property, and written essays on that subject at the university, but had acted
up to his convictions, and, considering it wrong to hold landed property, had

given the small piece of land he had inherited from his father to the
peasants. Inheriting his mother’s large estates, and thus becoming a landed
proprietor, he had to choose one of two things: either to give up his
property, as he had given up his father’s land ten years before, or silently to
confess that all his former ideas were mistaken and false.
He could not choose the former because he had no means but the landed
estates (he did not care to serve); moreover, he had formed luxurious habits
which he could not easily give up. Besides, he had no longer the same
inducements; his strong convictions, the resoluteness of youth, and the
ambitious desire to do something unusual were gone. As to the second
course, that of denying those clear and unanswerable proofs of the injustice
of landholding, which he had drawn from Spencer’s Social Statics, and the
brilliant corroboration of which he had at a later period found in the works
of Henry George, such a course was impossible to him.

CHAPTER IV. MISSY.
When Nekhludoff had finished his coffee, he went to his study to look at
the summons, and find out what time he was to appear at the court, before
writing his answer to the princess. Passing through his studio, where a few
studies hung on the walls and, facing the easel, stood an unfinished picture,
a feeling of inability to advance in art, a sense of his incapacity, came over
him. He had often had this feeling, of late, and explained it by his too
finely-developed aesthetic taste; still, the feeling was a very unpleasant one.
Seven years before this he had given up military service, feeling sure that
he had a talent for art, and had looked down with some disdain at all other
activity from the height of his artistic standpoint. And now it turned out that
he had no right to do so, and therefore everything that reminded him of all
this was unpleasant. He looked at the luxurious fittings of the studio with a
heavy heart, and it was in no cheerful mood that he entered his study, a
large, lofty room fitted up with a view to comfort, convenience, and elegant
appearance. He found the summons at once in a pigeon hole, labelled
“immediate,” of his large writing table. He had to appear at the court at 11
o’clock.
Nekhludoff sat down to write a note in reply to the princess, thanking her
for the invitation, and promising to try and come to dinner. Having written
one note, he tore it up, as it seemed too intimate. He wrote another, but it
was too cold; he feared it might give offence, so he tore it up, too. He
pressed the button of an electric bell, and his servant, an elderly, morose-
looking man, with whiskers and shaved chin and lip, wearing a grey cotton
apron, entered at the door.
“Send to fetch an isvostchik, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And tell the person who is waiting that I send thanks for the invitation,
and shall try to come.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It is not very polite, but I can’t write; no matter, I shall see her today,”
thought Nekhludoff, and went to get his overcoat.

When he came out of the house, an isvostchik he knew, with india-rubber
tires to his trap, was at the door waiting for him. “You had hardly gone
away from Prince Korchagin’s yesterday,” he said, turning half round,
“when I drove up, and the Swiss at the door says, ‘just gone.’” The
isvostchik knew that Nekhludoff visited at the Korchagins, and called there
on the chance of being engaged by him.
“Even the isvostchiks know of my relations with the Korchagins,”
thought Nekhludoff, and again the question whether he should not marry
Princess Korchagin presented itself to him, and he could not decide it either
way, any more than most of the questions that arose in his mind at this time.
It was in favour of marriage in general, that besides the comforts of
hearth and home, it made a moral life possible, and chiefly that a family
would, so Nekhludoff thought, give an aim to his now empty life.
Against marriage in general was the fear, common to bachelors past their
first youth, of losing freedom, and an unconscious awe before this
mysterious creature, a woman.
In this particular case, in favour of marrying Missy (her name was Mary,
but, as is usual among a certain set, a nickname had been given her) was
that she came of good family, and differed in everything, manner of
speaking, walking, laughing, from the common people, not by anything
exceptional, but by her “good breeding”—he could find no other term for
this quality, though he prized it very highly—-and, besides, she thought
more of him than of anybody else, therefore evidently understood him. This
understanding of him, i.e., the recognition of his superior merits, was to
Nekhludoff a proof of her good sense and correct judgment. Against
marrying Missy in particular, was, that in all likelihood, a girl with even
higher qualities could be found, that she was already 27, and that he was
hardly her first love. This last idea was painful to him. His pride would not
reconcile itself with the thought that she had loved some one else, even in
the past. Of course, she could not have known that she should meet him, but
the thought that she was capable of loving another offended him. So that he
had as many reasons for marrying as against it; at any rate, they weighed
equally with Nekhludoff, who laughed at himself, and called himself the ass
of the fable, remaining like that animal undecided which haycock to turn to.
“At any rate, before I get an answer from Mary Vasilievna (the
marechal’s wife), and finish completely with her, I can do nothing,” he said

to himself. And the conviction that he might, and was even obliged, to delay
his decision, was comforting. “Well, I shall consider all that later on,” he
said to himself, as the trap drove silently along the asphalt pavement up to
the doors of the Court.
“Now I must fulfil my public duties conscientiously, as I am in the habit
of always doing, and as I consider it right to do. Besides, they are often
interesting.” And he entered the hall of the Law Courts, past the doorkeeper.

CHAPTER V. THE JURYMEN.
The corridors of the Court were already full of activity. The attendants
hurried, out of breath, dragging their feet along the ground without lifting
them, backwards and forwards, with all sorts of messages and papers.
Ushers, advocates, and law officers passed hither and thither. Plaintiffs, and
those of the accused who were not guarded, wandered sadly along the walls
or sat waiting.
“Where is the Law Court?” Nekhludoff asked of an attendant.
“Which? There is the Civil Court and the Criminal Court.”
“I am on the jury.”
“The Criminal Court you should have said. Here to the right, then to the
left—the second door.”
Nekhludoff followed the direction.
Meanwhile some of the Criminal Court jurymen who were late had
hurriedly passed into a separate room. At the door mentioned two men
stood waiting.
One, a tall, fat merchant, a kind-hearted fellow, had evidently partaken of
some refreshments and a glass of something, and was in most pleasant
spirits. The other was a shopman of Jewish extraction. They were talking
about the price of wool when Nekhludoff came up and asked them if this
was the jurymen’s room.
“Yes, my dear sir, this is it. One of us? On the jury, are you?” asked the
merchant, with a merry wink.
“Ah, well, we shall have a go at the work together,” he continued, after
Nekhludoff had answered in the affirmative. “My name is Baklasheff,
merchant of the Second Guild,” he said, putting out his broad, soft, flexible
hand.
“With whom have I the honour?”
Nekhludoff gave his name and passed into the jurymen’s room.
Inside the room were about ten persons of all sorts. They had come but a
short while ago, and some were sitting, others walking up and down,

looking at each other, and making each other’s acquaintance. There was a
retired colonel in uniform; some were in frock coats, others in morning
coats, and only one wore a peasant’s dress.
Their faces all had a certain look of satisfaction at the prospect of
fulfilling a public duty, although many of them had had to leave their
businesses, and most were complaining of it.
The jurymen talked among themselves about the weather, the early
spring, and the business before them, some having been introduced, others
just guessing who was who. Those who were not acquainted with
Nekhludoff made haste to get introduced, evidently looking upon this as an
honour, and he taking it as his due, as he always did when among strangers.
Had he been asked why he considered himself above the majority of people,
he could not have given an answer; the life he had been living of late was
not particularly meritorious. The fact of his speaking English, French, and
German with a good accent, and of his wearing the best linen, clothes, ties,
and studs, bought from the most expensive dealers in these goods, he quite
knew would not serve as a reason for claiming superiority. At the same time
he did claim superiority, and accepted the respect paid him as his due, and
was hurt if he did not get it. In the jurymen’s room his feelings were hurt by
disrespectful treatment. Among the jury there happened to be a man whom
he knew, a former teacher of his sister’s children, Peter Gerasimovitch.
Nekhludoff never knew his surname, and even bragged a bit about this. This
man was now a master at a public school. Nekhludoff could not stand his
familiarity, his self-satisfied laughter, his vulgarity, in short.
“Ah ha! You’re also trapped.” These were the words, accompanied with
boisterous laughter, with which Peter Gerasimovitch greeted Nekhludoff.
“Have you not managed to get out of it?”
“I never meant to get out of it,” replied Nekhludoff, gloomily, and in a
tone of severity.
“Well, I call this being public spirited. But just wait until you get hungry
or sleepy; you’ll sing to another tune then.”
“This son of a priest will be saying ‘thou’ [in Russian, as in many other
languages, ‘thou’ is used generally among people very familiar with each
other, or by superiors to inferiors] to me next,” thought Nekhludoff, and
walked away, with such a look of sadness on his face, as might have been
natural if he had just heard of the death of all his relations. He came up to a

group that had formed itself round a clean-shaven, tall, dignified man, who
was recounting something with great animation. This man was talking
about the trial going on in the Civil Court as of a case well known to
himself, mentioning the judges and a celebrated advocate by name. He was
saying that it seemed wonderful how the celebrated advocate had managed
to give such a clever turn to the affair that an old lady, though she had the
right on her side, would have to pay a large sum to her opponent. “The
advocate is a genius,” he said.
The listeners heard it all with respectful attention, and several of them
tried to put in a word, but the man interrupted them, as if he alone knew all
about it.
Though Nekhludoff had arrived late, he had to wait a long time. One of
the members of the Court had not yet come, and everybody was kept
waiting.

CHAPTER VI. THE JUDGES.
The president, who had to take the chair, had arrived early. The president
was a tall, stout man, with long grey whiskers. Though married, he led a
very loose life, and his wife did the same, so they did not stand in each
other’s way. This morning he had received a note from a Swiss girl, who
had formerly been a governess in his house, and who was now on her way
from South Russia to St. Petersburg. She wrote that she would wait for him
between five and six p.m. in the Hotel Italia. This made him wish to begin
and get through the sitting as soon as possible, so as to have time to call
before six p.m. on the little red-haired Clara Vasilievna, with whom he had
begun a romance in the country last summer. He went into a private room,
latched the door, took a pair of dumb-bells out of a cupboard, moved his
arms 20 times upwards, downwards, forwards, and sideways, then holding
the dumb-bells above his head, lightly bent his knees three times.
“Nothing keeps one going like a cold bath and exercise,” he said, feeling
the biceps of his right arm with his left hand, on the third finger of which he
wore a gold ring. He had still to do the moulinee movement (for he always
went through those two exercises before a long sitting), when there was a
pull at the door. The president quickly put away the dumb-bells and opened
the door, saying, “I beg your pardon.”
One of the members, a high-shouldered, discontented-looking man, with
gold spectacles, came into the room. “Matthew Nikitich has again not
come,” he said, in a dissatisfied tone.
“Not yet?” said the president, putting on his uniform. “He is always late.”
“It is extraordinary. He ought to be ashamed of himself,” said the
member, angrily, and taking out a cigarette.
This member, a very precise man, had had an unpleasant encounter with
his wife in the morning, because she had spent her allowance before the end
of the month, and had asked him to give her some money in advance, but he
would not give way to her, and they had a quarrel. The wife told him that if
he were going to behave so, he need not expect any dinner; there would be
no dinner for him at home. At this point he left, fearing that she might carry

out her threat, for anything might be expected from her. “This comes of
living a good, moral life,” he thought, looking at the beaming, healthy,
cheerful, and kindly president, who, with elbows far apart, was smoothing
his thick grey whiskers with his fine white hands over the embroidered
collar of his uniform. “He is always contented and merry while I am
suffering.”
The secretary came in and brought some document.
“Thanks, very much,” said the president, lighting a cigarette. “Which
case shall we take first, then?”
“The poisoning case, I should say,” answered the secretary, with
indifference.
“All right; the poisoning case let it be,” said the president, thinking that
he could get this case over by four o’clock, and then go away. “And
Matthew Nikitich; has he come?”
“Not yet.”
“And Breve?”
“He is here,” replied the secretary.
“Then if you see him, please tell him that we begin with the poisoning
case.” Breve was the public prosecutor, who was to read the indictment in
this case.
In the corridor the secretary met Breve, who, with up lifted shoulders, a
portfolio under one arm, the other swinging with the palm turned to the
front, was hurrying along the corridor, clattering with his heels.
“Michael Petrovitch wants to know if you are ready?” the secretary
asked.
“Of course; I am always ready,” said the public prosecutor. “What are we
taking first?”
“The poisoning case.”
“That’s quite right,” said the public prosecutor, but did not think it at all
right. He had spent the night in a hotel playing cards with a friend who was
giving a farewell party. Up to five in the morning they played and drank, so
he had no time to look at this poisoning case, and meant to run it through
now. The secretary, happening to know this, advised the president to begin

with the poisoning case. The secretary was a Liberal, even a Radical, in
opinion.
Breve was a Conservative; the secretary disliked him, and envied him his
position.
“Well, and how about the Skoptzy?” [a religious sect] asked the
secretary.
“I have already said that I cannot do it without witnesses, and so I shall
say to the Court.”
“Dear me, what does it matter?”
“I cannot do it,” said Breve; and, waving his arm, he ran into his private
room.
He was putting off the case of the Skoptzy on account of the absence of a
very unimportant witness, his real reason being that if they were tried by an
educated jury they might possibly be acquitted.
By an agreement with the president this case was to be tried in the
coming session at a provincial town, where there would be more peasants,
and, therefore, more chances of conviction.
The movement in the corridor increased. The people crowded most at the
doors of the Civil Court, in which the case that the dignified man talked
about was being heard.
An interval in the proceeding occurred, and the old woman came out of
the court, whose property that genius of an advocate had found means of
getting for his client, a person versed in law who had no right to it whatever.
The judges knew all about the case, and the advocate and his client knew it
better still, but the move they had invented was such that it was impossible
not to take the old woman’s property and not to hand it over to the person
versed in law.
The old woman was stout, well dressed, and had enormous flowers on
her bonnet; she stopped as she came out of the door, and spreading out her
short fat arms and turning to her advocate, she kept repeating. “What does it
all mean? just fancy!”
The advocate was looking at the flowers in her bonnet, and evidently not
listening to her, but considering some question or other.

Next to the old woman, out of the door of the Civil Court, his broad,
starched shirt front glistening from under his low-cut waistcoat, with a self-
satisfied look on his face, came the celebrated advocate who had managed
to arrange matters so that the old woman lost all she had, and the person
versed in the law received more than 100,000 roubles. The advocate passed
close to the old woman, and, feeling all eyes directed towards him, his
whole bearing seemed to say: “No expressions of deference are required.”

CHAPTER VII. THE OFFICIALS OF THE
COURT.
At last Matthew Nikitich also arrived, and the usher, a thin man, with a
long neck and a kind of sideways walk, his nether lip protruding to one
side, which made him resemble a turkey, came into the jurymen’s room.
This usher was an honest man, and had a university education, but could
not keep a place for any length of time, as he was subject to fits of
drunkenness. Three months before a certain countess, who patronised his
wife, had found him this place, and he was very pleased to have kept it so
long.
“Well, sirs, is everybody here?” he asked, putting his pince-nez on his
nose, and looking round.
“Everybody, I think,” said the jolly merchant.
“All right; we’ll soon see.” And, taking a list from his pocket, he began
calling out the names, looking at the men, sometimes through and
sometimes over his pince-nez.
“Councillor of State, [grades such as this are common in Russia, and
mean very little] J. M. Nikiforoff!”
“I am he,” said the dignified-looking man, well versed in the habits of the
law court.
“Ivan Semionovitch Ivanoff, retired colonel!”
“Here!” replied a thin man, in the uniform of a retired officer.
“Merchant of the Second Guild, Peter Baklasheff!”
“Here we are, ready!” said the good-humoured merchant, with a broad
smile.
“Lieutenant of the Guards, Prince Dmitri Nekhludoff!”
“I am he,” answered Nekhludoff.
The usher bowed to him, looking over his pince-nez, politely and
pleasantly, as if wishing to distinguish him from the others.

“Captain Youri Demitrievitch-Dantchenko, merchant; Grigori
Euphimitch Kouleshoff,” etc. All but two were present.
“Now please to come to the court, gentlemen,” said the usher, pointing to
the door, with an amiable wave of his hand.
All moved towards the door, pausing to let each other pass. Then they
went through the corridor into the court.
The court was a large, long room. At one end there was a raised platform,
with three steps leading up to it, on which stood a table, covered with a
green cloth trimmed with a fringe of a darker shade. At the table were
placed three arm-chairs, with high-carved oak backs; on the wall behind
them hung a full-length, brightly-coloured portrait of the Emperor in
uniform and ribbon, with one foot in advance, and holding a sword. In the
right corner hung a case, with an image of Christ crowned with thorns, and
beneath it stood a lectern, and on the same side the prosecuting attorney’s
desk. On the left, opposite the desk, was the secretary’s table, and in front
of it, nearer the public, an oak grating, with the prisoners’ bench, as yet
unoccupied, behind it. Besides all this, there were on the right side of the
platform high-backed ashwood chairs for the jury, and on the floor below
tables for the advocates. All this was in the front part of the court, divided
from the back by a grating.
The back was all taken up by seats in tiers. Sitting on the front seats were
four women, either servant or factory girls, and two working men, evidently
overawed by the grandeur of the room, and not venturing to speak above a
whisper.
Soon after the jury had come in the usher entered, with his sideward gait,
and stepping to the front, called out in a loud voice, as if he meant to
frighten those present, “The Court is coming!” Every one got up as the
members stepped on to the platform. Among them the president, with his
muscles and fine whiskers. Next came the gloomy member of the Court,
who was now more gloomy than ever, having met his brother-in-law, who
informed him that he had just called in to see his sister (the member’s wife),
and that she had told him that there would be no dinner there.
“So that, evidently, we shall have to call in at a cook shop,” the brother-
in-law added, laughing.
“It is not at all funny,” said the gloomy member, and became gloomier
still.

Then at last came the third member of the Court, the same Matthew
Nikitich, who was always late. He was a bearded man, with large, round,
kindly eyes. He was suffering from a catarrh of the stomach, and, according
to his doctor’s advice, he had begun trying a new treatment, and this had
kept him at home longer than usual. Now, as he was ascending the platform,
he had a pensive air. He was in the habit of making guesses in answer to all
sorts of self-put questions by different curious means. Just now he had
asked whether the new treatment would be beneficial, and had decided that
it would cure his catarrh if the number of steps from the door to his chair
would divide by three. He made 26 steps, but managed to get in a 27th just
by his chair.
The figures of the president and the members in their uniforms, with
gold-embroidered collars, looked very imposing. They seemed to feel this
themselves, and, as if overpowered by their own grandeur, hurriedly sat
down on the high backed chairs behind the table with the green cloth, on
which were a triangular article with an eagle at the top, two glass vases—
something like those in which sweetmeats are kept in refreshment rooms—
an inkstand, pens, clean paper, and good, newly-cut pencils of different
kinds.
The public prosecutor came in with the judges. With his portfolio under
one arm, and swinging the other, he hurriedly walked to his seat near the
window, and was instantly absorbed in reading and looking through the
papers, not wasting a single moment, in hope of being ready when the
business commenced. He had been public prosecutor but a short time, and
had only prosecuted four times before this. He was very ambitious, and had
firmly made up his mind to get on, and therefore thought it necessary to get
a conviction whenever he prosecuted. He knew the chief facts of the
poisoning case, and had already formed a plan of action. He only wanted to
copy out a few points which he required.
The secretary sat on the opposite side of the platform, and, having got
ready all the papers he might want, was looking through an article,
prohibited by the censor, which he had procured and read the day before.
He was anxious to have a talk about this article with the bearded member,
who shared his views, but wanted to look through it once more before doing
so.

CHAPTER VIII. SWEARING IN THE JURY.
The president, having looked through some papers and put a few
questions to the usher and the secretary, gave the order for the prisoners to
be brought in.
The door behind the grating was instantly opened, and two gendarmes,
with caps on their heads, and holding naked swords in their hands, came in,
followed by the prisoners, a red-haired, freckled man, and two women. The
man wore a prison cloak, which was too long and too wide for him. He
stuck out his thumbs, and held his arms close to his sides, thus keeping the
sleeves, which were also too long, from slipping over his hands. Without
looking at the judges he gazed steadfastly at the form, and passing to the
other side of it, he sat down carefully at the very edge, leaving plenty of
room for the others. He fixed his eyes on the president, and began moving
the muscles of his cheeks, as if whispering something. The woman who
came next was also dressed in a prison cloak, and had a prison kerchief
round her head. She had a sallow complexion, no eyebrows or lashes, and
very red eyes. This woman appeared perfectly calm. Having caught her
cloak against something, she detached it carefully, without any haste, and
sat down.
The third prisoner was Maslova.
As soon as she appeared, the eyes of all the men in the court turned her
way, and remained fixed on her white face, her sparklingly-brilliant black
eyes and the swelling bosom under the prison cloak. Even the gendarme
whom she passed on her way to her seat looked at her fixedly till she sat
down, and then, as if feeling guilty, hurriedly turned away, shook himself,
and began staring at the window in front of him.
The president paused until the prisoners had taken their seats, and when
Maslova was seated, turned to the secretary.
Then the usual procedure commenced; the counting of the jury, remarks
about those who had not come, the fixing of the fines to be exacted from
them, the decisions concerning those who claimed exemption, the
appointing of reserve jurymen.

Having folded up some bits of paper and put them in one of the glass
vases, the president turned up the gold-embroidered cuffs of his uniform a
little way, and began drawing the lots, one by one, and opening them.
Nekhludoff was among the jurymen thus drawn. Then, having let down his
sleeves, the president requested the priest to swear in the jury.
The old priest, with his puffy, red face, his brown gown, and his gold
cross and little order, laboriously moving his stiff legs, came up to the
lectern beneath the icon.
The jurymen got up, and crowded towards the lectern.
“Come up, please,” said the priest, pulling at the cross on his breast with
his plump hand, and waiting till all the jury had drawn near. When they had
all come up the steps of the platform, the priest passed his bald, grey head
sideways through the greasy opening of the stole, and, having rearranged
his thin hair, he again turned to the jury. “Now, raise your right arms in this
way, and put your fingers together, thus,” he said, with his tremulous old
voice, lifting his fat, dimpled hand, and putting the thumb and two first
fingers together, as if taking a pinch of something. “Now, repeat after me, ‘I
promise and swear, by the Almighty God, by His holy gospels, and by the
life-giving cross of our Lord, that in this work which,’” he said, pausing
between each sentence—“don’t let your arm down; hold it like this,” he
remarked to a young man who had lowered his arm—“‘that in this work
which . . . ‘”
The dignified man with the whiskers, the colonel, the merchant, and
several more held their arms and fingers as the priest required of them, very
high, very exactly, as if they liked doing it; others did it unwillingly and
carelessly. Some repeated the words too loudly, and with a defiant tone, as
if they meant to say, “In spite of all, I will and shall speak.” Others
whispered very low, and not fast enough, and then, as if frightened, hurried
to catch up the priest. Some kept their fingers tightly together, as if fearing
to drop the pinch of invisible something they held; others kept separating
and folding theirs. Every one save the old priest felt awkward, but he was
sure he was fulfilling a very useful and important duty.
After the swearing in, the president requested the jury to choose a
foreman, and the jury, thronging to the door, passed out into the debating-
room, where almost all of them at once began to smoke cigarettes. Some
one proposed the dignified man as foreman, and he was unanimously

accepted. Then the jurymen put out their cigarettes and threw them away
and returned to the court. The dignified man informed the president that he
was chosen foreman, and all sat down again on the high-backed chairs.
Everything went smoothly, quickly, and not without a certain solemnity.
And this exactitude, order, and solemnity evidently pleased those who took
part in it: it strengthened the impression that they were fulfilling a serious
and valuable public duty. Nekhludoff, too, felt this.
As soon as the jurymen were seated, the president made a speech on their
rights, obligations, and responsibilities. While speaking he kept changing
his position; now leaning on his right, now on his left hand, now against the
back, then on the arms of his chair, now putting the papers straight, now
handling his pencil and paper-knife.
According to his words, they had the right of interrogating the prisoners
through the president, to use paper and pencils, and to examine the articles
put in as evidence. Their duty was to judge not falsely, but justly. Their
responsibility meant that if the secrecy of their discussion were violated, or
communications were established with outsiders, they would be liable to
punishment. Every one listened with an expression of respectful attention.
The merchant, diffusing a smell of brandy around him, and restraining loud
hiccups, approvingly nodded his head at every sentence.

CHAPTER IX. THE TRIAL—THE PRISONERS
QUESTIONED.
When he had finished his speech, the president turned to the male
prisoner.
“Simeon Kartinkin, rise.”
Simeon jumped up, his lips continuing to move nervously and inaudibly.
“Your name?”
“Simon Petrov Kartinkin,” he said, rapidly, with a cracked voice, having
evidently prepared the answer.
“What class do you belong to?”
“Peasant.”
“What government, district, and parish?”
“Toula Government, Krapivinskia district, Koupianovski parish, the
village Borki.”
“Your age?”
“Thirty-three; born in the year one thousand eight—”
“What religion?”
“Of the Russian religion, orthodox.”
“Married?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Your occupation?”
“I had a place in the Hotel Mauritania.”
“Have you ever been tried before?”
“I never got tried before, because, as we used to live formerly—”
“So you never were tried before?”
“God forbid, never.”
“Have you received a copy of the indictment?”
“I have.”

“Sit down.”
“Euphemia Ivanovna Botchkova,” said the president, turning to the next
prisoner.
But Simon continued standing in front of Botchkova.
“Kartinkin, sit down!” Kartinkin continued standing.
“Kartinkin, sit down!” But Kartinkin sat down only when the usher, with
his head on one side, and with preternaturally wide-open eyes, ran up, and
said, in a tragic whisper, “Sit down, sit down!”
Kartinkin sat down as hurriedly as he had risen, wrapping his cloak round
him, and again began moving his lips silently.
“Your name?” asked the president, with a weary sigh at being obliged to
repeat the same questions, without looking at the prisoner, but glancing
over a paper that lay before him. The president was so used to his task that,
in order to get quicker through it all, he did two things at a time.
Botchkova was forty-three years old, and came from the town of
Kalomna. She, too, had been in service at the Hotel Mauritania.
“I have never been tried before, and have received a copy of the
indictment.” She gave her answers boldly, in a tone of voice as if she meant
to add to each answer, “And I don’t care who knows it, and I won’t stand
any nonsense.”
She did not wait to be told, but sat down as soon as she had replied to the
last question.
“Your name?” turning abruptly to the third prisoner. “You will have to
rise,” he added, softly and gently, seeing that Maslova kept her seat.
Maslova got up and stood, with her chest expanded, looking at the
president with that peculiar expression of readiness in her smiling black
eyes.
“What is your name?”
“Lubov,” she said.
Nekhludoff had put on his pince-nez, looking at the prisoners while they
were being questioned.
“No, it is impossible,” he thought, not taking his eyes off the prisoner.
“Lubov! How can it be?” he thought to himself, after hearing her answer.
The president was going to continue his questions, but the member with the

spectacles interrupted him, angrily whispering something. The president
nodded, and turned again to the prisoner.
“How is this,” he said, “you are not put down here as Lubov?”
The prisoner remained silent.
“I want your real name.”
“What is your baptismal name?” asked the angry member.
“Formerly I used to be called Katerina.”
“No, it cannot be,” said Nekhludoff to himself; and yet he was now
certain that this was she, that same girl, half ward, half servant to his aunts;
that Katusha, with whom he had once been in love, really in love, but whom
he had betrayed and then abandoned, and never again brought to mind, for
the memory would have been too painful, would have convicted him too
clearly, proving that he who was so proud of his integrity had treated this
woman in a revolting, scandalous way.
Yes, this was she. He now clearly saw in her face that strange,
indescribable individuality which distinguishes every face from all others;
something peculiar, all its own, not to be found anywhere else. In spite of
the unhealthy pallor and the fulness of the face, it was there, this sweet,
peculiar individuality; on those lips, in the slight squint of her eyes, in the
voice, particularly in the naive smile, and in the expression of readiness on
the face and figure.
“You should have said so,” remarked the president, again in a gentle tone.
“Your patronymic?”
“I am illegitimate.”
“Well, were you not called by your godfather’s name?”
“Yes, Mikhaelovna.”
“And what is it she can be guilty of?” continued Nekhludoff, in his mind,
unable to breathe freely.
“Your family name—your surname, I mean?” the president went on.
“They used to call me by my mother’s surname, Maslova.”
“What class?”
“Meschanka.” [the lowest town class or grade]
“Religion—orthodox?”

“Orthodox.”
“Occupation. What was your occupation?”
Maslova remained silent.
“What was your employment?”
“You know yourself,” she said, and smiled. Then, casting a hurried look
round the room, again turned her eyes on the president.
There was something so unusual in the expression of her face, so terrible
and piteous in the meaning of the words she had uttered, in this smile, and
in the furtive glance she had cast round the room, that the president was
abashed, and for a few minutes silence reigned in the court. The silence was
broken by some one among the public laughing, then somebody said “Ssh,”
and the president looked up and continued:
“Have you ever been tried before?”
“Never,” answered Maslova, softly, and sighed.
“Have you received a copy of the indictment?”
“I have,” she answered.
“Sit down.”
The prisoner leant back to pick up her skirt in the way a fine lady picks
up her train, and sat down, folding her small white hands in the sleeves of
her cloak, her eyes fixed on the president. Her face was calm again.
The witnesses were called, and some sent away; the doctor who was to
act as expert was chosen and called into the court.
Then the secretary got up and began reading the indictment. He read
distinctly, though he pronounced the “I” and “r” alike, with a loud voice,
but so quickly that the words ran into one another and formed one
uninterrupted, dreary drone.
The judges bent now on one, now on the other arm of their chairs, then
on the table, then back again, shut and opened their eyes, and whispered to
each other. One of the gendarmes several times repressed a yawn.
The prisoner Kartinkin never stopped moving his cheeks. Botchkova sat
quite still and straight, only now and then scratching her head under the
kerchief.
Maslova sat immovable, gazing at the reader; only now and then she
gave a slight start, as if wishing to reply, blushed, sighed heavily, and

changed the position of her hands, looked round, and again fixed her eyes
on the reader.
Nekhludoff sat in the front row on his high-backed chair, without
removing his pince-nez, and looked at Maslova, while a complicated and
fierce struggle was going on in his soul.

CHAPTER X. THE TRIAL—THE
INDICTMENT.
The indictment ran as follows: On the 17th of January, 18—, in the
lodging-house Mauritania, occurred the sudden death of the Second Guild
merchant, Therapont Emilianovich Smelkoff, of Kourgan.
The local police doctor of the fourth district certified that death was due
to rupture of the heart, owing to the excessive use of alcoholic liquids. The
body of the said Smelkoff was interred. After several days had elapsed, the
merchant Timokhin, a fellow-townsman and companion of the said
Smelkoff, returned from St. Petersburg, and hearing the circumstances that
accompanied the death of the latter, notified his suspicions that the death
was caused by poison, given with intent to rob the said Smelkoff of his
money. This suspicion was corroborated on inquiry, which proved:
1. That shortly before his death the said Smelkoff had received the sum
of 3,800 roubles from the bank. When an inventory of the property of the
deceased was made, only 312 roubles and 16 copecks were found.
2. The whole day and night preceding his death the said Smelkoff spent
with Lubka (alias Katerina Maslova) at her home and in the lodging-house
Mauritania, which she also visited at the said Smelkoff’s request during his
absence, to get some money, which she took out of his portmanteau in the
presence of the servants of the lodging-house Mauritania, Euphemia
Botchkova and Simeon Kartinkin, with a key given her by the said
Smelkoff. In the portmanteau opened by the said Maslova, the said
Botchkova and Kartinkin saw packets of 100-rouble bank-notes.
3. On the said Smelkoff’s return to the lodging-house Mauritania,
together with Lubka, the latter, in accordance with the attendant Kartinkin’s
advice, gave the said Smelkoff some white powder given to her by the said
Kartinkin, dissolved in brandy.
4. The next morning the said Lubka (alias Katerina Maslova) sold to her
mistress, the witness Kitaeva, a brothel-keeper, a diamond ring given to her,
as she alleged, by the said Smelkoff.

5. The housemaid of the lodging-house Mauritania, Euphemia
Botchkova, placed to her account in the local Commercial Bank 1,800
roubles. The postmortem examination of the body of the said Smelkoff and
the chemical analysis of his intestines proved beyond doubt the presence of
poison in the organism, so that there is reason to believe that the said
Smelkoff’s death was caused by poisoning.
When cross-examined, the accused, Maslova, Botchkova, and Kartinkin,
pleaded not guilty, deposing—Maslova, that she had really been sent by
Smelkoff from the brothel, where she “works,” as she expresses it, to the
lodging-house Mauritania to get the merchant some money, and that, having
unlocked the portmanteau with a key given her by the merchant, she took
out 40 roubles, as she was told to do, and that she had taken nothing more;
that Botchkova and Kartinkin, in whose presence she unlocked and locked
the portmanteau, could testify to the truth of the statement.
She gave this further evidence—that when she came to the lodging-house
for the second time she did, at the instigation of Simeon Kartinkin, give
Smelkoff some kind of powder, which she thought was a narcotic, in a glass
of brandy, hoping he would fall asleep and that she would be able to get
away from him; and that Smelkoff, having beaten her, himself gave her the
ring when she cried and threatened to go away.
The accused, Euphemia Botchkova, stated that she knew nothing about
the missing money, that she had not even gone into Smelkoff’s room, but
that Lubka had been busy there all by herself; that if anything had been
stolen, it must have been done by Lubka when she came with the
merchant’s key to get his money.
At this point Maslova gave a start, opened her mouth, and looked at
Botchkova. “When,” continued the secretary, “the receipt for 1,800 roubles
from the bank was shown to Botchkova, and she was asked where she had
obtained the money, she said that it was her own earnings for 12 years, and
those of Simeon, whom she was going to marry. The accused Simeon
Kartinkin, when first examined, confessed that he and Botchkova, at the
instigation of Maslova, who had come with the key from the brothel, had
stolen the money and divided it equally among themselves and Maslova.”
Here Maslova again started, half-rose from her seat, and, blushing scarlet,
began to say something, but was stopped by the usher. “At last,” the
secretary continued, reading, “Kartinkin confessed also that he had supplied

the powders in order to get Smelkoff to sleep. When examined the second
time he denied having had anything to do with the stealing of the money or
giving Maslova the powders, accusing her of having done it alone.”
Concerning the money placed in the bank by Botchkova, he said the
same as she, that is, that the money was given to them both by the lodgers
in tips during 12 years’ service.
The indictment concluded as follows:
In consequence of the foregoing, the peasant of the village Borki, Simeon
Kartinkin, 33 years of age, the meschanka Euphemia Botchkova, 43 years
of age, and the meschanka Katerina Maslova, 27 years of age, are accused
of having on the 17th day of January, 188—, jointly stolen from the said
merchant, Smelkoff, a ring and money, to the value of 2,500 roubles, and of
having given the said merchant, Smelkoff, poison to drink, with intent of
depriving him of life, and thereby causing his death. This crime is provided
for in clause 1,455 of the Penal Code, paragraphs 4 and 5.

CHAPTER XI. THE TRIAL—MASLOVA
CROSS-EXAMINED.
When the reading of the indictment was over, the president, after having
consulted the members, turned to Kartinkin, with an expression that plainly
said: Now we shall find out the whole truth down to the minutest detail.
“Peasant Simeon Kartinkin,” he said, stooping to the left.
Simeon Kartinkin got up, stretched his arms down his sides, and leaning
forward with his whole body, continued moving his cheeks inaudibly.
“You are accused of having on the 17th January, 188—, together with
Euphemia Botchkova and Katerina Maslova, stolen money from a
portmanteau belonging to the merchant Smelkoff, and then, having
procured some arsenic, persuaded Katerina Maslova to give it to the
merchant Smelkoff in a glass of brandy, which was the cause of Smelkoff’s
death. Do you plead guilty?” said the president, stooping to the right.
“Not nohow, because our business is to attend on the lodgers, and—”
“You’ll tell us that afterwards. Do you plead guilty?”
“Oh, no, sir. I only,—”
“You’ll tell us that afterwards. Do you plead guilty?” quietly and firmly
asked the president.
“Can’t do such a thing, because that—”
The usher again rushed up to Simeon Kartinkin, and stopped him in a
tragic whisper.
The president moved the hand with which he held the paper and placed
the elbow in a different position with an air that said: “This is finished,” and
turned to Euphemia Botchkova.
“Euphemia Botchkova, you are accused of having, on the 17th of
January, 188-, in the lodging-house Mauritania, together with Simeon
Kartinkin and Katerina Maslova, stolen some money and a ring out of the
merchant Smelkoff’s portmanteau, and having shared the money among

yourselves, given poison to the merchant Smelkoff, thereby causing his
death. Do you plead guilty?”
“I am not guilty of anything,” boldly and firmly replied the prisoner. “I
never went near the room, but when this baggage went in she did the whole
business.”
“You will say all this afterwards,” the president again said, quietly and
firmly. “So you do not plead guilty?”
“I did not take the money nor give the drink, nor go into the room. Had I
gone in I should have kicked her out.”
“So you do not plead guilty?”
“Never.”
“Very well.”
“Katerina Maslova,” the president began, turning to the third prisoner,
“you are accused of having come from the brothel with the key of the
merchant Smelkoff’s portmanteau, money, and a ring.” He said all this like
a lesson learned by heart, leaning towards the member on his left, who was
whispering into his ear that a bottle mentioned in the list of the material
evidence was missing. “Of having stolen out of the portmanteau money and
a ring,” he repeated, “and shared it. Then, returning to the lodging house
Mauritania with Smelkoff, of giving him poison in his drink, and thereby
causing his death. Do you plead guilty?”
“I am not guilty of anything,” she began rapidly. “As I said before I say
again, I did not take it—I did not take it; I did not take anything, and the
ring he gave me himself.”
“You do not plead guilty of having stolen 2,500 roubles?” asked the
president.
“I’ve said I took nothing but the 40 roubles.”
“Well, and do you plead guilty of having given the merchant Smelkoff a
powder in his drink?”
“Yes, that I did. Only I believed what they told me, that they were
sleeping powders, and that no harm could come of them. I never thought,
and never wished. . . God is my witness; I say, I never meant this,” she said.
“So you do not plead guilty of having stolen the money and the ring from
the merchant Smelkoff, but confess that you gave him the powder?” said

the president.
“Well, yes, I do confess this, but I thought they were sleeping powders. I
only gave them to make him sleep; I never meant and never thought of
worse.”
“Very well,” said the president, evidently satisfied with the results
gained. “Now tell us how it all happened,” and he leaned back in his chair
and put his folded hands on the table. “Tell us all about it. A free and full
confession will be to your advantage.”
Maslova continued to look at the president in silence, and blushing.
“Tell us how it happened.”
“How it happened?” Maslova suddenly began, speaking quickly. “I came
to the lodging-house, and was shown into the room. He was there, already
very drunk.” She pronounced the word he with a look of horror in her wide-
open eyes. “I wished to go away, but he would not let me.” She stopped, as
if having lost the thread, or remembered some thing else.
“Well, and then?”
“Well, what then? I remained a bit, and went home again.”
At this moment the public prosecutor raised himself a little, leaning on
one elbow in an awkward manner.
“You would like to put a question?” said the president, and having
received an answer in the affirmative, he made a gesture inviting the public
prosecutor to speak.
“I want to ask, was the prisoner previously acquainted with Simeon
Kartinkin?” said the public prosecutor, without looking at Maslova, and,
having put the question, he compressed his lips and frowned.
The president repeated the question. Maslova stared at the public
prosecutor, with a frightened look.
“With Simeon? Yes,” she said.
“I should like to know what the prisoner’s acquaintance with Kartinkin
consisted in. Did they meet often?”
“Consisted in? . . . He invited me for the lodgers; it was not an
acquaintance at all,” answered Maslova, anxiously moving her eyes from
the president to the public prosecutor and back to the president.

“I should like to know why Kartinkin invited only Maslova, and none of
the other girls, for the lodgers?” said the public prosecutor, with half-closed
eyes and a cunning, Mephistophelian smile.
“I don’t know. How should I know?” said Maslova, casting a frightened
look round, and fixing her eyes for a moment on Nekhludoff. “He asked
whom he liked.”
“Is it possible that she has recognised me?” thought Nekhludoff, and the
blood rushed to his face. But Maslova turned away without distinguishing
him from the others, and again fixed her eyes anxiously on the public
prosecutor.
“So the prisoner denies having had any intimate relations with Kartinkin?
Very well, I have no more questions to ask.”
And the public prosecutor took his elbow off the desk, and began writing
something. He was not really noting anything down, but only going over
the letters of his notes with a pen, having seen the procureur and leading
advocates, after putting a clever question, make a note, with which, later on,
to annihilate their adversaries.
The president did not continue at once, because he was consulting the
member with the spectacles, whether he was agreed that the questions
(which had all been prepared be forehand and written out) should be put.
“Well! What happened next?” he then went on.
“I came home,” looking a little more boldly only at the president, “and
went to bed. Hardly had I fallen asleep when one of our girls, Bertha, woke
me. ‘Go, your merchant has come again!’ He”—she again uttered the word
he with evident horror—“he kept treating our girls, and then wanted to send
for more wine, but his money was all gone, and he sent me to his lodgings
and told me where the money was, and how much to take. So I went.”
The president was whispering to the member on his left, but, in order to
appear as if he had heard, he repeated her last words.
“So you went. Well, what next?”
“I went, and did all he told me; went into his room. I did not go alone,
but called Simeon Kartinkin and her,” she said, pointing to Botchkova.
“That’s a lie; I never went in,” Botchkova began, but was stopped.

“In their presence I took out four notes,” continued Maslova, frowning,
without looking at Botchkova.
“Yes, but did the prisoner notice,” again asked the prosecutor, “how
much money there was when she was getting out the 40 roubles?”
Maslova shuddered when the prosecutor addressed her; she did not know
why it was, but she felt that he wished her evil.
“I did not count it, but only saw some 100-rouble notes.”
“Ah! The prisoner saw 100-rouble notes. That’s all?”
“Well, so you brought back the money,” continued the president, looking
at the clock.
“I did.”
“Well, and then?”
“Then he took me back with him,” said Maslova.
“Well, and how did you give him the powder? In his drink?”
“How did I give it? I put them in and gave it him.”
“Why did you give it him?”
She did not answer, but sighed deeply and heavily.
“He would not let me go,” she said, after a moment’s silence, “and I was
quite tired out, and so I went out into the passage and said to Simeon, ‘If he
would only let me go, I am so tired.’ And he said, ‘We are also sick of him;
we were thinking of giving him a sleeping draught; he will fall asleep, and
then you can go.’ So I said all right. I thought they were harmless, and he
gave me the packet. I went in. He was lying behind the partition, and at
once called for brandy. I took a bottle of ‘fine champagne’ from the table,
poured out two glasses, one for him and one for myself, and put the
powders into his glass, and gave it him. Had I known how could I have
given them to him?”
“Well, and how did the ring come into your possession?” asked the
president. “When did he give it you?”
“That was when we came back to his lodgings. I wanted to go away, and
he gave me a knock on the head and broke my comb. I got angry and said
I’d go away, and he took the ring off his finger and gave it to me so that I
should not go,” she said.

Then the public prosecutor again slightly raised himself, and, putting on
an air of simplicity, asked permission to put a few more questions, and,
having received it, bending his head over his embroidered collar, he said: “I
should like to know how long the prisoner remained in the merchant
Smelkoff’s room.”
Maslova again seemed frightened, and she again looked anxiously from
the public prosecutor to the president, and said hurriedly:
“I do not remember how long.”
“Yes, but does the prisoner remember if she went anywhere else in the
lodging-house after she left Smelkoff?”
Maslova considered for a moment. “Yes, I did go into an empty room
next to his.”
“Yes, and why did you go in?” asked the public prosecutor, forgetting
himself, and addressing her directly.
“I went in to rest a bit, and to wait for an isvostchik.”
“And was Kartinkin in the room with the prisoner, or not?”
“He came in.”
“Why did he come in?”
“There was some of the merchant’s brandy left, and we finished it
together.”
“Oh, finished it together. Very well! And did the prisoner talk to
Kartinkin, and, if so, what about?”
Maslova suddenly frowned, blushed very red, and said, hurriedly, “What
about? I did not talk about anything, and that’s all I know. Do what you like
with me; I am not guilty, and that’s all.”
“I have nothing more to ask,” said the prosecutor, and, drawing up his
shoulders in an unnatural manner, began writing down, as the prisoner’s
own evidence, in the notes for his speech, that she had been in the empty
room with Kartinkin.
There was a short silence.
“You have nothing more to say?”
“I have told everything,” she said, with a sigh, and sat down.

Then the president noted something down, and, having listened to
something that the member on his left whispered to him, he announced a
ten-minutes’ interval, rose hurriedly, and left the court. The communication
he had received from the tall, bearded member with the kindly eyes was
that the member, having felt a slight stomach derangement, wished to do a
little massage and to take some drops. And this was why an interval was
made.
When the judges had risen, the advocates, the jury, and the witnesses also
rose, with the pleasant feeling that part of the business was finished, and
began moving in different directions.
Nekhludoff went into the jury’s room, and sat down by the window.

CHAPTER XII. TWELVE YEARS BEFORE.
“Yes, this was Katusha.”

The relations between Nekhludoff and Katusha had been the following:
Nekhludoff first saw Katusha when he was a student in his third year at
the University, and was preparing an essay on land tenure during the
summer vacation, which he passed with his aunts. Until then he had always
lived, in summer, with his mother and sister on his mother’s large estate
near Moscow. But that year his sister had married, and his mother had gone
abroad to a watering-place, and he, having his essay to write, resolved to
spend the summer with his aunts. It was very quiet in their secluded estate
and there was nothing to distract his mind; his aunts loved their nephew and
heir very tenderly, and he, too, was fond of them and of their simple, old-
fashioned life.
During that summer on his aunts’ estate, Nekhludoff passed through that
blissful state of existence when a young man for the first time, without
guidance from any one outside, realises all the beauty and significance of
life, and the importance of the task allotted in it to man; when he grasps the
possibility of unlimited advance towards perfection for one’s self and for all
the world, and gives himself to this task, not only hopefully, but with full
conviction of attaining to the perfection he imagines. In that year, while still
at the University, he had read Spencer’s Social Statics, and Spencer’s views
on landholding especially impressed him, as he himself was heir to large
estates. His father had not been rich, but his mother had received 10,000
acres of land for her dowry. At that time he fully realised all the cruelty and
injustice of private property in land, and being one of those to whom a
sacrifice to the demands of conscience gives the highest spiritual
enjoyment, he decided not to retain property rights, but to give up to the
peasant labourers the land he had inherited from his father. It was on this
land question he wrote his essay.
He arranged his life on his aunts’ estate in the following manner. He got
up very early, sometimes at three o’clock, and before sunrise went through
the morning mists to bathe in the river, under the hill. He returned while the

dew still lay on the grass and the flowers. Sometimes, having finished his
coffee, he sat down with his books of reference and his papers to write his
essay, but very often, instead of reading or writing, he left home again, and
wandered through the fields and the woods. Before dinner he lay down and
slept somewhere in the garden. At dinner he amused and entertained his
aunts with his bright spirits, then he rode on horseback or went for a row on
the river, and in the evening he again worked at his essay, or sat reading or
playing patience with his aunts.
His joy in life was so great that it agitated him, and kept him awake many
a night, especially when it was moonlight, so that instead of sleeping he
wandered about in the garden till dawn, alone with his dreams and fancies.
And so, peacefully and happily, he lived through the first month of his
stay with his aunts, taking no particular notice of their half-ward, half-
servant, the black-eyed, quick-footed Katusha. Then, at the age of nineteen,
Nekhludoff, brought up under his mother’s wing, was still quite pure. If a
woman figured in his dreams at all it was only as a wife. All the other
women, who, according to his ideas he could not marry, were not women
for him, but human beings.
But on Ascension Day that summer, a neighbour of his aunts’, and her
family, consisting of two young daughters, a schoolboy, and a young artist
of peasant origin who was staying with them, came to spend the day. After
tea they all went to play in the meadow in front of the house, where the
grass had already been mown. They played at the game of gorelki, and
Katusha joined them. Running about and changing partners several times,
Nekhludoff caught Katusha, and she became his partner. Up to this time he
had liked Katusha’s looks, but the possibility of any nearer relations with
her had never entered his mind.
“Impossible to catch those two,” said the merry young artist, whose turn
it was to catch, and who could run very fast with his short, muscular legs.
“You! And not catch us?” said Katusha.
“One, two, three,” and the artist clapped his hands. Katusha, hardly
restraining her laughter, changed places with Nekhludoff, behind the artist’s
back, and pressing his large hand with her little rough one, and rustling with
her starched petticoat, ran to the left. Nekhludoff ran fast to the right, trying
to escape from the artist, but when he looked round he saw the artist
running after Katusha, who kept well ahead, her firm young legs moving

rapidly. There was a lilac bush in front of them, and Katusha made a sign
with her head to Nekhludoff to join her behind it, for if they once clasped
hands again they were safe from their pursuer, that being a rule of the game.
He understood the sign, and ran behind the bush, but he did not know that
there was a small ditch overgrown with nettles there. He stumbled and fell
into the nettles, already wet with dew, stinging his bands, but rose
immediately, laughing at his mishap.
Katusha, with her eyes black as sloes, her face radiant with joy, was
flying towards him, and they caught hold of each other’s hands.
“Got stung, I daresay?” she said, arranging her hair with her free hand,
breathing fast and looking straight up at him with a glad, pleasant smile.
“I did not know there was a ditch here,” he answered, smiling also, and
keeping her hand in his. She drew nearer to him, and he himself, not
knowing how it happened, stooped towards her. She did not move away,
and he pressed her hand tight and kissed her on the lips.
“There! You’ve done it!” she said; and, freeing her hand with a swift
movement, ran away from him. Then, breaking two branches of white lilac
from which the blossoms were already falling, she began fanning her hot
face with them; then, with her head turned back to him, she walked away,
swaying her arms briskly in front of her, and joined the other players.
After this there grew up between Nekhludoff and Katusha those peculiar
relations which often exist between a pure young man and girl who are
attracted to each other.
When Katusha came into the room, or even when he saw her white apron
from afar, everything brightened up in Nekhludoff’s eyes, as when the sun
appears everything becomes more interesting, more joyful, more important.
The whole of life seemed full of gladness. And she felt the same. But it was
not only Katusha’s presence that had this effect on Nekhludoff. The mere
thought that Katusha existed (and for her that Nekhludoff existed) had this
effect.
When he received an unpleasant letter from his mother, or could not get
on with his essay, or felt the unreasoning sadness that young people are
often subject to, he had only to remember Katusha and that he should see
her, and it all vanished. Katusha had much work to do in the house, but she
managed to get a little leisure for reading, and Nekhludoff gave her
Dostoievsky and Tourgeneff (whom he had just read himself) to read. She

liked Tourgeneff’s Lull best. They had talks at moments snatched when
meeting in the passage, on the veranda, or the yard, and sometimes in the
room of his aunts’ old servant, Matrona Pavlovna, with whom he sometimes
used to drink tea, and where Katusha used to work.
These talks in Matrona Pavlovna’s presence were the pleasantest. When
they were alone it was worse. Their eyes at once began to say something
very different and far more important than what their mouths uttered. Their
lips puckered, and they felt a kind of dread of something that made them
part quickly. These relations continued between Nekhludoff and Katusha
during the whole time of his first visit to his aunts’. They noticed it, and
became frightened, and even wrote to Princess Elena Ivanovna,
Nekhludoff’s mother. His aunt, Mary Ivanovna, was afraid Dmitri would
form an intimacy with Katusha; but her fears were groundless, for
Nekhludoff, himself hardly conscious of it, loved Katusha, loved her as the
pure love, and therein lay his safety—his and hers. He not only did not feel
any desire to possess her, but the very thought of it filled him with horror.
The fears of the more poetical Sophia Ivanovna, that Dmitri, with his
thoroughgoing, resolute character, having fallen in love with a girl, might
make up his mind to marry her, without considering either her birth or her
station, had more ground.
Had Nekhludoff at that time been conscious of his love for Katusha, and
especially if he had been told that he could on no account join his life with
that of a girl in her position, it might have easily happened that, with his
usual straight-forwardness, he would have come to the conclusion that there
could be no possible reason for him not to marry any girl whatever, as long
as he loved her. But his aunts did not mention their fears to him; and, when
he left, he was still unconscious of his love for Katusha. He was sure that
what he felt for Katusha was only one of the manifestations of the joy of
life that filled his whole being, and that this sweet, merry little girl shared
this joy with him. Yet, when he was going away, and Katusha stood with his
aunts in the porch, and looked after him, her dark, slightly-squinting eyes
filled with tears, he felt, after all, that he was leaving something beautiful,
precious, something which would never reoccur. And he grew very sad.
“Good-bye, Katusha,” he said, looking across Sophia Ivanovna’s cap as
he was getting into the trap. “Thank you for everything.”

“Good-bye, Dmitri Ivanovitch,” she said, with her pleasant, tender voice,
keeping back the tears that filled her eyes—and ran away into the hall,
where she could cry in peace.

CHAPTER XIII. LIFE IN THE ARMY.
After that Nekhludoff did not see Katusha for more than three years.
When he saw her again he had just been promoted to the rank of officer and
was going to join his regiment. On the way he came to spend a few days
with his aunts, being now a very different young man from the one who had
spent the summer with them three years before. He then had been an honest,
unselfish lad, ready to sacrifice himself for any good cause; now he was
depraved and selfish, and thought only of his own enjoyment. Then God’s
world seemed a mystery which he tried enthusiastically and joyfully to
solve; now everything in life seemed clear and simple, defined by the
conditions of the life he was leading. Then he had felt the importance of,
and had need of intercourse with, nature, and with those who had lived and
thought and felt before him—philosophers and poets. What he now
considered necessary and important were human institutions and
intercourse with his comrades. Then women seemed mysterious and
charming—charming by the very mystery that enveloped them; now the
purpose of women, all women except those of his own family and the wives
of his friends, was a very definite one: women were the best means towards
an already experienced enjoyment. Then money was not needed, and he did
not require even one-third of what his mother allowed him; but now this
allowance of 1,500 roubles a month did not suffice, and he had already had
some unpleasant talks about it with his mother.
Then he had looked on his spirit as the I; now it was his healthy strong
animal I that he looked upon as himself.
And all this terrible change had come about because he had ceased to
believe himself and had taken to believing others. This he had done because
it was too difficult to live believing one’s self; believing one’s self, one had
to decide every question not in favour of one’s own animal life, which is
always seeking for easy gratifications, but almost in every case against it.
Believing others there was nothing to decide; everything had been decided
already, and decided always in favour of the animal I and against the
spiritual. Nor was this all. Believing in his own self he was always exposing
himself to the censure of those around him; believing others he had their

approval. So, when Nekhludoff had talked of the serious matters of life, of
God, truth, riches, and poverty, all round him thought it out of place and
even rather funny, and his mother and aunts called him, with kindly irony,
notre cher philosophe. But when he read novels, told improper anecdotes,
went to see funny vaudevilles in the French theatre and gaily repeated the
jokes, everybody admired and encouraged him. When he considered it right
to limit his needs, wore an old overcoat, took no wine, everybody thought it
strange and looked upon it as a kind of showing off; but when he spent
large sums on hunting, or on furnishing a peculiar and luxurious study for
himself, everybody admired his taste and gave him expensive presents to
encourage his hobby. While he kept pure and meant to remain so till he
married his friends prayed for his health, and even his mother was not
grieved but rather pleased when she found out that he had become a real
man and had gained over some French woman from his friend. (As to the
episode with Katusha, the princess could not without horror think that he
might possibly have married her.) In the same way, when Nekhludoff came
of age, and gave the small estate he had inherited from his father to the
peasants because he considered the holding of private property in land
wrong, this step filled his mother and relations with dismay and served as
an excuse for making fun of him to all his relatives. He was continually told
that these peasants, after they had received the land, got no richer, but, on
the contrary, poorer, having opened three public-houses and left off doing
any work. But when Nekhludoff entered the Guards and spent and gambled
away so much with his aristocratic companions that Elena Ivanovna, his
mother, had to draw on her capital, she was hardly pained, considering it
quite natural and even good that wild oats should be sown at an early age
and in good company, as her son was doing. At first Nekhludoff struggled,
but all that he had considered good while he had faith in himself was
considered bad by others, and what he had considered evil was looked upon
as good by those among whom he lived, and the struggle grew too hard.
And at last Nekhludoff gave in, i.e., left off believing himself and began
believing others. At first this giving up of faith in himself was unpleasant,
but it did not long continue to be so. At that time he acquired the habit of
smoking, and drinking wine, and soon got over this unpleasant feeling and
even felt great relief.
Nekhludoff, with his passionate nature, gave himself thoroughly to the
new way of life so approved of by all those around, and he entirely stifled

the inner voice which demanded something different. This began after he
moved to St. Petersburg, and reached its highest point when he entered the
army.
Military life in general depraves men. It places them in conditions of
complete idleness, i.e., absence of all useful work; frees them of their
common human duties, which it replaces by merely conventional ones to
the honour of the regiment, the uniform, the flag; and, while giving them on
the one hand absolute power over other men, also puts them into conditions
of servile obedience to those of higher rank than themselves.
But when, to the usual depraving influence of military service with its
honours, uniforms, flags, its permitted violence and murder, there is added
the depraving influence of riches and nearness to and intercourse with
members of the Imperial family, as is the case in the chosen regiment of the
Guards in which all the officers are rich and of good family, then this
depraving influence creates in the men who succumb to it a perfect mania
of selfishness. And this mania of selfishness attacked Nekhludoff from the
moment he entered the army and began living in the way his companions
lived. He had no occupation whatever except to dress in a uniform,
splendidly made and well brushed by other people, and, with arms also
made and cleaned and handed to him by others, ride to reviews on a fine
horse which had been bred, broken in and fed by others. There, with other
men like himself, he had to wave a sword, shoot off guns, and teach others
to do the same. He had no other work, and the highly-placed persons, young
and old, the Tsar and those near him, not only sanctioned his occupation but
praised and thanked him for it.
After this was done, it was thought important to eat, and particularly to
drink, in officers’ clubs or the salons of the best restaurants, squandering
large sums of money, which came from some invisible source; then
theatres, ballets, women, then again riding on horseback, waving of swords
and shooting, and again the squandering of money, the wine, cards, and
women. This kind of life acts on military men even more depravingly than
on others, because if any other than a military man lead such a life he
cannot help being ashamed of it in the depth of his heart. A military man is,
on the contrary, proud of a life of this kind especially at war time, and
Nekhludoff had entered the army just after war with the Turks had been
declared. “We are prepared to sacrifice our lives at the wars, and therefore a

gay, reckless life is not only pardonable, but absolutely necessary for us,
and so we lead it.”
Such were Nekhludoff’s confused thoughts at this period of his existence,
and he felt all the time the delight of being free of the moral barriers he had
formerly set himself. And the state he lived in was that of a chronic mania
of selfishness. He was in this state when, after three years’ absence, he came
again to visit his aunts.

CHAPTER XIV. THE SECOND MEETING
WITH MASLOVA.
Nekhludoff went to visit his aunts because their estate lay near the road
he had to travel in order to join his regiment, which had gone forward,
because they had very warmly asked him to come, and especially because
he wanted to see Katusha. Perhaps in his heart he had already formed those
evil designs against Katusha which his now uncontrolled animal self
suggested to him, but he did not acknowledge this as his intention, but only
wished to go back to the spot where he had been so happy, to see his rather
funny, but dear, kind-hearted old aunts, who always, without his noticing it,
surrounded him with an atmosphere of love and admiration, and to see
sweet Katusha, of whom he had retained so pleasant a memory.
He arrived at the end of March, on Good Friday, after the thaw had set in.
It was pouring with rain so that he had not a dry thread on him and was
feeling very cold, but yet vigorous and full of spirits, as always at that time.
“Is she still with them?” he thought, as he drove into the familiar, old-
fashioned courtyard, surrounded by a low brick wall, and now filled with
snow off the roofs.
He expected she would come out when she heard the sledge bells but she
did not. Two bare-footed women with pails and tucked-up skirts, who had
evidently been scrubbing the floors, came out of the side door. She was not
at the front door either, and only Tikhon, the man-servant, with his apron
on, evidently also busy cleaning, came out into the front porch. His aunt
Sophia Ivanovna alone met him in the ante-room; she had a silk dress on
and a cap on her head. Both aunts had been to church and had received
communion.
“Well, this is nice of you to come,” said Sophia Ivanovna, kissing him.
“Mary is not well, got tired in church; we have been to communion.”
“I congratulate you, Aunt Sophia,” [it is usual in Russia to congratulate
those who have received communion] said Nekhludoff, kissing Sophia
Ivanovna’s hand. “Oh, I beg your pardon, I have made you wet.”

“Go to your room—why you are soaking wet. Dear me, you have got
moustaches! . . . Katusha! Katusha! Get him some coffee; be quick.”
“Directly,” came the sound of a well-known, pleasant voice from the
passage, and Nekhludoff’s heart cried out “She’s here!” and it was as if the
sun had come out from behind the clouds.
Nekhludoff, followed by Tikhon, went gaily to his old room to change his
things. He felt inclined to ask Tikhon about Katusha; how she was, what she
was doing, was she not going to be married? But Tikhon was so respectful
and at the same time so severe, insisted so firmly on pouring the water out
of the jug for him, that Nekhludoff could not make up his mind to ask him
about Katusha, but only inquired about Tikhon’s grandsons, about the old
so-called “brother’s” horse, and about the dog Polkan. All were alive except
Polkan, who had gone mad the summer before.
When he had taken off all his wet things and just begun to dress again,
Nekhludoff heard quick, familiar footsteps and a knock at the door.
Nekhludoff knew the steps and also the knock. No one but she walked and
knocked like that.
Having thrown his wet greatcoat over his shoulders, he opened the door.
“Come in.” It was she, Katusha, the same, only sweeter than before. The
slightly squinting naive black eyes looked up in the same old way. Now as
then, she had on a white apron. She brought him from his aunts a piece of
scented soap, with the wrapper just taken off, and two towels—one a long
Russian embroidered one, the other a bath towel. The unused soap with the
stamped inscription, the towels, and her own self, all were equally clean,
fresh, undefiled and pleasant. The irrepressible smile of joy at the sight of
him made the sweet, firm lips pucker up as of old.
“How do you do, Dmitri Ivanovitch?” she uttered with difficulty, her face
suffused with a rosy blush.
“Good-morning! How do you do?” he said, also blushing. “Alive and
well?”
“Yes, the Lord be thanked. And here is your favorite pink soap and
towels from your aunts,” she said, putting the soap on the table and hanging
the towels over the back of a chair.
“There is everything here,” said Tikhon, defending the visitor’s
independence, and pointing to Nekhludoff’s open dressing case filled with

brushes, perfume, fixatoire, a great many bottles with silver lids and all
sorts of toilet appliances.
“Thank my aunts, please. Oh, how glad I am to be here,” said
Nekhludoff, his heart filling with light and tenderness as of old.
She only smiled in answer to these words, and went out. The aunts, who
had always loved Nekhludoff, welcomed him this time more warmly than
ever. Dmitri was going to the war, where he might be wounded or killed,
and this touched the old aunts. Nekhludoff had arranged to stay only a day
and night with his aunts, but when he had seen Katusha he agreed to stay
over Easter with them and telegraphed to his friend Schonbock, whom he
was to have joined in Odessa, that he should come and meet him at his
aunts’ instead.
As soon as he had seen Katusha Nekhludoff’s old feelings toward her
awoke again. Now, just as then, he could not see her white apron without
getting excited; he could not listen to her steps, her voice, her laugh,
without a feeling of joy; he could not look at her eyes, black as sloes,
without a feeling of tenderness, especially when she smiled; and, above all,
he could not notice without agitation how she blushed when they met. He
felt he was in love, but not as before, when this love was a kind of mystery
to him and he would not own, even to himself, that he loved, and when he
was persuaded that one could love only once; now he knew he was in love
and was glad of it, and knew dimly what this love consisted of and what it
might lead to, though he sought to conceal it even from himself. In
Nekhludoff, as in every man, there were two beings: one the spiritual,
seeking only that kind of happiness for him self which should tend towards
the happiness of all; the other, the animal man, seeking only his own
happiness, and ready to sacrifice to it the happiness of the rest of the world.
At this period of his mania of self-love brought on by life in Petersburg and
in the army, this animal man ruled supreme and completely crushed the
spiritual man in him.
But when he saw Katusha and experienced the same feelings as he had
had three years before, the spiritual man in him raised its head once more
and began to assert its rights. And up to Easter, during two whole days, an
unconscious, ceaseless inner struggle went on in him.
He knew in the depths of his soul that he ought to go away, that there was
no real reason for staying on with his aunts, knew that no good could come

of it; and yet it was so pleasant, so delightful, that he did not honestly
acknowledge the facts to himself and stayed on. On Easter eve, the priest
and the deacon who came to the house to say mass had had (so they said)
the greatest difficulty in getting over the three miles that lay between the
church and the old ladies’ house, coming across the puddles and the bare
earth in a sledge.
Nekhludoff attended the mass with his aunts and the servants, and kept
looking at Katusha, who was near the door and brought in the censers for
the priests. Then having given the priests and his aunts the Easter kiss,
though it was not midnight and therefore not Easter yet, he was already
going to bed when he heard the old servant Matrona Pavlovna preparing to
go to the church to get the koulitch and paski [Easter cakes] blest after the
midnight service. “I shall go too,” he thought.
The road to the church was impassable either in a sledge or on wheels, so
Nekhludoff, who behaved in his aunts’ house just as he did at home,
ordered the old horse, “the brother’s horse,” to be saddled, and instead of
going to bed he put on his gay uniform, a pair of tight-fitting riding
breeches and his overcoat, and got on the old over-fed and heavy horse,
which neighed continually all the way as he rode in the dark through the
puddles and snow to the church.

CHAPTER XV. THE EARLY MASS.
For Nekhludoff this early mass remained for ever after one of the
brightest and most vivid memories of his life. When he rode out of the
darkness, broken only here and there by patches of white snow, into the
churchyard illuminated by a row of lamps around the church, the service
had already begun.
The peasants, recognising Mary Ivanovna’s nephew, led his horse, which
was pricking up its ears at the sight of the lights, to a dry place where he
could get off, put it up for him, and showed him into the church, which was
full of people. On the right stood the peasants; the old men in home-spun
coats, and clean white linen bands [long strips of linen are worn by the
peasants instead of stockings] wrapped round their legs, the young men in
new cloth coats, bright-coloured belts round their waists, and top-boots.
On the left stood the women, with red silk kerchiefs on their heads, black
velveteen sleeveless jackets, bright red shirt-sleeves, gay-coloured green,
blue, and red skirts, and thick leather boots. The old women, dressed more
quietly, stood behind them, with white kerchiefs, homespun coats, old-
fashioned skirts of dark home-spun material, and shoes on their feet. Gaily-
dressed children, their hair well oiled, went in and out among them.
The men, making the sign of the cross, bowed down and raised their
heads again, shaking back their hair.
The women, especially the old ones, fixed their eyes on an icon
surrounded with candies and made the sign of the cross, firmly pressing
their folded fingers to the kerchief on their foreheads, to their shoulders,
and their stomachs, and, whispering something, stooped or knelt down. The
children, imitating the grown-up people, prayed earnestly when they knew
that they were being observed. The gilt case containing the icon glittered,
illuminated on all sides by tall candles ornamented with golden spirals. The
candelabra was filled with tapers, and from the choir sounded most merry
tunes sung by amateur choristers, with bellowing bass and shrill boys’
voices among them.

Nekhludoff passed up to the front. In the middle of the church stood the
aristocracy of the place: a landed proprietor, with his wife and son (the
latter dressed in a sailor’s suit), the police officer, the telegraph clerk, a
tradesman in top-boots, and the village elder, with a medal on his breast;
and to the right of the ambo, just behind the landed proprietor’s wife, stood
Matrona Pavlovna in a lilac dress and fringed shawl and Katusha in a white
dress with a tucked bodice, blue sash, and red bow in her black hair.
Everything seemed festive, solemn, bright, and beautiful: the priest in his
silver cloth vestments with gold crosses; the deacon, the clerk and chanter
in their silver and gold surplices; the amateur choristers in their best clothes,
with their well-oiled hair; the merry tunes of the holiday hymns that
sounded like dance music; and the continual blessing of the people by the
priests, who held candles decorated with flowers, and repeated the cry of
“Christ is risen!” “Christ is risen!” All was beautiful; but, above all,
Katusha, in her white dress, blue sash, and the red bow on her black head,
her eyes beaming with rapture.
Nekhludoff knew that she felt his presence without looking at him. He
noticed this as he passed her, walking up to the altar. He had nothing to tell
her, but he invented something to say and whispered as he passed her:
“Aunt told me that she would break her fast after the late mass.” The young
blood rushed up to Katusha’s sweet face, as it always did when she looked
at him. The black eyes, laughing and full of joy, gazed naively up and
remained fixed on Nekhludoff.
“I know,” she said, with a smile.
At this moment the clerk was going out with a copper coffee-pot [coffee-
pots are often used for holding holy water in Russia] of holy water in his
hand, and, not noticing Katusha, brushed her with his surplice. Evidently he
brushed against Katusha through wishing to pass Nekhludoff at a respectful
distance, and Nekhludoff was surprised that he, the clerk, did not
understand that everything here, yes, and in all the world, only existed for
Katusha, and that everything else might remain unheeded, only not she,
because she was the centre of all. For her the gold glittered round the icons;
for her all these candles in candelabra and candlesticks were alight; for her
were sung these joyful hymns, “Behold the Passover of the Lord” “Rejoice,
O ye people!” All—all that was good in the world was for her. And it
seemed to him that Katusha was aware that it was all for her when he

looked at her well-shaped figure, the tucked white dress, the wrapt, joyous
expression of her face, by which he knew that just exactly the same that was
singing in his own soul was also singing in hers.
In the interval between the early and the late mass Nekhludoff left the
church. The people stood aside to let him pass, and bowed. Some knew
him; others asked who he was.
He stopped on the steps. The beggars standing there came clamouring
round him, and he gave them all the change he had in his purse and went
down. It was dawning, but the sun had not yet risen. The people grouped
round the graves in the churchyard. Katusha had remained inside.
Nekhludoff stood waiting for her.
The people continued coming out, clattering with their nailed boots on
the stone steps and dispersing over the churchyard. A very old man with
shaking head, his aunts’ cook, stopped Nekhludoff in order to give him the
Easter kiss, his old wife took an egg, dyed yellow, out of her handkerchief
and gave it to Nekhludoff, and a smiling young peasant in a new coat and
green belt also came up.
“Christ is risen,” he said, with laughing eyes, and coming close to
Nekhludoff he enveloped him in his peculiar but pleasant peasant smell,
and, tickling him with his curly beard, kissed him three times straight on the
mouth with his firm, fresh lips.
While the peasant was kissing Nekhludoff and giving him a dark brown
egg, the lilac dress of Matrona Pavlovna and the dear black head with the
red bow appeared.
Katusha caught sight of him over the heads of those in front of her, and
he saw how her face brightened up.
She had come out with Matrona Pavlovna on to the porch, and stopped
there distributing alms to the beggars. A beggar with a red scab in place of a
nose came up to Katusha. She gave him something, drew nearer him, and,
evincing no sign of disgust, but her eyes still shining with joy, kissed him
three times. And while she was doing this her eyes met Nekhludoff’s with a
look as if she were asking, “Is this that I am doing right?” “Yes, dear, yes, it
is right; everything is right, everything is beautiful. I love!”
They came down the steps of the porch, and he came up to them.

He did not mean to give them the Easter kiss, but only to be nearer to her.
Matrona Pavlovna bowed her head, and said with a smile, “Christ is risen!”
and her tone implied, “To-day we are all equal.” She wiped her mouth with
her handkerchief rolled into a ball and stretched her lips towards him.
“He is, indeed,” answered Nekhludoff, kissing her. Then he looked at
Katusha; she blushed, and drew nearer. “Christ is risen, Dmitri Ivanovitch.”
“He is risen, indeed,” answered Nekhludoff, and they kissed twice, then
paused as if considering whether a third kiss were necessary, and, having
decided that it was, kissed a third time and smiled.
“You are going to the priests?” asked Nekhludoff.
“No, we shall sit out here a bit, Dmitri Ivanovitch,” said Katusha with
effort, as if she had accomplished some joyous task, and, her whole chest
heaving with a deep sigh, she looked straight in his face with a look of
devotion, virgin purity, and love, in her very slightly squinting eyes.
In the love between a man and a woman there always comes a moment
when this love has reached its zenith—a moment when it is unconscious,
unreasoning, and with nothing sensual about it. Such a moment had come
for Nekhludoff on that Easter eve. When he brought Katusha back to his
mind, now, this moment veiled all else; the smooth glossy black head, the
white tucked dress closely fitting her graceful maidenly form, her, as yet,
un-developed bosom, the blushing cheeks, the tender shining black eyes
with their slight squint heightened by the sleepless night, and her whole
being stamped with those two marked features, purity and chaste love, love
not only for him (he knew that), but for everybody and everything, not for
the good alone, but for all that is in the world, even for that beggar whom
she had kissed.
He knew she had that love in her because on that night and morning he
was conscious of it in himself, and conscious that in this love he became
one with her. Ah! if it had all stopped there, at the point it had reached that
night. “Yes, all that horrible business had not yet happened on that Easter
eve!” he thought, as he sat by the window of the jurymen’s room.

CHAPTER XVI. THE FIRST STEP.
When he returned from church Nekhludoff broke the fast with his aunts
and took a glass of spirits and some wine, having got into that habit while
with his regiment, and when he reached his room fell asleep at once,
dressed as he was. He was awakened by a knock at the door. He knew it
was her knock, and got up, rubbing his eyes and stretching himself.
“Katusha, is it you? Come in,” said he.
She opened the door.
“Dinner is ready,” she said. She still had on the same white dress, but not
the bow in her hair. She looked at him with a smile, as if she had
communicated some very good news to him.
“I am coming,” he answered, as he rose, taking his comb to arrange his
hair.
She stood still for a minute, and he, noticing it, threw down his comb and
made a step towards her, but at that very moment she turned suddenly and
went with quick light steps along the strip of carpet in the middle of the
passage.
“Dear me, what a fool I am,” thought Nekhludoff. “Why did I not stop
her?” What he wanted her for he did not know himself, but he felt that when
she came into his room something should have been done, something that is
generally done on such occasions, and that he had left it undone.
“Katusha, wait,” he said.
“What do you want?” she said, stopping.
“Nothing, only—” and, with an effort, remembering how men in his
position generally behave, he put his arm round her waist.
She stood still and looked into his eyes.
“Don’t, Dmitri Ivanovitch, you must not,” she said, blushing to tears and
pushing away his arm with her strong hard hand. Nekhludoff let her go, and
for a moment he felt not only confused and ashamed but disgusted with
himself. He should now have believed himself, and then he would have
known that this confusion and shame were caused by the best feelings of his

soul demanding to be set free; but he thought it was only his stupidity and
that he ought to behave as every one else did. He caught her up and kissed
her on the neck.
This kiss was very different from that first thoughtless kiss behind the
lilac bush, and very different to the kiss this morning in the churchyard.
This was a dreadful kiss, and she felt it.
“Oh, what are you doing?” she cried, in a tone as if he had irreparably
broken something of priceless value, and ran quickly away.
He came into the dining-room. His aunts, elegantly dressed, their family
doctor, and a neighbour were already there. Everything seemed so very
ordinary, but in Nekhludoff a storm was raging. He understood nothing of
what was being said and gave wrong answers, thinking only of Katusha.
The sound of her steps in the passage brought back the thrill of that last kiss
and he could think of nothing else. When she came into the room he,
without looking round, felt her presence with his whole being and had to
force himself not to look at her.
After dinner he at once went into his bedroom and for a long time walked
up and down in great excitement, listening to every sound in the house and
expecting to hear her steps. The animal man inside him had now not only
lifted its head, but had succeeded in trampling under foot the spiritual man
of the days of his first visit, and even of that every morning. That dreadful
animal man alone now ruled over him.
Though he was watching for her all day he could not manage to meet her
alone. She was probably trying to evade him. In the evening, however, she
was obliged to go into the room next to his. The doctor had been asked to
stay the night, and she had to make his bed. When he heard her go in
Nekhludoff followed her, treading softly and holding his breath as if he
were going to commit a crime.
She was putting a clean pillow-case on the pillow, holding it by two of its
corners with her arms inside the pillow-case. She turned round and smiled,
not a happy, joyful smile as before, but in a frightened, piteous way. The
smile seemed to tell him that what he was doing was wrong. He stopped for
a moment. There was still the possibility of a struggle. The voice of his real
love for her, though feebly, was still speaking of her, her feelings, her life.
Another voice was saying, “Take care I don’t let the opportunity for your
own happiness, your own enjoyment, slip by!” And this second voice

completely stifled the first. He went up to her with determination and a
terrible, ungovernable animal passion took possession of him.
With his arm round he made her sit down on the bed; and feeling that
there was something more to be done he sat down beside her.
“Dmitri Ivanovitch, dear! please let me go,” she said, with a piteous
voice. “Matrona Pavlovna is coming,” she cried, tearing herself away. Some
one was really coming to the door.
“Well, then, I’ll come to you in the night,” he whispered. “You’ll be
alone?”
“What are you thinking of? On no account. No, no!” she said, but only
with her lips; the tremulous confusion of her whole being said something
very different.
It was Matrona Pavlovna who had come to the door. She came in with a
blanket over her arm, looked reproachfully at Nekhludoff, and began
scolding Katusha for having taken the wrong blanket.
Nekhludoff went out in silence, but he did not even feel ashamed. He
could see by Matrona Pavlovna’s face that she was blaming him, he knew
that she was blaming him with reason and felt that he was doing wrong, but
this novel, low animal excitement, having freed itself of all the old feelings
of real love for Katusha, ruled supreme, leaving room for nothing else. He
went about as if demented all the evening, now into his aunts’, then back
into his own room, then out into the porch, thinking all the time how he
could meet her alone; but she avoided him, and Matrona Pavlovna watched
her closely.

CHAPTER XVII. NEKHLUDOFF AND
KATUSHA.
And so the evening passed and night came. The doctor went to bed.
Nekhludoff’s aunts had also retired, and he knew that Matrona Pavlovna
was now with them in their bedroom so that Katusha was sure to be alone in
the maids’ sitting-room. He again went out into the porch. It was dark,
damp and warm out of doors, and that white spring mist which drives away
the last snow, or is diffused by the thawing of the last snow, filled the air.
From the river under the hill, about a hundred steps from the front door,
came a strange sound. It was the ice breaking. Nekhludoff came down the
steps and went up to the window of the maids’ room, stepping over the
puddles on the bits of glazed snow. His heart was beating so fiercely in his
breast that he seemed to hear it, his laboured breath came and went in a
burst of long-drawn sighs. In the maids’ room a small lamp was burning,
and Katusha sat alone by the table, looking thoughtfully in front of her.
Nekhludoff stood a long time without moving and waited to see what she,
not knowing that she was observed, would do. For a minute or two she did
not move; then she lifted her eyes, smiled and shook her head as if chiding
herself, then changed her pose and dropped both her arms on the table and
again began gazing down in front of her. He stood and looked at her,
involuntarily listening to the beating of his own heart and the strange
sounds from the river. There on the river, beneath the white mist, the
unceasing labour went on, and sounds as of something sobbing, cracking,
dropping, being shattered to pieces mixed with the tinkling of the thin bits
of ice as they broke against each other like glass.
There he stood, looking at Katusha’s serious, suffering face, which
betrayed the inner struggle of her soul, and he felt pity for her; but, strange
though it may seem, this pity only confirmed him in his evil intention.
He knocked at the window. She started as if she had received an electric
shock, her whole body trembled, and a look of horror came into her face.
Then she jumped up, approached the window and brought her face up to the
pane. The look of terror did not leave her face even when, holding her

hands up to her eyes like blinkers and peering through the glass, she
recognised him. Her face was unusually grave; he had never seen it so
before. She returned his smile, but only in submission to him; there was no
smile in her soul, only fear. He beckoned her with his hand to come out into
the yard to him. But she shook her head and remained by the window. He
brought his face close to the pane and was going to call out to her, but at
that moment she turned to the door; evidently some one inside had called
her. Nekhludoff moved away from the window. The fog was so dense that
five steps from the house the windows could not be seen, but the light from
the lamp shone red and huge out of a shapeless black mass. And on the river
the same strange sounds went on, sobbing and rustling and cracking and
tinkling. Somewhere in the fog, not far off, a cock crowed; another
answered, and then others, far in the village took up the cry till the sound of
the crowing blended into one, while all around was silent excepting the
river. It was the second time the cocks crowed that night.
Nekhludoff walked up and down behind the corner of the house, and
once or twice got into a puddle. Then again came up to the window. The
lamp was still burning, and she was again sitting alone by the table as if
uncertain what to do. He had hardly approached the window when she
looked up. He knocked. Without looking who it was she at once ran out of
the room, and he heard the outside door open with a snap. He waited for her
near the side porch and put his arms round her without saying a word. She
clung to him, put up her face, and met his kiss with her lips. Then the door
again gave the same sort of snap and opened, and the voice of Matrona
Pavlovna called out angrily, “Katusha!”
She tore herself away from him and returned into the maids’ room. He
heard the latch click, and then all was quiet. The red light disappeared and
only the mist remained, and the bustle on the river went on. Nekhludoff
went up to the window, nobody was to be seen; he knocked, but got no
answer. He went back into the house by the front door, but could not sleep.
He got up and went with bare feet along the passage to her door, next to
Matrona Pavlovna’s room. He heard Matrona Pavlovna snoring quietly, and
was about to go on when she coughed and turned on her creaking bed, and
his heart fell, and he stood immovable for about five minutes. When all was
quiet and she began to snore peacefully again, he went on, trying to step on
the boards that did not creak, and came to Katusha’s door. There was no
sound to be heard. She was probably awake, or else he would have heard

her breathing. But as soon as he had whispered “Katusha” she jumped up
and began to persuade him, as if angrily, to go away.
“Open! Let me in just for a moment! I implore you!” He hardly knew
what he was saying.

* * * * * * *

When she left him, trembling and silent, giving no answer to his words,
he again went out into the porch and stood trying to understand the meaning
of what had happened.
It was getting lighter. From the river below the creaking and tinkling and
sobbing of the breaking ice came still louder and a gurgling sound could
now also be heard. The mist had begun to sink, and from above it the
waning moon dimly lighted up something black and weird.
“What was the meaning of it all? Was it a great joy or a great misfortune
that had befallen him?” he asked himself.

CHAPTER XVIII. AFTERWARDS.
The next day the gay, handsome, and brilliant Schonbock joined
Nekhludoff at his aunts’ house, and quite won their hearts by his refined and
amiable manner, his high spirits, his generosity, and his affection for Dmitri.
But though the old ladies admired his generosity it rather perplexed them,
for it seemed exaggerated. He gave a rouble to some blind beggars who
came to the gate, gave 15 roubles in tips to the servants, and when Sophia
Ivanovna’s pet dog hurt his paw and it bled, he tore his hemstitched cambric
handkerchief into strips (Sophia Ivanovna knew that such handkerchiefs
cost at least 15 roubles a dozen) and bandaged the dog’s foot. The old ladies
had never met people of this kind, and did not know that Schonbock owed
200,000 roubles which he was never going to pay, and that therefore 25
roubles more or less did not matter a bit to him. Schonbock stayed only one
day, and he and Nekhludoff both, left at night. They could not stay away
from their regiment any longer, for their leave was fully up.
At the stage which Nekhludoff’s selfish mania had now reached he could
think of nothing but himself. He was wondering whether his conduct, if
found out, would be blamed much or at all, but he did not consider what
Katusha was now going through, and what was going to happen to her.
He saw that Schonbock guessed his relations to her and this flattered his
vanity.
“Ah, I see how it is you have taken such a sudden fancy to your aunts
that you have been living nearly a week with them,” Schonbock remarked
when he had seen Katusha. “Well, I don’t wonder—should have done the
same. She’s charming.” Nekhludoff was also thinking that though it was a
pity to go away before having fully gratified the cravings of his love for her,
yet the absolute necessity of parting had its advantages because it put a
sudden stop to relations it would have been very difficult for him to
continue. Then he thought that he ought to give her some money, not for
her, not because she might need it, but because it was the thing to do.
So he gave her what seemed to him a liberal amount, considering his and
her station. On the day of his departure, after dinner, he went out and waited

for her at the side entrance. She flushed up when she saw him and wished to
pass by, directing his attention to the open door of the maids’ room by a
look, but he stopped her.
“I have come to say good-bye,” he said, crumbling in his hand an
envelope with a 100-rouble note inside. “There, I . . . ”
She guessed what he meant, knit her brows, and shaking her head pushed
his hand away.
“Take it; oh, you must!” he stammered, and thrust the envelope into the
bib of her apron and ran back to his room, groaning and frowning as if he
had hurt himself. And for a long time he went up and down writhing as in
pain, and even stamping and groaning aloud as he thought of this last scene.
“But what else could I have done? Is it not what happens to every one? And
if every one does the same . . . well I suppose it can’t be helped.” In this
way he tried to get peace of mind, but in vain. The recollection of what had
passed burned his conscience. In his soul—in the very depths of his soul—
he knew that he had acted in a base, cruel, cowardly manner, and that the
knowledge of this act of his must prevent him, not only from finding fault
with any one else, but even from looking straight into other people’s eyes;
not to mention the impossibility of considering himself a splendid, noble,
high-minded fellow, as he did and had to do to go on living his life boldly
and merrily. There was only one solution of the problem—i.e., not to think
about it. He succeeded in doing so. The life he was now entering upon, the
new surroundings, new friends, the war, all helped him to forget. And the
longer he lived, the less he thought about it, until at last he forgot it
completely.
Once only, when, after the war, he went to see his aunts in hopes of
meeting Katusha, and heard that soon after his last visit she had left, and
that his aunts had heard she had been confined somewhere or other and had
gone quite to the bad, his heart ached. According to the time of her
confinement, the child might or might not have been his. His aunts said she
had gone wrong, that she had inherited her mother’s depraved nature, and
he was pleased to hear this opinion of his aunts’. It seemed to acquit him. At
first he thought of trying to find her and her child, but then, just because in
the depths of his soul he felt so ashamed and pained when thinking about
her, he did not make the necessary effort to find her, but tried to forget his
sin again and ceased to think about it. And now this strange coincidence

brought it all back to his memory, and demanded from him the
acknowledgment of the heartless, cruel cowardice which had made it
possible for him to live these nine years with such a sin on his conscience.
But he was still far from such an acknowledgment, and his only fear was
that everything might now be found out, and that she or her advocate might
recount it all and put him to shame before every one present.

CHAPTER XIX. THE TRIAL—RESUMPTION.
In this state of mind Nekhludoff left the Court and went into the
jurymen’s room. He sat by the window smoking all the while, and hearing
what was being said around him.
The merry merchant seemed with all his heart to sympathise with
Smelkoff’s way of spending his time. “There, old fellow, that was
something like! Real Siberian fashion! He knew what he was about, no
fear! That’s the sort of wench for me.”
The foreman was stating his conviction, that in some way or other the
expert’s conclusions were the important thing. Peter Gerasimovitch was
joking about something with the Jewish clerk, and they burst out laughing.
Nekhludoff answered all the questions addressed to him in monosyllables
and longed only to be left in peace.
When the usher, with his sideways gait, called the jury back to the Court,
Nekhludoff was seized with fear, as if he were not going to judge, but to be
judged. In the depth of his soul he felt that he was a scoundrel, who ought
to be ashamed to look people in the face, yet, by sheer force of habit, he
stepped on to the platform in his usual self-possessed manner, and sat down,
crossing his legs and playing with his pince-nez.
The prisoners had also been led out, and were now brought in again.
There were some new faces in the Court witnesses, and Nekhludoff noticed
that Maslova could not take her eyes off a very fat woman who sat in the
row in front of the grating, very showily dressed in silk and velvet, a high
hat with a large bow on her head, and an elegant little reticule on her arm,
which was bare to the elbow. This was, as he subsequently found out, one
of the witnesses, the mistress of the establishment to which Maslova had
belonged.
The examination of the witnesses commenced: they were asked their
names, religion, etc. Then, after some consultation as to whether the
witnesses were to be sworn in or not, the old priest came in again, dragging
his legs with difficulty, and, again arranging the golden cross on his breast,

swore the witnesses and the expert in the same quiet manner, and with the
same assurance that he was doing something useful and important.
The witnesses having been sworn, all but Kitaeva, the keeper of the
house, were led out again. She was asked what she knew about this affair.
Kitaeva nodded her head and the big hat at every sentence and smiled
affectedly. She gave a very full and intelligent account, speaking with a
strong German accent. First of all, the hotel servant Simeon, whom she
knew, came to her establishment on behalf of a rich Siberian merchant, and
she sent Lubov back with him. After a time Lubov returned with the
merchant. The merchant was already somewhat intoxicated—she smiled as
she said this—and went on drinking and treating the girls. He was short of
money. He sent this same Lubov to his lodgings. He had taken a
“predilection” to her. She looked at the prisoner as she said this.
Nekhludoff thought he saw Maslova smile here, and this seemed
disgusting to him. A strange, indefinite feeling of loathing, mingled with
suffering, arose in him.
“And what was your opinion of Maslova?” asked the blushing and
confused applicant for a judicial post, appointed to act as Maslova’s
advocate.
“Zee ferry pesht,” answered Kitaeva. “Zee yoong voman is etucated and
elecant. She was prought up in a coot family and can reat French. She tid
have a trop too moch sometimes, put nefer forcot herself. A ferry coot girl.”
Katusha looked at the woman, then suddenly turned her eyes on the jury
and fixed them on Nekhludoff, and her face grew serious and even severe.
One of her serious eyes squinted, and those two strange eyes for some time
gazed at Nekhludoff, who, in spite of the terrors that seized him, could not
take his look off these squinting eyes, with their bright, clear whites.
He thought of that dreadful night, with its mist, the ice breaking on the
river below, and when the waning moon, with horns turned upwards, that
had risen towards morning, lit up something black and weird. These two
black eyes now looking at him reminded him of this weird, black
something. “She has recognised me,” he thought, and Nekhludoff shrank as
if expecting a blow. But she had not recognised him. She sighed quietly and
again looked at the president. Nekhludoff also sighed. “Oh, if it would only
get on quicker,” he thought.

He now felt the same loathing and pity and vexation as when, out
shooting, he was obliged to kill a wounded bird. The wounded bird
struggles in the game bag. One is disgusted and yet feels pity, and one is in
a hurry to kill the bird and forget it.
Such mixed feelings filled Nekhludoff’s breast as he sat listening to the
examination of the witnesses.

CHAPTER XX. THE TRIAL—THE MEDICAL
REPORT.
But, as if to spite him, the case dragged out to a great length. After each
witness had been examined separately and the expert last of all, and a great
number of useless questions had been put, with the usual air of importance,
by the public prosecutor and by both advocates, the president invited the
jury to examine the objects offered as material evidence. They consisted of
an enormous diamond ring, which had evidently been worn on the first
finger, and a test tube in which the poison had been analysed. These things
had seals and labels attached to them.
Just as the witnesses were about to look at these things, the public
prosecutor rose and demanded that before they did this the results of the
doctor’s examination of the body should be read. The president, who was
hurrying the business through as fast as he could in order to visit his Swiss
friend, though he knew that the reading of this paper could have no other
effect than that of producing weariness and putting off the dinner hour, and
that the public prosecutor wanted it read simply because he knew he had a
right to demand it, had no option but to express his consent.
The secretary got out the doctor’s report and again began to read in his
weary lisping voice, making no distinction between the “r’s” and “l’s.”
The external examination proved that:
“1. Theropont Smelkoff’s height was six feet five inches.
“Not so bad, that. A very good size,” whispered the merchant, with
interest, into Nekhludoff’s ear.
“2. He looked about 40 years of age.
“3. The body was of a swollen appearance.
“4. The flesh was of a greenish colour, with dark spots in several places.
“5. The skin was raised in blisters of different sizes and in places had
come off in large pieces.
“6. The hair was chestnut; it was thick, and separated easily from the skin
when touched.

“7. The eye-balls protruded from their sockets and the cornea had grown
dim.
“8. Out of the nostrils, both ears, and the mouth oozed serous liquid; the
mouth was half open.
“9. The neck had almost disappeared, owing to the swelling of the face
and chest.”
And so on and so on.
Four pages were covered with the 27 paragraphs describing all the details
of the external examination of the enormous, fat, swollen, and decomposing
body of the merchant who had been making merry in the town. The
indefinite loathing that Nekhludoff felt was increased by the description of
the corpse. Katusha’s life, and the scrum oozing from the nostrils of the
corpse, and the eyes that protruded out of their sockets, and his own
treatment of her—all seemed to belong to the same order of things, and he
felt surrounded and wholly absorbed by things of the same nature.
When the reading of the report of the external examination was ended,
the president heaved a sigh and raised his hand, hoping it was finished; but
the secretary at once went on to the description of the internal examination.
The president’s head again dropped into his hand and he shut his eyes. The
merchant next to Nekhludoff could hardly keep awake, and now and then
his body swayed to and fro. The prisoners and the gendarmes sat perfectly
quiet.
The internal examination showed that:
“1. The skin was easily detachable from the bones of the skull, and there
was no coagulated blood.
“2. The bones of the skull were of average thickness and in sound
condition.
“3. On the membrane of the brain there were two discoloured spots about
four inches long, the membrane itself being of a dull white.” And so on for
13 paragraphs more. Then followed the names and signatures of the
assistants, and the doctor’s conclusion showing that the changes observed in
the stomach, and to a lesser degree in the bowels and kidneys, at the
postmortem examination, and described in the official report, gave great
probability to the conclusion that Smelkoff’s death was caused by poison
which had entered his stomach mixed with alcohol. To decide from the state

of the stomach what poison had been introduced was difficult; but it was
necessary to suppose that the poison entered the stomach mixed with
alcohol, since a great quantity of the latter was found in Smelkoff’s
stomach.
“He could drink, and no mistake,” again whispered the merchant, who
had just waked up.
The reading of this report had taken a full hour, but it had not satisfied
the public prosecutor, for, when it had been read through and the president
turned to him, saying, “I suppose it is superfluous to read the report of the
examination of the internal organs?” he answered in a severe tone, without
looking at the president, “I shall ask to have it read.”
He raised himself a little, and showed by his manner that he had a right to
have this report read, and would claim this right, and that if that were not
granted it would serve as a cause of appeal.
The member of the Court with the big beard, who suffered from catarrh
of the stomach, feeling quite done up, turned to the president:
“What is the use of reading all this? It is only dragging it out. These new
brooms do not sweep clean; they only take a long while doing it.”
The member with the gold spectacles said nothing, but only looked
gloomily in front of him, expecting nothing good, either from his wife or
life in general. The reading of the report commenced.
“In the year 188-, on February 15th, I, the undersigned, commissioned by
the medical department, made an examination, No. 638,” the secretary
began again with firmness and raising the pitch of his voice as if to dispel
the sleepiness that had overtaken all present, “in the presence of the
assistant medical inspector, of the internal organs:
“1. The right lung and the heart (contained in a 6-lb. glass jar).
“2. The contents of the stomach (in a 6-lb. glass jar).
“3. The stomach itself (in a 6-lb. glass jar).
“4. The liver, the spleen and the kidneys (in a 9-lb. glass jar).
“5. The intestines (in a 9-lb. earthenware jar).”
The president here whispered to one of the members, then stooped to the
other, and having received their consent, he said: “The Court considers the
reading of this report superfluous.” The secretary stopped reading and

folded the paper, and the public prosecutor angrily began to write down
something. “The gentlemen of the jury may now examine the articles of
material evidence,” said the president. The foreman and several of the
others rose and went to the table, not quite knowing what to do with their
hands. They looked in turn at the glass, the test tube, and the ring. The
merchant even tried on the ring.
“Ah! that was a finger,” he said, returning to his place; “like a
cucumber,” he added. Evidently the image he had formed in his mind of the
gigantic merchant amused him.

CHAPTER XXI. THE TRIAL—THE
PROSECUTOR AND THE ADVOCATES.
When the examination of the articles of material evidence was finished,
the president announced that the investigation was now concluded and
immediately called on the prosecutor to proceed, hoping that as the latter
was also a man, he, too, might feel inclined to smoke or dine, and show
some mercy on the rest. But the public prosecutor showed mercy neither to
himself nor to any one else. He was very stupid by nature, but, besides this,
he had had the misfortune of finishing school with a gold medal and of
receiving a reward for his essay on “Servitude” when studying Roman Law
at the University, and was therefore self-confident and self-satisfied in the
highest degree (his success with the ladies also conducing to this) and his
stupidity had become extraordinary.
When the word was given to him, he got up slowly, showing the whole of
his graceful figure in his embroidered uniform. Putting his hand on the desk
he looked round the room, slightly bowing his head, and, avoiding the eyes
of the prisoners, began to read the speech he had prepared while the reports
were being read.
“Gentlemen of the jury! The business that now lies before you is, if I may
so express myself, very characteristic.”
The speech of a public prosecutor, according to his views, should always
have a social importance, like the celebrated speeches made by the
advocates who have become distinguished. True, the audience consisted of
three women—a semptress, a cook, and Simeon’s sister—and a coachman;
but this did not matter. The celebrities had begun in the same way. To be
always at the height of his position, i.e., to penetrate into the depths of the
psychological significance of crime and to discover the wounds of society,
was one of the prosecutor’s principles.
“You see before you, gentlemen of the jury, a crime characteristic, if I
may so express myself, of the end of our century; bearing, so to say, the
specific features of that very painful phenomenon, the corruption to which

those elements of our present-day society, which are, so to say, particularly
exposed to the burning rays of this process, are subject.”
The public prosecutor spoke at great length, trying not to forget any of
the notions he had formed in his mind, and, on the other hand, never to
hesitate, and let his speech flow on for an hour and a quarter without a
break.
Only once he stopped and for some time stood swallowing his saliva, but
he soon mastered himself and made up for the interruption by heightened
eloquence. He spoke, now with a tender, insinuating accent, stepping from
foot to foot and looking at the jury, now in quiet, business-like tones,
glancing into his notebook, then with a loud, accusing voice, looking from
the audience to the advocates. But he avoided looking at the prisoners, who
were all three fixedly gazing at him. Every new craze then in vogue among
his set was alluded to in his speech; everything that then was, and some
things that still are, considered to be the last words of scientific wisdom: the
laws of heredity and inborn criminality, evolution and the struggle for
existence, hypnotism and hypnotic influence.
According to his definition, the merchant Smelkoff was of the genuine
Russian type, and had perished in consequence of his generous, trusting
nature, having fallen into the hands of deeply degraded individuals.
Simeon Kartinkin was the atavistic production of serfdom, a stupefied,
ignorant, unprincipled man, who had not even any religion. Euphemia was
his mistress, and a victim of heredity; all the signs of degeneration were
noticeable in her. The chief wire-puller in this affair was Maslova,
presenting the phenomenon of decadence in its lowest form. “This woman,”
he said, looking at her, “has, as we have to-day heard from her mistress in
this court, received an education; she cannot only read and write, but she
knows French; she is illegitimate, and probably carries in her the germs of
criminality. She was educated in an enlightened, noble family and might
have lived by honest work, but she deserts her benefactress, gives herself up
to a life of shame in which she is distinguished from her companions by her
education, and chiefly, gentlemen of the jury, as you have heard from her
mistress, by her power of acting on the visitors by means of that mysterious
capacity lately investigated by science, especially by the school of Charcot,
known by the name of hypnotic influence. By these means she gets hold of
this Russian, this kind-hearted Sadko, [Sadko, the hero of a legend] the rich

guest, and uses his trust in order first to rob and then pitilessly to murder
him.”
“Well, he is piling it on now, isn’t he?” said the president with a smile,
bending towards the serious member.
“A fearful blockhead!” said the serious member.
Meanwhile the public prosecutor went on with his speech. “Gentlemen of
the jury,” gracefully swaying his body, “the fate of society is to a certain
extent in your power. Your verdict will influence it. Grasp the full meaning
of this crime, the danger that awaits society from those whom I may
perhaps be permitted to call pathological individuals, such as Maslova.
Guard it from infection; guard the innocent and strong elements of society
from contagion or even destruction.”
And as if himself overcome by the significance of the expected verdict,
the public prosecutor sank into his chair, highly delighted with his speech.
The sense of the speech, when divested of all its flowers of rhetoric, was
that Maslova, having gained the merchant’s confidence, hypnotised him and
went to his lodgings with his key meaning to take all the money herself, but
having been caught in the act by Simeon and Euphemia had to share it with
them. Then, in order to hide the traces of the crime, she had returned to the
lodgings with the merchant and there poisoned him.
After the prosecutor had spoken, a middle-aged man in swallow-tail coat
and low-cut waistcoat showing a large half-circle of starched white shirt,
rose from the advocates’ bench and made a speech in defence of Kartinkin
and Botchkova; this was an advocate engaged by them for 300 roubles. He
acquitted them both and put all the blame on Maslova. He denied the truth
of Maslova’s statements that Botchkova and Kartinkin were with her when
she took the money, laying great stress on the point that her evidence could
not be accepted, she being charged with poisoning. “The 2,500 roubles,” the
advocate said, “could have been easily earned by two honest people getting
from three to five roubles per day in tips from the lodgers. The merchant’s
money was stolen by Maslova and given away, or even lost, as she was not
in a normal state.”
The poisoning was committed by Maslova alone; therefore he begged the
jury to acquit Kartinkin and Botchkova of stealing the money; or if they
could not acquit them of the theft, at least to admit that it was done without
any participation in the poisoning.

In conclusion the advocate remarked, with a thrust at the public
prosecutor, that “the brilliant observations of that gentleman on heredity,
while explaining scientific facts concerning heredity, were inapplicable in
this case, as Botchkova was of unknown parentage.” The public prosecutor
put something down on paper with an angry look, and shrugged his
shoulders in contemptuous surprise.
Then Maslova’s advocate rose, and timidly and hesitatingly began his
speech in her defence.
Without denying that she had taken part in the stealing of the money, he
insisted on the fact that she had no intention of poisoning Smelkoff, but had
given him the powder only to make him fall asleep. He tried to go in for a
little eloquence in giving a description of how Maslova was led into a life
of debauchery by a man who had remained unpunished while she had to
bear all the weight of her fall; but this excursion into the domain of
psychology was so unsuccessful that it made everybody feel uncomfortable.
When he muttered something about men’s cruelty and women’s
helplessness, the president tried to help him by asking him to keep closer to
the facts of the case. When he had finished the public prosecutor got up to
reply. He defended his position against the first advocate, saying that even
if Botchkova was of unknown parentage the truth of the doctrine of heredity
was thereby in no way invalidated, since the laws of heredity were so far
proved by science that we can not only deduce the crime from heredity, but
heredity from the crime. As to the statement made in defence of Maslova,
that she was the victim of an imaginary (he laid a particularly venomous
stress on the word imaginary) betrayer, he could only say that from the
evidence before them it was much more likely that she had played the part
of temptress to many and many a victim who had fallen into her hands.
Having said this he sat down in triumph. Then the prisoners were offered
permission to speak in their own defence.
Euphemia Botchkova repeated once more that she knew nothing about it
and had taken part in nothing, and firmly laid the whole blame on Maslova.
Simeon Kartinkin only repeated several times: “It is your business, but I am
innocent; it’s unjust.” Maslova said nothing in her defence. Told she might
do so by the president, she only lifted her eyes to him, cast a look round the
room like a hunted animal, and, dropping her head, began to cry, sobbing
aloud.

“What is the matter?” the merchant asked Nekhludoff, hearing him utter
a strange sound. This was the sound of weeping fiercely kept back.
Nekhludoff had not yet understood the significance of his present position,
and attributed the sobs he could hardly keep back and the tears that filled
his eyes to the weakness of his nerves. He put on his pince-nez in order to
hide the tears, then got out his handkerchief and began blowing his nose.
Fear of the disgrace that would befall him if every one in the court knew
of his conduct stifled the inner working of his soul. This fear was, during
this first period, stronger than all else.

CHAPTER XXII. THE TRIAL—THE
SUMMING UP.
After the last words of the prisoners had been heard, the form in which
the questions were to be put to the jury was settled, which also took some
time. At last the questions were formulated, and the president began the
summing up.
Before putting the case to the jury, he spoke to them for some time in a
pleasant, homely manner, explaining that burglary was burglary and theft
was theft, and that stealing from a place which was under lock and key was
stealing from a place under lock and key. While he was explaining this, he
looked several times at Nekhludoff as if wishing to impress upon him these
important facts, in hopes that, having understood it, Nekhludoff would
make his fellow-jurymen also understand it. When he considered that the
jury were sufficiently imbued with these facts, he proceeded to enunciate
another truth—namely, that a murder is an action which has the death of a
human being as its consequence, and that poisoning could therefore also be
termed murder. When, according to his opinion, this truth had also been
received by the jury, he went on to explain that if theft and murder had been
committed at the same time, the combination of the crimes was theft with
murder.
Although he was himself anxious to finish as soon as possible, although
he knew that his Swiss friend would be waiting for him, he had grown so
used to his occupation that, having begun to speak, he could not stop
himself, and therefore he went on to impress on the jury with much detail
that if they found the prisoners guilty, they would have the right to give a
verdict of guilty; and if they found them not guilty, to give a verdict of not
guilty; and if they found them guilty of one of the crimes and not of the
other, they might give a verdict of guilty on the one count and of not guilty
on the other. Then he explained that though this right was given them they
should use it with reason.
He was going to add that if they gave an affirmative answer to any
question that was put to them they would thereby affirm everything

included in the question, so that if they did not wish to affirm the whole of
the question they should mention the part of the question they wished to be
excepted. But, glancing at the clock, and seeing it was already five minutes
to three, he resolved to trust to their being intelligent enough to understand
this without further comment.
“The facts of this case are the following,” began the president, and
repeated all that had already been said several times by the advocates, the
public prosecutor and the witnesses.
The president spoke, and the members on each side of him listened with
deeply-attentive expressions, but looked from time to time at the clock, for
they considered the speech too long though very good—i.e., such as it
ought to be. The public prosecutor, the lawyers, and, in fact, everyone in the
court, shared the same impression. The president finished the summing up.
Then he found it necessary to tell the jury what they all knew, or might have
found out by reading it up—i.e., how they were to consider the case, count
the votes, in case of a tie to acquit the prisoners, and so on.
Everything seemed to have been told; but no, the president could not
forego his right of speaking as yet. It was so pleasant to hear the impressive
tones of his own voice, and therefore he found it necessary to say a few
words more about the importance of the rights given to the jury, how
carefully they should use the rights and how they ought not to abuse them,
about their being on their oath, that they were the conscience of society, that
the secrecy of the debating-room should be considered sacred, etc.
From the time the president commenced his speech, Maslova watched
him without moving her eyes as if afraid of losing a single word; so that
Nekhludoff was not afraid of meeting her eyes and kept looking at her all
the time. And his mind passed through those phases in which a face which
we have not seen for many years first strikes us with the outward changes
brought about during the time of separation, and then gradually becomes
more and more like its old self, when the changes made by time seem to
disappear, and before our spiritual eyes rises only the principal expression
of one exceptional, unique individuality. Yes, though dressed in a prison
cloak, and in spite of the developed figure, the fulness of the bosom and
lower part of the face, in spite of a few wrinkles on the forehead and
temples and the swollen eyes, this was certainly the same Katusha who, on

that Easter eve, had so innocently looked up to him whom she loved, with
her fond, laughing eyes full of joy and life.
“What a strange coincidence that after ten years, during which I never
saw her, this case should have come up today when I am on the jury, and
that it is in the prisoners’ dock that I see her again! And how will it end?
Oh, dear, if they would only get on quicker.”
Still he would not give in to the feelings of repentance which began to
arise within him. He tried to consider it all as a coincidence, which would
pass without infringing his manner of life. He felt himself in the position of
a puppy, when its master, taking it by the scruff of its neck, rubs its nose in
the mess it has made. The puppy whines, draws back and wants to get away
as far as possible from the effects of its misdeed, but the pitiless master
does not let go.
And so, Nekhludoff, feeling all the repulsiveness of what he had done,
felt also the powerful hand of the Master, but he did not feel the whole
significance of his action yet and would not recognise the Master’s hand.
He did not wish to believe that it was the effect of his deed that lay before
him, but the pitiless hand of the Master held him and he felt he could not
get away. He was still keeping up his courage and sat on his chair in the
first row in his usual self-possessed pose, one leg carelessly thrown over the
other, and playing with his pince-nez. Yet all the while, in the depths of his
soul, he felt the cruelty, cowardice and baseness, not only of this particular
action of his but of his whole self-willed, depraved, cruel, idle life; and that
dreadful veil which had in some unaccountable manner hidden from him
this sin of his and the whole of his subsequent life was beginning to shake,
and he caught glimpses of what was covered by that veil.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE TRIAL—THE
VERDICT.
At last the president finished his speech, and lifting the list of questions
with a graceful movement of his arm he handed it to the foreman, who
came up to take it. The jury, glad to be able to get into the debating-court,
got up one after the other and left the room, looking as if a bit ashamed of
themselves and again not knowing what to do with their hands. As soon as
the door was closed behind them a gendarme came up to it, pulled his
sword out of the scabbard, and, holding it up against his shoulder, stood at
the door. The judges got up and went away. The prisoners were also led out.
When the jury came into the debating-room the first thing they did was to
take out their cigarettes, as before, and begin smoking. The sense of the
unnaturalness and falseness of their position, which all of them had
experienced while sitting in their places in the court, passed when they
entered the debating-room and started smoking, and they settled down with
a feeling of relief and at once began an animated conversation.
“‘Tisn’t the girl’s fault. She’s got mixed up in it,” said the kindly
merchant. “We must recommend her to mercy.”
“That’s just what we are going to consider,” said the foreman. “We must
not give way to our personal impressions.”
“The president’s summing up was good,” remarked the colonel.
“Good? Why, it nearly sent me to sleep!”
“The chief point is that the servants could have known nothing about the
money if Maslova had not been in accord with them,” said the clerk of
Jewish extraction.
“Well, do you think that it was she who stole the money?” asked one of
the jury.
“I will never believe it,” cried the kindly merchant; “it was all that red-
eyed hag’s doing.”
“They are a nice lot, all of them,” said the colonel.
“But she says she never went into the room.”

“Oh, believe her by all means.”
“I should not believe that jade, not for the world.”
“Whether you believe her or not does not settle the question,” said the
clerk.
“The girl had the key,” said the colonel.
“What if she had?” retorted the merchant.
“And the ring?”
“But didn’t she say all about it?” again cried the merchant. “The fellow
had a temper of his own, and had had a drop too much besides, and gave the
girl a licking; what could be simpler? Well, then he’s sorry—quite naturally.
‘There, never mind,’ says he; ‘take this.’ Why, I heard them say he was six
foot five high; I should think he must have weighed about 20 stones.”
“That’s not the point,” said Peter Gerasimovitch. “The question is,
whether she was the instigator and inciter in this affair, or the servants?”
“It was not possible for the servants to do it alone; she had the key.”
This kind of random talk went on for a considerable time. At last the
foreman said: “I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but had we not better take our
places at the table and discuss the matter? Come, please.” And he took the
chair.
The questions were expressed in the following manner.
1. Is the peasant of the village Borki, Krapivinskia district, Simeon
Petrov Kartinkin, 33 years of age, guilty of having, in agreement with other
persons, given the merchant Smelkoff, on the 17th January, 188-, in the
town of N——-, with intent to deprive him of life, for the purpose of
robbing him, poisoned brandy, which caused Smelkoff’s death, and of
having stolen from him about 2,500 roubles in money and a diamond ring?
2. Is the meschanka Euphemia Ivanovna Botchkova, 43 years of age,
guilty of the crimes described above?
3. Is the meschanka Katerina Michaelovna Maslova, 27 years of age,
guilty of the crimes described in the first question?
4. If the prisoner Euphemia Botchkova is not guilty according to the first
question, is she not guilty of having, on the 17th January, in the town of N
——, while in service at the hotel Mauritania, stolen from a locked
portmanteau, belonging to the merchant Smelkoff, a lodger in that hotel,

and which was in the room occupied by him, 2,500 roubles, for which
object she unlocked the portmanteau with a key she brought and fitted to
the lock?
The foreman read the first question.
“Well, gentlemen, what do you think?” This question was quickly
answered. All agreed to say “Guilty,” as if convinced that Kartinkin had
taken part both in the poisoning and the robbery. An old artelshik, [member
of an artel, an association of workmen, in which the members share profits
and liabilities] whose answers were all in favour of acquittal, was the only
exception.
The foreman thought he did not understand, and began to point out to
him that everything tended to prove Kartinkin’s guilt. The old man
answered that he did understand, but still thought it better to have pity on
him. “We are not saints ourselves,” and he kept to his opinion.
The answer to the second question concerning Botchkova was, after
much dispute and many exclamations, answered by the words, “Not guilty,”
there being no clear proofs of her having taken part in the poisoning—a fact
her advocate had strongly insisted on. The merchant, anxious to acquit
Maslova, insisted that Botchkova was the chief instigator of it all. Many of
the jury shared this view, but the foreman, wishing to be in strict accord
with the law, declared they had no grounds to consider her as an accomplice
in the poisoning. After much disputing the foreman’s opinion triumphed.
To the fourth question concerning Botchkova the answer was “Guilty.”
But on the artelshik’s insistence she was recommended to mercy.
The third question, concerning Maslova, raised a fierce dispute. The
foreman maintained she was guilty both of the poisoning and the theft, to
which the merchant would not agree. The colonel, the clerk and the old
artelshik sided with the merchant, the rest seemed shaky, and the opinion of
the foreman began to gain ground, chiefly because all the jurymen were
getting tired, and preferred to take up the view that would bring them
sooner to a decision and thus liberate them.
From all that had passed, and from his former knowledge of Maslova,
Nekhludoff was certain that she was innocent of both the theft and the
poisoning. And he felt sure that all the others would come to the same
conclusion. When he saw that the merchant’s awkward defence (evidently
based on his physical admiration for her, which he did not even try to hide)

and the foreman’s insistence, and especially everybody’s weariness, were
all tending to her condemnation, he longed to state his objections, yet dared
not, lest his relations with Maslova should be discovered. He felt he could
not allow things to go on without stating his objection; and, blushing and
growing pale again, was about to speak when Peter Gerasimovitch, irritated
by the authoritative manner of the foreman, began to raise his objections
and said the very things Nekhludoff was about to say.
“Allow me one moment,” he said. “You seem to think that her having the
key proves she is guilty of the theft; but what could be easier than for the
servants to open the portmanteau with a false key after she was gone?”
“Of course, of course,” said the merchant.
“She could not have taken the money, because in her position she would
hardly know what to do with it.”
“That’s just what I say,” remarked the merchant.
“But it is very likely that her coming put the idea into the servants’ heads
and that they grasped the opportunity and shoved all the blame on her.”
Peter Gerasimovitch spoke so irritably that the foreman became irritated
too, and went on obstinately defending the opposite views; but Peter
Gerasimovitch spoke so convincingly that the majority agreed with him,
and decided that Maslova was not guilty of stealing the money and that the
ring was given her.
But when the question of her having taken part in the poisoning was
raised, her zealous defender, the merchant, declared that she must be
acquitted, because she could have no reason for the poisoning. The
foreman, however, said that it was impossible to acquit her, because she
herself had pleaded guilty to having given the powder.
“Yes, but thinking it was opium,” said the merchant.
“Opium can also deprive one of life,” said the colonel, who was fond of
wandering from the subject, and he began telling how his brother-in-law’s
wife would have died of an overdose of opium if there had not been a
doctor near at hand to take the necessary measures. The colonel told his
story so impressively, with such self-possession and dignity, that no one had
the courage to interrupt him. Only the clerk, infected by his example,
decided to break in with a story of his own: “There are some who get so
used to it that they can take 40 drops. I have a relative—,” but the colonel

would not stand the interruption, and went on to relate what effects the
opium had on his brother-in-law’s wife.
“But, gentlemen, do you know it is getting on towards five o’clock?” said
one of the jury.
“Well, gentlemen, what are we to say, then?” inquired the foreman.
“Shall we say she is guilty, but without intent to rob? And without stealing
any property? Will that do?” Peter Gerasimovitch, pleased with his victory,
agreed.
“But she must be recommended to mercy,” said the merchant.
All agreed; only the old artelshik insisted that they should say “Not
guilty.”
“It comes to the same thing,” explained the foreman; “without intent to
rob, and without stealing any property. Therefore, ‘Not guilty,’ that’s
evident.”
“All right; that’ll do. And we recommend her to mercy,” said the
merchant, gaily.
They were all so tired, so confused by the discussions, that nobody
thought of saying that she was guilty of giving the powder but without the
intent of taking life. Nekhludoff was so excited that he did not notice this
omission, and so the answers were written down in the form agreed upon
and taken to the court.
Rabelais says that a lawyer who was trying a case quoted all sorts of
laws, read 20 pages of judicial senseless Latin, and then proposed to the
judges to throw dice, and if the numbers proved odd the defendant would be
right, if not, the plaintiff.
It was much the same in this case. The resolution was taken, not because
everybody agreed upon it, but because the president, who had been
summing up at such length, omitted to say what he always said on such
occasions, that the answer might be, “Yes, guilty, but without the intent of
taking life;” because the colonel had related the story of his brother-in-law’s
wife at such great length; because Nekhludoff was too excited to notice that
the proviso “without intent to take life” had been omitted, and thought that
the words “without intent” nullified the conviction; because Peter
Gerasimovitch had retired from the room while the questions and answers
were being read, and chiefly because, being tired, and wishing to get away

as soon as possible, all were ready to agree with the decision which would
bring matters to an end soonest.
The jurymen rang the bell. The gendarme who had stood outside the door
with his sword drawn put the sword back into the scabbard and stepped
aside. The judges took their seats and the jury came out one by one.
The foreman brought in the paper with an air of solemnity and handed it
to the president, who looked at it, and, spreading out his hands in
astonishment, turned to consult his companions. The president was
surprised that the jury, having put in a proviso—without intent to rob—did
not put in a second proviso—without intent to take life. From the decision
of the jury it followed that Maslova had not stolen, nor robbed, and yet
poisoned a man without any apparent reason.
“Just see what an absurd decision they have come to,” he whispered to
the member on his left. “This means penal servitude in Siberia, and she is
innocent.”
“Surely you do not mean to say she is innocent?” answered the serious
member.
“Yes, she is positively innocent. I think this is a case for putting Article
817 into practice (Article 817 states that if the Court considers the decision
of the jury unjust it may set it aside).”
“What do you think?” said the president, turning to the other member.
The kindly member did not answer at once. He looked at the number on a
paper before him and added up the figures; the sum would not divide by
three. He had settled in his mind that if it did divide by three he would agree
to the president’s proposal, but though the sum would not so divide his
kindness made him agree all the same.
“I, too, think it should be done,” he said.
“And you?” asked the president, turning to the serious member.
“On no account,” he answered, firmly. “As it is, the papers accuse the
jury of acquitting prisoners. What will they say if the Court does it? I, shall
not agree to that on any account.”
The president looked at his watch. “It is a pity, but what’s to be done?”
and handed the questions to the foreman to read out. All got up, and the
foreman, stepping from foot to foot, coughed, and read the questions and
the answers. All the Court, secretary, advocates, and even the public

prosecutor, expressed surprise. The prisoners sat impassive, evidently not
understanding the meaning of the answers. Everybody sat down again, and
the president asked the prosecutor what punishments the prisoners were to
be subjected to.
The prosecutor, glad of his unexpected success in getting Maslova
convicted, and attributing the success entirely to his own eloquence, looked
up the necessary information, rose and said: “With Simeon Kartinkin I
should deal according to Statute 1,452 paragraph 93. Euphemia Botchkova
according to Statute . . ., etc. Katerina Maslova according to Statute . . .,
etc.”
All three punishments were the heaviest that could be inflicted.
“The Court will adjourn to consider the sentence,” said the president,
rising. Everybody rose after him, and with the pleasant feeling of a task
well done began to leave the room or move about in it.
“D’you know, sirs, we have made a shameful hash of it?” said Peter
Gerasimovitch, approaching Nekhludoff, to whom the foreman was relating
something. “Why, we’ve got her to Siberia.”
“What are you saying?” exclaimed Nekhludoff. This time he did not
notice the teacher’s familiarity.
“Why, we did not put in our answer ‘Guilty, but without intent of causing
death.’ The secretary just told me the public prosecutor is for condemning
her to 15 years’ penal servitude.”
“Well, but it was decided so,” said the foreman.
Peter Gerasimovitch began to dispute this, saying that since she did not
take the money it followed naturally that she could not have had any
intention of committing murder.
“But I read the answer before going out,” said the foreman, defending
himself, “and nobody objected.”
“I had just then gone out of the room,” said Peter Gerasimovitch, turning
to Nekhludoff, “and your thoughts must have been wool-gathering to let the
thing pass.”
“I never imagined this,” Nekhludoff replied.
“Oh, you didn’t?”
“Oh, well, we can get it put right,” said Nekhludoff.

“Oh, dear no; it’s finished.”
Nekhludoff looked at the prisoners. They whose fate was being decided
still sat motionless behind the grating in front of the soldiers. Maslova was
smiling. Another feeling stirred in Nekhludoff’s soul. Up to now, expecting
her acquittal and thinking she would remain in the town, he was uncertain
how to act towards her. Any kind of relations with her would be so very
difficult. But Siberia and penal servitude at once cut off every possibility of
any kind of relations with her. The wounded bird would stop struggling in
the game-bag, and no longer remind him of its existence.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE TRIAL—THE
SENTENCE.
Peter Gerasimovitch’s assumption was correct. The president came back
from the debating room with a paper, and read as follows:—“April 28th,
188-. By His Imperial Majesty’s ukase No. ——- The Criminal Court, on
the strength of the decision of the jury, in accordance with Section 3 of
Statute 771, Section 3 of Statutes 770 and 777, decrees that the peasant,
Simeon Kartinkin, 33 years of age, and the meschanka Katerina Maslova,
27 years of age, are to be deprived of all property rights and to be sent to
penal servitude in Siberia, Kartinkin for eight, Maslova for four years, with
the consequences stated in Statute 25 of the code. The meschanka
Botchkova, 43 years of age, to be deprived of all special personal and
acquired rights, and to be imprisoned for three years with consequences in
accord with Statute 48 of the code. The costs of the case to be borne equally
by the prisoners; and, in the case of their being without sufficient property,
the costs to be transferred to the Treasury. Articles of material evidence to
be sold, the ring to be returned, the phials destroyed.” Botchkova was
condemned to prison, Simeon Kartinken and Katerina Maslova to the loss
of all special rights and privileges and to penal servitude in Siberia, he for
eight and she for four years.
Kartinkin stood holding his arms close to his sides and moving his lips.
Botchkova seemed perfectly calm. Maslova, when she heard the sentence,
blushed scarlet. “I’m not guilty, not guilty!” she suddenly cried, so that it
resounded through the room. “It is a sin! I am not guilty! I never wished—I
never thought! It is the truth I am saying—the truth!” and sinking on the
bench she burst into tears and sobbed aloud. When Kartinkin and
Botchkova went out she still sat crying, so that a gendarme had to touch the
sleeve of her cloak.
“No; it is impossible to leave it as it is,” said Nekhludoff to himself,
utterly forgetting his bad thoughts. He did not know why he wished to look
at her once more, but hurried out into the corridor. There was quite a crowd
at the door. The advocates and jury were going out, pleased to have finished

the business, and he was obliged to wait a few seconds, and when he at last
got out into the corridor she was far in front. He hurried along the corridor
after her, regardless of the attention he was arousing, caught her up, passed
her, and stopped. She had ceased crying and only sobbed, wiping her red,
discoloured face with the end of the kerchief on her head. She passed
without noticing him. Then he hurried back to see the president. The latter
had already left the court, and Nekhludoff followed him into the lobby and
went up to him just as he had put on his light grey overcoat and was taking
the silver-mounted walking-stick which an attendant was handing him.
“Sir, may I have a few words with you concerning some business I have
just decided upon?” said Nekhludoff. “I am one of the jury.”
“Oh, certainly, Prince Nekhludoff. I shall be delighted. I think we have
met before,” said the president, pressing Nekhludoff’s hand and recalling
with pleasure the evening when he first met Nekhludoff, and when he had
danced so gaily, better than all the young people. “What can I do for you?”
“There is a mistake in the answer concerning Maslova. She is not guilty
of the poisoning and yet she is condemned to penal servitude,” said
Nekhludoff, with a preoccupied and gloomy air.
“The Court passed the sentence in accordance with the answers you
yourselves gave,” said the president, moving towards the front door;
“though they did not seem to be quite in accord.” And he remembered that
he had been going to explain to the jury that a verdict of “guilty” meant
guilty of intentional murder unless the words “without intent to take life”
were added, but had, in his hurry to get the business over, omitted to do so.
“Yes, but could not the mistake be rectified?”
“A reason for an appeal can always be found. You will have to speak to
an advocate,” said the president, putting on his hat a little to one side and
continuing to move towards the door.
“But this is terrible.”
“Well, you see, there were two possibilities before Maslova,” said the
president, evidently wishing to be as polite and pleasant to Nekhludoff as he
could. Then, having arranged his whiskers over his coat collar, he put his
hand lightly under Nekhludoff’s elbow, and, still directing his steps towards
the front door, he said, “You are going, too?”
“Yes,” said Nekhludoff, quickly getting his coat, and following him.

They went out into the bright, merry sunlight, and had to raise their
voices because of the rattling of the wheels on the pavement.
“The situation is a curious one, you see,” said the president; “what lay
before this Maslova was one of two things: either to be almost acquitted and
only imprisoned for a short time, or, taking the preliminary confinement
into consideration, perhaps not at all—or Siberia. There is nothing between.
Had you but added the words, ‘without intent to cause death,’ she would
have been acquitted.”
“Yes, it was inexcusable of me to omit that,” said Nekhludoff.
“That’s where the whole matter lies,” said the president, with a smile, and
looked at his watch. He had only three-quarters of an hour left before the
time appointed by his Clara would elapse.
“Now, if you like to speak to the advocates you’ll have to find a reason
for an appeal; that can be easily done.” Then, turning to an isvostchik, he
called out, “To the Dvoryanskaya 30 copecks; I never give more.”
“All right, your honour; here you are.”
“Good-afternoon. If I can be of any use, my address is House Dvornikoff,
on the Dvoryanskaya; it’s easy to remember.” And he bowed in a friendly
manner as he got into the trap and drove off.

CHAPTER XXV. NEKHLUDOFF CONSULTS
AN ADVOCATE.
His conversation with the president and the fresh air quieted Nekhludoff
a little. He now thought that the feelings experienced by him had been
exaggerated by the unusual surroundings in which he had spent the whole
of the morning, and by that wonderful and startling coincidence. Still, it was
absolutely necessary to take some steps to lighten Maslova’s fate, and to
take them quickly. “Yes, at once! It will be best to find out here in the court
where the advocate Fanarin or Mikishin lives.” These were two well-known
advocates whom Nekhludoff called to mind. He returned to the court, took
off his overcoat, and went upstairs. In the first corridor he met Fanarin
himself. He stopped him, and told him that he was just going to look him up
on a matter of business.
Fanarin knew Nekhludoff by sight and name, and said he would be very
glad to be of service to him.
“Though I am rather tired, still, if your business will not take very long,
perhaps you might tell me what it is now. Will you step in here?” And he
led Nekhludoff into a room, probably some judge’s cabinet. They sat down
by the table.
“Well, and what is your business?”
“First of all, I must ask you to keep the business private. I do not want it
known that I take an interest in the affair.”
“Oh, that of course. Well?”
“I was on the jury to-day, and we have condemned a woman to Siberia,
an innocent woman. This bothers me very much.” Nekhludoff, to his own
surprise, blushed and became confused. Fanarin glanced at him rapidly, and
looked down again, listening.
“Well?”
“We have condemned a woman, and I should like to appeal to a higher
court.”
“To the Senate, you mean,” said Fanarin, correcting him.

“Yes, and I should like to ask you to take the case in hand.” Nekhludoff
wanted to get the most difficult part over, and added, “I shall take the costs
of the case on myself, whatever they may be.”
“Oh, we shall settle all that,” said the advocate, smiling with
condescension at Nekhludoff’s inexperience in these matters. “What is the
case?”
Nekhludoff stated what had happened.
“All right. I shall look the case through to-morrow or the day after—no—
better on Thursday. If you will come to me at six o’clock I will give you an
answer. Well, and now let us go; I have to make a few inquiries here.”
Nekhludoff took leave of him and went out. This talk with the advocate,
and the fact that he had taken measures for Maslova’s defence, quieted him
still further. He went out into the street. The weather was beautiful, and he
joyfully drew in a long breath of spring air. He was at once surrounded by
isvostchiks offering their services, but he went on foot. A whole swarm of
pictures and memories of Katusha and his conduct to her began whirling in
his brain, and he felt depressed and everything appeared gloomy. “No, I
shall consider all this later on; I must now get rid of all these disagreeable
impressions,” he thought to himself.
He remembered the Korchagin’s dinner and looked at his watch. It was
not yet too late to get there in time. He heard the ring of a passing tramcar,
ran to catch it, and jumped on. He jumped off again when they got to the
market-place, took a good isvostchik, and ten minutes later was at the
entrance of the Korchagins’ big house.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE HOUSE OF
KORCHAGIN.
“Please to walk in, your excellency,” said the friendly, fat doorkeeper of
the Korchagins’ big house, opening the door, which moved noiselessly on
its patent English hinges; “you are expected. They are at dinner. My orders
were to admit only you.” The doorkeeper went as far as the staircase and
rang.
“Are there any strangers?” asked Nekhludoff, taking off his overcoat.
“Mr. Kolosoff and Michael Sergeivitch only, besides the family.”
A very handsome footman with whiskers, in a swallow-tail coat and
white gloves, looked down from the landing.
“Please to walk up, your excellency,” he said. “You are expected.”
Nekhludoff went up and passed through the splendid large dancing-room,
which he knew so well, into the dining-room. There the whole Korchagin
family—except the mother, Sophia Vasilievna, who never left her cabinet—
were sitting round the table. At the head of the table sat old Korchagin; on
his left the doctor, and on his right, a visitor, Ivan Ivanovitch Kolosoff, a
former Marechal de Noblesse, now a bank director, Korchagin’s friend and
a Liberal. Next on the left side sat Miss Rayner, the governess of Missy’s
little sister, and the four-year-old girl herself. Opposite them, Missy’s
brother, Petia, the only son of the Korchagins, a public-school boy of the
Sixth Class. It was because of his examinations that the whole family were
still in town. Next to him sat a University student who was coaching him,
and Missy’s cousin, Michael Sergeivitch Telegin, generally called Misha;
opposite him, Katerina Alexeevna, a 40-year-old maiden lady, a Slavophil;
and at the foot of the table sat Missy herself, with an empty place by her
side.
“Ah! that’s right! Sit down. We are still at the fish,” said old Korchagin
with difficulty, chewing carefully with his false teeth, and lifting his
bloodshot eyes (which had no visible lids to them) to Nekhludoff.

“Stephen!” he said, with his mouth full, addressing the stout, dignified
butler, and pointing with his eyes to the empty place. Though Nekhludoff
knew Korchagin very well, and had often seen him at dinner, to-day this red
face with the sensual smacking lips, the fat neck above the napkin stuck
into his waistcoat, and the whole over-fed military figure, struck him very
disagreeably. Then Nekhludoff remembered, without wishing to, what he
knew of the cruelty of this man, who, when in command, used to have men
flogged, and even hanged, without rhyme or reason, simply because he was
rich and had no need to curry favour.
“Immediately, your excellency,” said Stephen, getting a large soup ladle
out of the sideboard, which was decorated with a number of silver vases. He
made a sign with his head to the handsome footman, who began at once to
arrange the untouched knives and forks and the napkin, elaborately folded
with the embroidered family crest uppermost, in front of the empty place
next to Missy. Nekhludoff went round shaking hands with every one, and
all, except old Korchagin and the ladies, rose when he approached. And this
walk round the table, this shaking the hands of people, with many of whom
he never talked, seemed unpleasant and odd. He excused himself for being
late, and was about to sit down between Missy and Katerina Alexeevna, but
old Korchagin insisted that if he would not take a glass of vodka he should
at least take a bit of something to whet his appetite, at the side table, on
which stood small dishes of lobster, caviare, cheese, and salt herrings.
Nekhludoff did not know how hungry he was until he began to eat, and
then, having taken some bread and cheese, he went on eating eagerly.
“Well, have you succeeded in undermining the basis of society?” asked
Kolosoff, ironically quoting an expression used by a retrograde newspaper
in attacking trial by jury. “Acquitted the culprits and condemned the
innocent, have you?”
“Undermining the basis—undermining the basis,” repeated Prince
Korchagin, laughing. He had a firm faith in the wisdom and learning of his
chosen friend and companion.
At the risk of seeming rude, Nekhludoff left Kolosoff’s question
unanswered, and sitting down to his steaming soup, went on eating.
“Do let him eat,” said Missy, with a smile. The pronoun him she used as
a reminder of her intimacy with Nekhludoff. Kolosoff went on in a loud
voice and lively manner to give the contents of the article against trial by

jury which had aroused his indignation. Missy’s cousin, Michael
Sergeivitch, endorsed all his statements, and related the contents of another
article in the same paper. Missy was, as usual, very distinguee, and well,
unobtrusively well, dressed.
“You must be terribly tired,” she said, after waiting until Nekhludoff had
swallowed what was in his mouth.
“Not particularly. And you? Have you been to look at the pictures?” he
asked.
“No, we put that off. We have been playing tennis at the Salamatoffs’. It
is quite true, Mr. Crooks plays remarkably well.”
Nekhludoff had come here in order to distract his thoughts, for he used to
like being in this house, both because its refined luxury had a pleasant effect
on him and because of the atmosphere of tender flattery that unobtrusively
surrounded him. But to-day everything in the house was repulsive to him—
everything: beginning with the doorkeeper, the broad staircase, the flowers,
the footman, the table decorations, up to Missy herself, who to-day seemed
unattractive and affected. Kolosoff’s self-assured, trivial tone of liberalism
was unpleasant, as was also the sensual, self-satisfied, bull-like appearance
of old Korchagin, and the French phrases of Katerina Alexeevna, the
Slavophil. The constrained looks of the governess and the student were
unpleasant, too, but most unpleasant of all was the pronoun him that Missy
had used. Nekhludoff had long been wavering between two ways of
regarding Missy; sometimes he looked at her as if by moonlight, and could
see in her nothing but what was beautiful, fresh, pretty, clever and natural;
then suddenly, as if the bright sun shone on her, he saw her defects and
could not help seeing them. This was such a day for him. To-day he saw all
the wrinkles of her face, knew which of her teeth were false, saw the way
her hair was crimped, the sharpness of her elbows, and, above all, how large
her thumb-nail was and how like her father’s.
“Tennis is a dull game,” said Kolosoff; “we used to play lapta when we
were children. That was much more amusing.”
“Oh, no, you never tried it; it’s awfully interesting,” said Missy, laying, it
seemed to Nekhludoff, a very affected stress on the word “awfully.” Then a
dispute arose in which Michael Sergeivitch, Katerina Alexeevna and all the
others took part, except the governess, the student and the children, who sat
silent and wearied.

“Oh, these everlasting disputes!” said old Korchagin, laughing, and he
pulled the napkin out of his waistcoat, noisily pushed back his chair, which
the footman instantly caught hold of, and left the table.
Everybody rose after him, and went up to another table on which stood
glasses of scented water. They rinsed their mouths, then resumed the
conversation, interesting to no one.
“Don’t you think so?” said Missy to Nekhludoff, calling for a
confirmation of the statement that nothing shows up a man’s character like
a game. She noticed that preoccupied and, as it seemed to her, dissatisfied
look which she feared, and she wanted to find out what had caused it.
“Really, I can’t tell; I have never thought about it,” Nekhludoff answered.
“Will you come to mamma?” asked Missy.
“Yes, yes,” he said, in a tone which plainly proved that he did not want to
go, and took out a cigarette.
She looked at him in silence, with a questioning look, and he felt
ashamed. “To come into a house and give the people the dumps,” he
thought about himself; then, trying to be amiable, said that he would go
with pleasure if the princess would admit him.
“Oh, yes! Mamma will be pleased. You may smoke there; and Ivan
Ivanovitch is also there.”
The mistress of the house, Princess Sophia Vasilievna, was a recumbent
lady. It was the eighth year that, when visitors were present, she lay in lace
and ribbons, surrounded with velvet, gilding, ivory, bronze, lacquer and
flowers, never going out, and only, as she put it, receiving intimate friends,
i.e., those who according to her idea stood out from the common herd.
Nekhludoff was admitted into the number of these friends because he
was considered clever, because his mother had been an intimate friend of
the family, and because it was desirable that Missy should marry him.
Sophia Vasilievna’s room lay beyond the large and the small drawing-
rooms. In the large drawing-room, Missy, who was in front of Nekhludoff,
stopped resolutely, and taking hold of the back of a small green chair, faced
him.
Missy was very anxious to get married, and as he was a suitable match
and she also liked him, she had accustomed herself to the thought that he

should be hers (not she his). To lose him would be very mortifying. She
now began talking to him in order to get him to explain his intentions.
“I see something has happened,” she said. “Tell me, what is the matter
with you?”
He remembered the meeting in the law court, and frowned and blushed.
“Yes, something has happened,” he said, wishing to be truthful; “a very
unusual and serious event.”
“What is it, then? Can you not tell me what it is?” She was pursuing her
aim with that unconscious yet obstinate cunning often observable in the
mentally diseased.
“Not now. Please do not ask me to tell you. I have not yet had time fully
to consider it,” and he blushed still more.
“And so you will not tell me?” A muscle twitched in her face and she
pushed back the chair she was holding. “Well then, come!” She shook her
head as if to expel useless thoughts, and, faster than usual, went on in front
of him.
He fancied that her mouth was unnaturally compressed in order to keep
back the tears. He was ashamed of having hurt her, and yet he knew that the
least weakness on his part would mean disaster, i.e., would bind him to her.
And to-day he feared this more than anything, and silently followed her to
the princess’s cabinet.

CHAPTER XXVII. MISSY’S MOTHER.
Princess Sophia Vasilievna, Missy’s mother, had finished her very
elaborate and nourishing dinner. (She had it always alone, that no one
should see her performing this unpoetical function.) By her couch stood a
small table with her coffee, and she was smoking a pachitos. Princess
Sophia Vasilievna was a long, thin woman, with dark hair, large black eyes
and long teeth, and still pretended to be young.
Her intimacy with the doctor was being talked about. Nekhludoff had
known that for some time; but when he saw the doctor sitting by her couch,
his oily, glistening beard parted in the middle, he not only remembered the
rumours about them, but felt greatly disgusted. By the table, on a low, soft,
easy chair, next to Sophia Vasilievna, sat Kolosoff, stirring his coffee. A
glass of liqueur stood on the table. Missy came in with Nekhludoff, but did
not remain in the room.
“When mamma gets tired of you and drives you away, then come to me,”
she said, turning to Kolosoff and Nekhludoff, speaking as if nothing had
occurred; then she went away, smiling merrily and stepping noiselessly on
the thick carpet.
“How do you do, dear friend? Sit down and talk,” said Princess Sophia
Vasilievna, with her affected but very naturally-acted smile, showing her
fine, long teeth—a splendid imitation of what her own had once been. “I
hear that you have come from the Law Courts very much depressed. I think
it must be very trying to a person with a heart,” she added in French.
“Yes, that is so,” said Nekhludoff. “One often feels one’s own de—one
feels one has no right to judge.”
“Comme, c’est vrai,” she cried, as if struck by the truth of this remark.
She was in the habit of artfully flattering all those with whom she
conversed. “Well, and what of your picture? It does interest me so. If I were
not such a sad invalid I should have been to see it long ago,” she said.
“I have quite given it up,” Nekhludoff replied drily. The falseness of her
flattery seemed as evident to him to-day as her age, which she was trying to
conceal, and he could not put himself into the right state to behave politely.

“Oh, that is a pity! Why, he has a real talent for art; I have it from Repin’s
own lips,” she added, turning to Kolosoff.
“Why is it she is not ashamed of lying so?” Nekhludoff thought, and
frowned.
When she had convinced herself that Nekhludoff was in a bad temper and
that one could not get him into an agreeable and clever conversation,
Sophia Vasilievna turned to Kolosoff, asking his opinion of a new play. She
asked it in a tone as if Kolosoff’s opinion would decide all doubts, and each
word of this opinion be worthy of being immortalised. Kolosoff found fault
both with the play and its author, and that led him to express his views on
art. Princess Sophia Vasilievna, while trying at the same time to defend the
play, seemed impressed by the truth of his arguments, either giving in at
once, or at least modifying her opinion. Nekhludoff looked and listened, but
neither saw nor heard what was going on before him.
Listening now to Sophia Vasilievna, now to Kolosoff, Nekhludoff noticed
that neither he nor she cared anything about the play or each other, and that
if they talked it was only to gratify the physical desire to move the muscles
of the throat and tongue after having eaten; and that Kolosoff, having drunk
vodka, wine and liqueur, was a little tipsy. Not tipsy like the peasants who
drink seldom, but like people to whom drinking wine has become a habit.
He did not reel about or talk nonsense, but he was in a state that was not
normal; excited and self-satisfied. Nekhludoff also noticed that during the
conversation Princess Sophia Vasilievna kept glancing uneasily at the
window, through which a slanting ray of sunshine, which might vividly
light up her aged face, was beginning to creep up.
“How true,” she said in reference to some remark of Kolosoff’s, touching
the button of an electric bell by the side of her couch. The doctor rose, and,
like one who is at home, left the room without saying anything. Sophia
Vasilievna followed him with her eyes and continued the conversation.
“Please, Philip, draw these curtains,” she said, pointing to the window,
when the handsome footman came in answer to the bell. “No; whatever you
may say, there is some mysticism in him; without mysticism there can be no
poetry,” she said, with one of her black eyes angrily following the
footman’s movements as he was drawing the curtains. “Without poetry,
mysticism is superstition; without mysticism, poetry is—prose,” she
continued, with a sorrowful smile, still not losing sight of the footman and

the curtains. “Philip, not that curtain; the one on the large window,” she
exclaimed, in a suffering tone. Sophia Vasilievna was evidently pitying
herself for having to make the effort of saying these words; and, to soothe
her feelings, she raised to her lips a scented, smoking cigarette with her
jewel-bedecked fingers.
The broad-chested, muscular, handsome Philip bowed slightly, as if
begging pardon; and stepping lightly across the carpet with his broad-
calved, strong, legs, obediently and silently went to the other window, and,
looking at the princess, carefully began to arrange the curtain so that not a
single ray dared fall on her. But again he did not satisfy her, and again she
had to interrupt the conversation about mysticism, and correct in a martyred
tone the unintelligent Philip, who was tormenting her so pitilessly. For a
moment a light flashed in Philip’s eyes.
“‘The devil take you! What do you want?’ was probably what he said to
himself,” thought Nekhludoff, who had been observing all this scene. But
the strong, handsome Philip at once managed to conceal the signs of his
impatience, and went on quietly carrying out the orders of the worn, weak,
false Sophia Vasilievna.
“Of course, there is a good deal of truth in Lombroso’s teaching,” said
Kolosoff, lolling back in the low chair and looking at Sophia Vasilievna
with sleepy eyes; “but he over-stepped the mark. Oh, yes.”
“And you? Do you believe in heredity?” asked Sophia Vasilievna, turning
to Nekhludoff, whose silence annoyed her. “In heredity?” he asked. “No, I
don’t.” At this moment his whole mind was taken up by strange images that
in some unaccountable way rose up in his imagination. By the side of this
strong and handsome Philip he seemed at this minute to see the nude figure
of Kolosoff as an artist’s model; with his stomach like a melon, his bald
head, and his arms without muscle, like pestles. In the same dim way the
limbs of Sophia Vasilievna, now covered with silks and velvets, rose up in
his mind as they must be in reality; but this mental picture was too horrid
and he tried to drive it away.
“Well, you know Missy is waiting for you,” she said. “Go and find her.
She wants to play a new piece by Grieg to you; it is most interesting.”
“She did not mean to play anything; the woman is simply lying, for some
reason or other,” thought Nekhludoff, rising and pressing Sophia
Vasilievna’s transparent and bony, ringed hand.

Katerina Alexeevna met him in the drawing-room, and at once began, in
French, as usual:
“I see the duties of a juryman act depressingly upon you.”
“Yes; pardon me, I am in low spirits to-day, and have no right to weary
others by my presence,” said Nekhludoff.
“Why are you in low spirits?”
“Allow me not to speak about that,” he said, looking round for his hat.
“Don’t you remember how you used to say that we must always tell the
truth? And what cruel truths you used to tell us all! Why do you not wish to
speak out now? Don’t you remember, Missy?” she said, turning to Missy,
who had just come in.
“We were playing a game then,” said Nekhludoff, seriously; “one may
tell the truth in a game, but in reality we are so bad—I mean I am so bad—
that I, at least, cannot tell the truth.”
“Oh, do not correct yourself, but rather tell us why we are so bad,” said
Katerina Alexeevna, playing with her words and pretending not to notice
how serious Nekhludoff was.
“Nothing is worse than to confess to being in low spirits,” said Missy. “I
never do it, and therefore am always in good spirits.”
Nekhludoff felt as a horse must feel when it is being caressed to make it
submit to having the bit put in its mouth and be harnessed, and to-day he
felt less than ever inclined to draw.
“Well, are you coming into my room? We will try to cheer you up.”
He excused himself, saying he had to be at home, and began taking leave.
Missy kept his hand longer than usual.
“Remember that what is important to you is important to your friends,”
she said. “Are you coming tomorrow?”
“I hardly expect to,” said Nekhludoff; and feeling ashamed, without
knowing whether for her or for himself, he blushed and went away.
“What is it? Comme cela m’intrigue,” said Katerina Alexeevna. “I must
find it out. I suppose it is some affaire d’amour propre; il est tres
susceptible, notre cher Mitia.”
“Plutot une affaire d’amour sale,” Missy was going to say, but stopped
and looked down with a face from which all the light had gone—a very

different face from the one with which she had looked at him. She would
not mention to Katerina Alexeevna even, so vulgar a pun, but only said,
“We all have our good and our bad days.”
“Is it possible that he, too, will deceive?” she thought; “after all that has
happened it would be very bad of him.”
If Missy had had to explain what she meant by “after all that has
happened,” she could have said nothing definite, and yet she knew that he
had not only excited her hopes but had almost given her a promise. No
definite words had passed between them—only looks and smiles and hints;
and yet she considered him as her own, and to lose him would be very hard.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE AWAKENING.
“Shameful and stupid, horrid and shameful!” Nekhludoff kept saying to
himself, as he walked home along the familiar streets. The depression he
had felt whilst speaking to Missy would not leave him. He felt that, looking
at it externally, as it were, he was in the right, for he had never said
anything to her that could be considered binding, never made her an offer;
but he knew that in reality he had bound himself to her, had promised to be
hers. And yet to-day he felt with his whole being that he could not marry
her.
“Shameful and horrid, horrid and shameful!” he repeated to himself, with
reference not only to his relations with Missy but also to the rest.
“Everything is horrid and shameful,” he muttered, as he stepped into the
porch of his house. “I am not going to have any supper,” he said to his
manservant Corney, who followed him into the dining-room, where the
cloth was laid for supper and tea. “You may go.”
“Yes, sir,” said Corney, yet he did not go, but began clearing the supper
off the table. Nekhludoff looked at Corney with a feeling of ill-will. He
wished to be left alone, and it seemed to him that everybody was bothering
him in order to spite him. When Corney had gone away with the supper
things, Nekhludoff moved to the tea urn and was about to make himself
some tea, but hearing Agraphena Petrovna’s footsteps, he went hurriedly
into the drawing-room, to avoid being seen by her, and shut the door after
him. In this drawing-room his mother had died three months before. On
entering the room, in which two lamps with reflectors were burning, one
lighting up his father’s and the other his mother’s portrait, he remembered
what his last relations with his mother had been. And they also seemed
shameful and horrid. He remembered how, during the latter period of her
illness, he had simply wished her to die. He had said to himself that he
wished it for her sake, that she might be released from her suffering, but in
reality he wished to be released from the sight of her sufferings for his own
sake.
Trying to recall a pleasant image of her, he went up to look at her
portrait, painted by a celebrated artist for 800 roubles. She was depicted in a

very low-necked black velvet dress. There was something very revolting
and blasphemous in this representation of his mother as a half-nude beauty.
It was all the more disgusting because three months ago, in this very room,
lay this same woman, dried up to a mummy. And he remembered how a few
days before her death she clasped his hand with her bony, discoloured
fingers, looked into his eyes, and said: “Do not judge me, Mitia, if I have
not done what I should,” and how the tears came into her eyes, grown pale
with suffering.
“Ah, how horrid!” he said to himself, looking up once more at the half-
naked woman, with the splendid marble shoulders and arms, and the
triumphant smile on her lips. “Oh, how horrid!” The bared shoulders of the
portrait reminded him of another, a young woman, whom he had seen
exposed in the same way a few days before. It was Missy, who had devised
an excuse for calling him into her room just as she was ready to go to a ball,
so that he should see her in her ball dress. It was with disgust that he
remembered her fine shoulders and arms. “And that father of hers, with his
doubtful past and his cruelties, and the bel-esprit her mother, with her
doubtful reputation.” All this disgusted him, and also made him feel
ashamed. “Shameful and horrid; horrid and shameful!”
“No, no,” he thought; “freedom from all these false relations with the
Korchagins and Mary Vasilievna and the inheritance and from all the rest
must be got. Oh, to breathe freely, to go abroad, to Rome and work at my
picture!” He remembered the doubts he had about his talent for art. “Well,
never mind; only just to breathe freely. First Constantinople, then Rome.
Only just to get through with this jury business, and arrange with the
advocate first.”
Then suddenly there arose in his mind an extremely vivid picture of a
prisoner with black, slightly-squinting eyes, and how she began to cry when
the last words of the prisoners had been heard; and he hurriedly put out his
cigarette, pressing it into the ash-pan, lit another, and began pacing up and
down the room. One after another the scenes he had lived through with her
rose in his mind. He recalled that last interview with her. He remembered
the white dress and blue sash, the early mass. “Why, I loved her, really
loved her with a good, pure love, that night; I loved her even before: yes, I
loved her when I lived with my aunts the first time and was writing my
composition.” And he remembered himself as he had been then. A breath of

that freshness, youth and fulness of life seemed to touch him, and he grew
painfully sad. The difference between what he had been then and what he
was now, was enormous—just as great, if not greater than the difference
between Katusha in church that night, and the prostitute who had been
carousing with the merchant and whom they judged this morning. Then he
was free and fearless, and innumerable possibilities lay ready to open
before him; now he felt himself caught in the meshes of a stupid, empty,
valueless, frivolous life, out of which he saw no means of extricating
himself even if he wished to, which he hardly did. He remembered how
proud he was at one time of his straightforwardness, how he had made a
rule of always speaking the truth, and really had been truthful; and how he
was now sunk deep in lies: in the most dreadful of lies—lies considered as
the truth by all who surrounded him. And, as far as he could see, there was
no way out of these lies. He had sunk in the mire, got used to it, indulged
himself in it.
How was he to break off his relations with Mary Vasilievna and her
husband in such a way as to be able to look him and his children in the
eyes? How disentangle himself from Missy? How choose between the two
opposites—the recognition that holding land was unjust and the heritage
from his mother? How atone for his sin against Katusha? This last, at any
rate, could not be left as it was. He could not abandon a woman he had
loved, and satisfy himself by paying money to an advocate to save her from
hard labour in Siberia. She had not even deserved hard labour. Atone for a
fault by paying money? Had he not then, when he gave her the money,
thought he was atoning for his fault?
And he clearly recalled to mind that moment when, having caught her up
in the passage, he thrust the money into her bib and ran away. “Oh, that
money!” he thought with the same horror and disgust he had then felt. “Oh,
dear! oh, dear! how disgusting,” he cried aloud as he had done then. “Only
a scoundrel, a knave, could do such a thing. And I am that knave, that
scoundrel!” He went on aloud: “But is it possible?”—he stopped and stood
still—“is it possible that I am really a scoundrel? . . . Well, who but I?” he
answered himself. “And then, is this the only thing?” he went on,
convicting himself. “Was not my conduct towards Mary Vasilievna and her
husband base and disgusting? And my position with regard to money? To
use riches considered by me unlawful on the plea that they are inherited
from my mother? And the whole of my idle, detestable life? And my

conduct towards Katusha to crown all? Knave and scoundrel! Let men
judge me as they like, I can deceive them; but myself I cannot deceive.”
And, suddenly, he understood that the aversion he had lately, and
particularly to-day, felt for everybody—the Prince and Sophia Vasilievna
and Corney and Missy—was an aversion for himself. And, strange to say, in
this acknowledgement of his baseness there was something painful yet
joyful and quieting.
More than once in Nekhludoff’s life there had been what he called a
“cleansing of the soul.” By “cleansing of the soul” he meant a state of mind
in which, after a long period of sluggish inner life, a total cessation of its
activity, he began to clear out all the rubbish that had accumulated in his
soul, and was the cause of the cessation of the true life. His soul needed
cleansing as a watch does. After such an awakening Nekhludoff always
made some rules for himself which he meant to follow forever after, wrote
his diary, and began afresh a life which he hoped never to change again.
“Turning over a new leaf,” he called it to himself in English. But each time
the temptations of the world entrapped him, and without noticing it he fell
again, often lower than before.
Thus he had several times in his life raised and cleansed himself. The
first time this happened was during the summer he spent with his aunts; that
was his most vital and rapturous awakening, and its effects had lasted some
time. Another awakening was when he gave up civil service and joined the
army at war time, ready to sacrifice his life. But here the choking-up
process was soon accomplished. Then an awakening came when he left the
army and went abroad, devoting himself to art.
From that time until this day a long period had elapsed without any
cleansing, and therefore the discord between the demands of his conscience
and the life he was leading was greater than it had ever been before. He was
horror-struck when he saw how great the divergence was. It was so great
and the defilement so complete that he despaired of the possibility of
getting cleansed. “Have you not tried before to perfect yourself and become
better, and nothing has come of it?” whispered the voice of the tempter
within. “What is the use of trying any more? Are you the only one?—All
are alike, such is life,” whispered the voice. But the free spiritual being,
which alone is true, alone powerful, alone eternal, had already awakened in
Nekhludoff, and he could not but believe it. Enormous though the distance

was between what he wished to be and what he was, nothing appeared
insurmountable to the newly-awakened spiritual being.
“At any cost I will break this lie which binds me and confess everything,
and will tell everybody the truth, and act the truth,” he said resolutely,
aloud. “I shall tell Missy the truth, tell her I am a profligate and cannot
marry her, and have only uselessly upset her. I shall tell Mary Vasilievna. . .
Oh, there is nothing to tell her. I shall tell her husband that I, scoundrel that
I am, have been deceiving him. I shall dispose of the inheritance in such a
way as to acknowledge the truth. I shall tell her, Katusha, that I am a
scoundrel and have sinned towards her, and will do all I can to ease her lot.
Yes, I will see her, and will ask her to forgive me.
“Yes, I will beg her pardon, as children do.” . . . He stopped—-“will
marry her if necessary.” He stopped again, folded his hands in front of his
breast as he used to do when a little child, lifted his eyes, and said,
addressing some one: “Lord, help me, teach me, come enter within me and
purify me of all this abomination.”
He prayed, asking God to help him, to enter into him and cleanse him;
and what he was praying for had happened already: the God within him had
awakened his consciousness. He felt himself one with Him, and therefore
felt not only the freedom, fulness and joy of life, but all the power of
righteousness. All, all the best that a man could do he felt capable of doing.
His eyes filled with tears as he was saying all this to himself, good and
bad tears: good because they were tears of joy at the awakening of the
spiritual being within him, the being which had been asleep all these years;
and bad tears because they were tears of tenderness to himself at his own
goodness.
He felt hot, and went to the window and opened it. The window opened
into a garden. It was a moonlit, quiet, fresh night; a vehicle rattled past, and
then all was still. The shadow of a tall poplar fell on the ground just
opposite the window, and all the intricate pattern of its bare branches was
clearly defined on the clean swept gravel. To the left the roof of a coach-
house shone white in the moonlight, in front the black shadow of the garden
wall was visible through the tangled branches of the trees.
Nekhludoff gazed at the roof, the moonlit garden, and the shadows of the
poplar, and drank in the fresh, invigorating air.

“How delightful, how delightful; oh, God, how delightful,” he said,
meaning that which was going on in his soul.

CHAPTER XXIX. MASLOVA IN PRISON.
Maslova reached her cell only at six in the evening, tired and footsore,
having, unaccustomed as she was to walking, gone 10 miles on the stony
road that day. She was crushed by the unexpectedly severe sentence and
tormented by hunger. During the first interval of her trial, when the soldiers
were eating bread and hard-boiled eggs in her presence, her mouth watered
and she realised she was hungry, but considered it beneath her dignity to
beg of them. Three hours later the desire to eat had passed, and she felt only
weak. It was then she received the unexpected sentence. At first she thought
she had made a mistake; she could not imagine herself as a convict in
Siberia, and could not believe what she heard. But seeing the quiet,
business-like faces of judges and jury, who heard this news as if it were
perfectly natural and expected, she grew indignant, and proclaimed loudly
to the whole Court that she was not guilty. Finding that her cry was also
taken as something natural and expected, and feeling incapable of altering
matters, she was horror-struck and began to weep in despair, knowing that
she must submit to the cruel and surprising injustice that had been done her.
What astonished her most was that young men—or, at any rate, not old men
—the same men who always looked so approvingly at her (one of them, the
public prosecutor, she had seen in quite a different humour) had condemned
her. While she was sitting in the prisoners’ room before the trial and during
the intervals, she saw these men looking in at the open door pretending they
had to pass there on some business, or enter the room and gaze on her with
approval. And then, for some unknown reason, these same men had
condemned her to hard labour, though she was innocent of the charge laid
against her. At first she cried, but then quieted down and sat perfectly
stunned in the prisoners’ room, waiting to be led back. She wanted only two
things now—tobacco and strong drink. In this state Botchkova and
Kartinkin found her when they were led into the same room after being
sentenced. Botchkova began at once to scold her, and call her a “convict.”
“Well! What have you gained? justified yourself, have you? What you
have deserved, that you’ve got. Out in Siberia you’ll give up your finery, no
fear!”

Maslova sat with her hands inside her sleeves, hanging her head and
looking in front of her at the dirty floor without moving, only saying: “I
don’t bother you, so don’t you bother me. I don’t bother you, do I?” she
repeated this several times, and was silent again. She did brighten up a little
when Botchkova and Kartinkin were led away and an attendant brought her
three roubles.
“Are you Maslova?” he asked. “Here you are; a lady sent it you,” he said,
giving her the money.
“A lady—what lady?”
“You just take it. I’m not going to talk to you.”
This money was sent by Kitaeva, the keeper of the house in which she
used to live. As she was leaving the court she turned to the usher with the
question whether she might give Maslova a little money. The usher said she
might. Having got permission, she removed the three-buttoned Swedish kid
glove from her plump, white hand, and from an elegant purse brought from
the back folds of her silk skirt took a pile of coupons, [in Russia coupons
cut off interest-bearing papers are often used as money] just cut off from the
interest-bearing papers which she had earned in her establishment, chose
one worth 2 roubles and 50 copecks, added two 20 and one 10-copeck
coins, and gave all this to the usher. The usher called an attendant, and in
his presence gave the money.
“Belease to giff it accurately,” said Carolina Albertovna Kitaeva.
The attendant was hurt by her want of confidence, and that was why he
treated Maslova so brusquely. Maslova was glad of the money, because it
could give her the only thing she now desired. “If I could but get cigarettes
and take a whiff!” she said to herself, and all her thoughts centred on the
one desire to smoke and drink. She longed for spirits so that she tasted them
and felt the strength they would give her; and she greedily breathed in the
air when the fumes of tobacco reached her from the door of a room that
opened into the corridor. But she had to wait long, for the secretary, who
should have given the order for her to go, forgot about the prisoners while
talking and even disputing with one of the advocates about the article
forbidden by the censor.
At last, about five o’clock, she was allowed to go, and was led away
through the back door by her escort, the Nijni man and the Tchoovash.
Then, still within the entrance to the Law Courts, she gave them 50

copecks, asking them to get her two rolls and some cigarettes. The
Tchoovash laughed, took the money, and said, “All right; I’ll get ‘em,” and
really got her the rolls and the cigarettes and honestly returned the change.
She was not allowed to smoke on the way, and, with her craving
unsatisfied, she continued her way to the prison. When she was brought to
the gate of the prison, a hundred convicts who had arrived by rail were
being led in. The convicts, bearded, clean-shaven, old, young, Russians,
foreigners, some with their heads shaved and rattling with the chains on
their feet, filled the anteroom with dust, noise and an acid smell of
perspiration. Passing Maslova, all the convicts looked at her, and some
came up to her and brushed her as they passed.
“Ay, here’s a wench—a fine one,” said one.
“My respects to you, miss,” said another, winking at her. One dark man
with a moustache, the rest of his face and the back of his head clean shaved,
rattling with his chains and catching her feet in them, sprang near and
embraced her.
“What! don’t you know your chum? Come, come; don’t give yourself
airs,” showing his teeth and his eyes glittering when she pushed him away.
“You rascal! what are you up to?” shouted the inspector’s assistant,
coming in from behind. The convict shrank back and jumped away. The
assistant assailed Maslova.
“What are you here for?”
Maslova was going to say she had been brought back from the Law
Courts, but she was so tired that she did not care to speak.
“She has returned from the Law Courts, sir,” said one of the soldiers,
coming forward with his fingers lifted to his cap.
“Well, hand her over to the chief warder. I won’t have this sort of thing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sokoloff, take her in!” shouted the assistant inspector.
The chief warder came up, gave Maslova a slap on the shoulder, and
making a sign with his head for her to follow led her into the corridor of the
women’s ward. There she was searched, and as nothing prohibited was
found on her (she had hidden her box of cigarettes inside a roll) she was led
to the cell she had left in the morning.

CHAPTER XXX. THE CELL.
The cell in which Maslova was imprisoned was a large room 21 feet long
and 10 feet broad; it had two windows and a large stove. Two-thirds of the
space were taken up by shelves used as beds. The planks they were made of
had warped and shrunk. Opposite the door hung a dark-coloured icon with a
wax candle sticking to it and a bunch of everlastings hanging down from it.
By the door to the right there was a dark spot on the floor on which stood a
stinking tub. The inspection had taken place and the women were locked up
for the night.
The occupants of this room were 15 persons, including three children. It
was still quite light. Only two of the women were lying down: a
consumptive woman imprisoned for theft, and an idiot who spent most of
her time in sleep and who was arrested because she had no passport. The
consumptive woman was not asleep, but lay with wide open eyes, her cloak
folded under her head, trying to keep back the phlegm that irritated her
throat, and not to cough.
Some of the other women, most of whom had nothing on but coarse
brown holland chemises, stood looking out of the window at the convicts
down in the yard, and some sat sewing. Among the latter was the old
woman, Korableva, who had seen Maslova off in the morning. She was a
tall, strong, gloomy-looking woman; her fair hair, which had begun to turn
grey on the temples, hung down in a short plait. She was sentenced to hard
labour in Siberia because she had killed her husband with an axe for making
up to their daughter. She was at the head of the women in the cell, and
found means of carrying on a trade in spirits with them. Beside her sat
another woman sewing a coarse canvas sack. This was the wife of a railway
watchman, [There are small watchmen’s cottages at distances of about one
mile from each other along the Russian railways, and the watchmen or their
wives have to meet every train.] imprisoned for three months because she
did not come out with the flags to meet a train that was passing, and an
accident had occurred. She was a short, snub-nosed woman, with small,
black eyes; kind and talkative. The third of the women who were sewing
was Theodosia, a quiet young girl, white and rosy, very pretty, with bright

child’s eyes, and long fair plaits which she wore twisted round her head.
She was in prison for attempting to poison her husband. She had done this
immediately after her wedding (she had been given in marriage without her
consent at the age of 16) because her husband would give her no peace. But
in the eight months during which she had been let out on bail, she had not
only made it up with her husband, but come to love him, so that when her
trial came they were heart and soul to one another. Although her husband,
her father-in-law, but especially her mother-in-law, who had grown very
fond of her, did all they could to get her acquitted, she was sentenced to
hard labour in Siberia. The kind, merry, ever-smiling Theodosia had a place
next Maslova’s on the shelf bed, and had grown so fond of her that she took
it upon herself as a duty to attend and wait on her. Two other women were
sitting without any work at the other end of the shelf bedstead. One was a
woman of about 40, with a pale, thin face, who once probably had been
very handsome. She sat with her baby at her thin, white breast. The crime
she had committed was that when a recruit was, according to the peasants’
view, unlawfully taken from their village, and the people stopped the police
officer and took the recruit away from him, she (an aunt of the lad
unlawfully taken) was the first to catch hold of the bridle of the horse on
which he was being carried off. The other, who sat doing nothing, was a
kindly, grey-haired old woman, hunchbacked and with a flat bosom. She sat
behind the stove on the bedshelf, and pretended to catch a fat four-year-old
boy, who ran backwards and forwards in front of her, laughing gaily. This
boy had only a little shirt on and his hair was cut short. As he ran past the
old woman he kept repeating, “There, haven’t caught me!” This old woman
and her son were accused of incendiarism. She bore her imprisonment with
perfect cheerfulness, but was concerned about her son, and chiefly about
her “old man,” who she feared would get into a terrible state with no one to
wash for him. Besides these seven women, there were four standing at one
of the open windows, holding on to the iron bars. They were making signs
and shouting to the convicts whom Maslova had met when returning to
prison, and who were now passing through the yard. One of these women
was big and heavy, with a flabby body, red hair, and freckled on her pale
yellow face, her hands, and her fat neck. She shouted something in a loud,
raucous voice, and laughed hoarsely. This woman was serving her term for
theft. Beside her stood an awkward, dark little woman, no bigger than a
child of ten, with a long waist and very short legs, a red, blotchy face, thick

lips which did not hide her long teeth, and eyes too far apart. She broke by
fits and starts into screeching laughter at what was going on in the yard. She
was to be tried for stealing and incendiarism. They called her Khoroshavka.
Behind her, in a very dirty grey chemise, stood a thin, miserable-looking
pregnant woman, who was to be tried for concealment of theft. This woman
stood silent, but kept smiling with pleasure and approval at what was going
on below. With these stood a peasant woman of medium height, the mother
of the boy who was playing with the old woman and of a seven-year-old
girl. These were in prison with her because she had no one to leave them
with. She was serving her term of imprisonment for illicit sale of spirits.
She stood a little further from the window knitting a stocking, and though
she listened to the other prisoners’ words she shook her head
disapprovingly, frowned, and closed her eyes. But her seven-year-old
daughter stood in her little chemise, her flaxen hair done up in a little
pigtail, her blue eyes fixed, and, holding the red-haired woman by the skirt,
attentively listened to the words of abuse that the women and the convicts
flung at each other, and repeated them softly, as if learning them by heart.
The twelfth prisoner, who paid no attention to what was going on, was a
very tall, stately girl, the daughter of a deacon, who had drowned her baby
in a well. She went about with bare feet, wearing only a dirty chemise. The
thick, short plait of her fair hair had come undone and hung down
dishevelled, and she paced up and down the free space of the cell, not
looking at any one, turning abruptly every time she came up to the wall.

CHAPTER XXXI. THE PRISONERS.
When the padlock rattled and the door opened to let Maslova into the
cell, all turned towards her. Even the deacon’s daughter stopped for a
moment and looked at her with lifted brows before resuming her steady
striding up and down.
Korableva stuck her needle into the brown sacking and looked
questioningly at Maslova through her spectacles. “Eh, eh, deary me, so you
have come back. And I felt sure they’d acquit you. So you’ve got it?” She
took off her spectacles and put her work down beside her on the shelf bed.
“And here have I and the old lady been saying, ‘Why, it may well be
they’ll let her go free at once.’ Why, it happens, ducky, they’ll even give
you a heap of money sometimes, that’s sure,” the watchman’s wife began,
in her singing voice: “Yes, we were wondering, ‘Why’s she so long?’ And
now just see what it is. Well, our guessing was no use. The Lord willed
otherwise,” she went on in musical tones.
“Is it possible? Have they sentenced you?” asked Theodosia, with
concern, looking at Maslova with her bright blue, child-like eyes; and her
merry young face changed as if she were going to cry.
Maslova did not answer, but went on to her place, the second from the
end, and sat down beside Korableva.
“Have you eaten anything?” said Theodosia, rising and coming up to
Maslova.
Maslova gave no reply, but putting the rolls on the bedstead, took off her
dusty cloak, the kerchief off her curly black head, and began pulling off her
shoes. The old woman who had been playing with the boy came up and
stood in front of Maslova. “Tz, tz, tz,” she clicked with her tongue, shaking
her head pityingly. The boy also came up with her, and, putting out his
upper lip, stared with wide open eyes at the roll Maslova had brought.
When Maslova saw the sympathetic faces of her fellow-prisoners, her lips
trembled and she felt inclined to cry, but she succeeded in restraining
herself until the old woman and the boy came up. When she heard the kind,
pitying clicking of the old woman’s tongue, and met the boy’s serious eyes

turned from the roll to her face, she could bear it no longer; her face
quivered and she burst into sobs.
“Didn’t I tell you to insist on having a proper advocate?” said Norableva.
“Well, what is it? Exile?”
Maslova could not answer, but took from inside the roll a box of
cigarettes, on which was a picture of a lady with hair done up very high and
dress cut low in front, and passed the box to Korableva. Korableva looked
at it and shook her head, chiefly because see did not approve of Maslova’s
putting her money to such bad use; but still she took out a cigarette, lit it at
the lamp, took a puff, and almost forced it into Maslova’s hand. Maslova,
still crying, began greedily to inhale the tobacco smoke. “Penal servitude,”
she muttered, blowing out the smoke and sobbing.
“Don’t they fear the Lord, the cursed soul-slayers?” muttered Korableva,
“sentencing the lass for nothing.” At this moment the sound of loud, coarse
laughter came from the women who were still at the window. The little girl
also laughed, and her childish treble mixed with the hoarse and screeching
laughter of the others. One of the convicts outside had done something that
produced this effect on the onlookers.
“Lawks! see the shaved hound, what he’s doing,” said the red-haired
woman, her whole fat body shaking with laughter; and leaning against the
grating she shouted meaning less obscene words.
“Ugh, the fat fright’s cackling,” said Korableva, who disliked the red-
haired woman. Then, turning to Maslova again, she asked: “How many
years?”
“Four,” said Maslova, and the tears ran down her cheeks in such
profusion that one fell on the cigarette. Maslova crumpled it up angrily and
took another.
Though the watchman’s wife did not smoke she picked up the cigarette
Maslova had thrown away and began straightening it out, talking
unceasingly.
“There, now, ducky, so it’s true,” she said. “Truth’s gone to the dogs and
they do what they please, and here we were guessing that you’d go free.
Norableva says, ‘She’ll go free.’ I say, ‘No,’ say I. ‘No, dear, my heart tells
me they’ll give it her.’ And so it’s turned out,” she went on, evidently
listening with pleasure to her own voice.

The women who had been standing by the window now also came up to
Maslova, the convicts who had amused them having gone away. The first to
come up were the woman imprisoned for illicit trade in spirits, and her little
girl. “Why such a hard sentence?” asked the woman, sitting down by
Maslova and knitting fast.
“Why so hard? Because there’s no money. That’s why! Had there been
money, and had a good lawyer that’s up to their tricks been hired, they’d
have acquitted her, no fear,” said Korableva. “There’s what’s-his-name—
that hairy one with the long nose. He’d bring you out clean from pitch,
mum, he would. Ah, if we’d only had him!”
“Him, indeed,” said Khoroshavka. “Why, he won’t spit at you for less
than a thousand roubles.”
“Seems you’ve been born under an unlucky star,” interrupted the old
woman who was imprisoned for incendiarism. “Only think, to entice the
lad’s wife and lock him himself up to feed vermin, and me, too, in my old
days—” she began to retell her story for the hundredth time. “If it isn’t the
beggar’s staff it’s the prison. Yes, the beggar’s staff and the prison don’t
wait for an invitation.”
“Ah, it seems that’s the way with all of them,” said the spirit trader; and
after looking at her little girl she put down her knitting, and, drawing the
child between her knees, began to search her head with deft fingers. “Why
do you sell spirits?” she went on. “Why? but what’s one to feed the children
on?”
These words brought back to Maslova’s mind her craving for drink.
“A little vodka,” she said to Korableva, wiping the tears with her sleeve
and sobbing less frequently.
“All right, fork out,” said Korableva.

CHAPTER XXXII. A PRISON QUARREL.
Maslova got the money, which she had also hidden in a roll, and passed
the coupon to Korableva. Korableva accepted it, though she could not read,
trusting to Khoroshavka, who knew everything, and who said that the slip
of paper was worth 2 roubles 50 copecks, then climbed up to the ventilator,
where she had hidden a small flask of vodka. Seeing this, the women whose
places were further off went away. Meanwhile Maslova shook the dust out
of her cloak and kerchief, got up on the bedstead, and began eating a roll.
“I kept your tea for you,” said Theodosia, getting down from the shelf a
mug and a tin teapot wrapped in a rag, “but I’m afraid it is quite cold.” The
liquid was quite cold and tasted more of tin than of tea, yet Maslova filled
the mug and began drinking it with her roll. “Finashka, here you are,” she
said, breaking off a bit of the roll and giving it to the boy, who stood
looking at her mouth.
Meanwhile Korableva handed the flask of vodka and a mug to Maslova,
who offered some to her and to Khoroshavka. These prisoners were
considered the aristocracy of the cell because they had some money, and
shared what they possessed with the others.
In a few moments Maslova brightened up and related merrily what had
happened at the court, and what had struck her most, i.e., how all the men
had followed her wherever she went. In the court they all looked at her, she
said, and kept coming into the prisoners’ room while she was there.
“One of the soldiers even says, ‘It’s all to look at you that they come.’
One would come in, ‘Where is such a paper?’ or something, but I see it is
not the paper he wants; he just devours me with his eyes,” she said, shaking
her head. “Regular artists.”
“Yes, that’s so,” said the watchman’s wife, and ran on in her musical
strain, “they’re like flies after sugar.”
“And here, too,” Maslova interrupted her, “the same thing. They can do
without anything else. But the likes of them will go without bread sooner
than miss that! Hardly had they brought me back when in comes a gang
from the railway. They pestered me so, I did not know how to rid myself of

them. Thanks to the assistant, he turned them off. One bothered so, I hardly
got away.”
“What’s he like?” asked Khoroshevka.
“Dark, with moustaches.”
“It must be him.”
“Him—who?”
“Why, Schegloff; him as has just gone by.”
“What’s he, this Schegloff?”
“What, she don’t know Schegloff? Why, he ran twice from Siberia. Now
they’ve got him, but he’ll run away. The warders themselves are afraid of
him,” said Khoroshavka, who managed to exchange notes with the male
prisoners and knew all that went on in the prison. “He’ll run away, that’s
flat.”
“If he does go away you and I’ll have to stay,” said Korableva, turning to
Maslova, “but you’d better tell us now what the advocate says about
petitioning. Now’s the time to hand it in.”
Maslova answered that she knew nothing about it.
At that moment the red-haired woman came up to the “aristocracy” with
both freckled hands in her thick hair, scratching her head with her nails.
“I’ll tell you all about it, Katerina,” she began. “First and foremost, you’ll
have to write down you’re dissatisfied with the sentence, then give notice to
the Procureur.”
“What do you want here?” said Korableva angrily; “smell the vodka, do
you? Your chatter’s not wanted. We know what to do without your advice.”
“No one’s speaking to you; what do you stick your nose in for?”
“It’s vodka you want; that’s why you come wriggling yourself in here.”
“Well, offer her some,” said Maslova, always ready to share anything she
possessed with anybody.
“I’ll offer her something.”
“Come on then,” said the red-haired one, advancing towards Korableva.
“Ah! think I’m afraid of such as you?”
“Convict fright!”
“That’s her as says it.”

“Slut!”
“I? A slut? Convict! Murderess!” screamed the red-haired one.
“Go away, I tell you,” said Korableva gloomily, but the red-haired one
came nearer and Korableva struck her in the chest. The red-haired woman
seemed only to have waited for this, and with a sudden movement caught
hold of Korableva’s hair with one hand and with the other struck her in the
face. Korableva seized this hand, and Maslova and Khoroshavka caught the
red-haired woman by her arms, trying to pull her away, but she let go the
old woman’s hair with her hand only to twist it round her fist. Korableva,
with her head bent to one side, was dealing out blows with one arm and
trying to catch the red-haired woman’s hand with her teeth, while the rest of
the women crowded round, screaming and trying to separate the fighters;
even the consumptive one came up and stood coughing and watching the
fight. The children cried and huddled together. The noise brought the
woman warder and a jailer. The fighting women were separated; and
Korableva, taking out the bits of torn hair from her head, and the red-haired
one, holding her torn chemise together over her yellow breast, began loudly
to complain.
“I know, it’s all the vodka. Wait a bit; I’ll tell the inspector tomorrow.
He’ll give it you. Can’t I smell it? Mind, get it all out of the way, or it will
be the worse for you,” said the warder. “We’ve no time to settle your
disputes. Get to your places and be quiet.”
But quiet was not soon re-established. For a long time the women went
on disputing and explaining to one another whose fault it all was. At last the
warder and the jailer left the cell, the women grew quieter and began going
to bed, and the old woman went to the icon and commenced praying.
“The two jailbirds have met,” the red-haired woman suddenly called out
in a hoarse voice from the other end of the shelf beds, accompanying every
word with frightfully vile abuse.
“Mind you don’t get it again,” Korableva replied, also adding words of
abuse, and both were quiet again.
“Had I not been stopped I’d have pulled your damned eyes out,” again
began the red-haired one, and an answer of the same kind followed from
Korableva. Then again a short interval and more abuse. But the intervals
became longer and longer, as when a thunder-cloud is passing, and at last
all was quiet.

All were in bed, some began to snore; and only the old woman, who
always prayed a long time, went on bowing before the icon and the
deacon’s daughter, who had got up after the warder left, was pacing up and
down the room again. Maslova kept thinking that she was now a convict
condemned to hard labour, and had twice been reminded of this—once by
Botchkova and once by the red-haired woman—and she could not reconcile
herself to the thought. Korableva, who lay next to her, turned over in her
bed.
“There now,” said Maslova in a low voice; “who would have thought it?
See what others do and get nothing for it.”
“Never mind, girl. People manage to live in Siberia. As for you, you’ll
not be lost there either,” Korableva said, trying to comfort her.
“I know I’ll not be lost; still it is hard. It’s not such a fate I want—I, who
am used to a comfortable life.”
“Ah, one can’t go against God,” said Korableva, with a sigh. “One can’t,
my dear.”
“I know, granny. Still, it’s hard.”
They were silent for a while.
“Do you hear that baggage?” whispered Korableva, drawing Maslova’s
attention to a strange sound proceeding from the other end of the room.
This sound was the smothered sobbing of the red-haired woman. The red-
haired woman was crying because she had been abused and had not got any
of the vodka she wanted so badly; also because she remembered how all her
life she had been abused, mocked at, offended, beaten. Remembering this,
she pitied herself, and, thinking no one heard her, began crying as children
cry, sniffing with her nose and swallowing the salt tears.
“I’m sorry for her,” said Maslova.
“Of course one is sorry,” said Korableva, “but she shouldn’t come
bothering.”

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LEAVEN AT WORK—
NEKHLUDOFF’S DOMESTIC CHANGES.
The next morning Nekhludoff awoke, conscious that something had
happened to him, and even before he had remembered what it was he knew
it to be something important and good.
“Katusha—the trial!” Yes, he must stop lying and tell the whole truth.
By a strange coincidence on that very morning he received the long-
expected letter from Mary Vasilievna, the wife of the Marechal de
Noblesse, the very letter he particularly needed. She gave him full freedom,
and wished him happiness in his intended marriage.
“Marriage!” he repeated with irony. “How far I am from all that at
present.”
And he remembered the plans he had formed the day before, to tell the
husband everything, to make a clean breast of it, and express his readiness
to give him any kind of satisfaction. But this morning this did not seem so
easy as the day before. And, then, also, why make a man unhappy by telling
him what he does not know? Yes, if he came and asked, he would tell him
all, but to go purposely and tell—no! that was unnecessary.
And telling the whole truth to Missy seemed just as difficult this
morning. Again, he could not begin to speak without offence. As in many
worldly affairs, something had to remain unexpressed. Only one thing he
decided on, i.e., not to visit there, and to tell the truth if asked.
But in connection with Katusha, nothing was to remain unspoken. “I
shall go to the prison and shall tell her every thing, and ask her to forgive
me. And if need be—yes, if need be, I shall marry her,” he thought.
This idea, that he was ready to sacrifice all on moral grounds, and marry
her, again made him feel very tender towards himself. Concerning money
matters he resolved this morning to arrange them in accord with his
conviction, that the holding of landed property was unlawful. Even if he
should not be strong enough to give up everything, he would still do what
he could, not deceiving himself or others.

It was long since he had met the coming day with so much energy. When
Agraphena Petrovna came in, he told her, with more firmness than he
thought himself capable of, that he no longer needed this lodging nor her
services. There had been a tacit understanding that he was keeping up so
large and expensive an establishment because he was thinking of getting
married. The giving up of the house had, therefore, a special meaning.
Agraphena Petrovna looked at him in surprise.
“I thank you very much, Agraphena Petrovna, for all your care for me,
but I no longer require so large a house nor so many servants. If you wish to
help me, be so good as to settle about the things, put them away as it used to
be done during mamma’s life, and when Natasha comes she will see to
everything.” Natasha was Nekhludoff’s sister.
Agraphena Petrovna shook her head. “See about the things? Why, they’ll
be required again,” she said.
“No, they won’t, Agraphena Petrovna; I assure you they won’t be
required,” said Nekhludoff, in answer to what the shaking of her head had
expressed. “Please tell Corney also that I shall pay him two months’ wages,
but shall have no further need of him.”
“It is a pity, Dmitri Ivanovitch, that you should think of doing this,” she
said. “Well, supposing you go abroad, still you’ll require a place of
residence again.”
“You are mistaken in your thoughts, Agraphena Petrovna; I am not going
abroad. If I go on a journey, it will be to quite a different place.” He
suddenly blushed very red. “Yes, I must tell her,” he thought; “no hiding;
everybody must be told.”
“A very strange and important thing happened to me yesterday. Do you
remember my Aunt Mary Ivanovna’s Katusha?”
“Oh, yes. Why, I taught her how to sew.”
“Well, this Katusha was tried in the Court and I was on the jury.”
“Oh, Lord! What a pity!” cried Agraphena Petrovna. “What was she
being tried for?”
“Murder; and it is I have done it all.”
“Well, now this is very strange; how could you do it all?”
“Yes, I am the cause of it all; and it is this that has altered all my plans.”

“What difference can it make to you?”
“This difference: that I, being the cause of her getting on to that path,
must do all I can to help her.”
“That is just according to your own good pleasure; you are not
particularly in fault there. It happens to every one, and if one’s reasonable,
it all gets smoothed over and forgotten,” she said, seriously and severely.
“Why should you place it to your account? There’s no need. I had already
heard before that she had strayed from the right path. Well, whose fault is
it?”
“Mine! that’s why I want to put it right.”
“It is hard to put right.”
“That is my business. But if you are thinking about yourself, then I will
tell you that, as mamma expressed the wish—”
“I am not thinking about myself. I have been so bountifully treated by the
dear defunct, that I desire nothing. Lisenka” (her married niece) “has been
inviting me, and I shall go to her when I am not wanted any longer. Only it
is a pity you should take this so to heart; it happens to everybody.”
“Well, I do not think so. And I still beg that you will help me let this
lodging and put away the things. And please do not be angry with me. I am
very, very grateful to you for all you have done.”
And, strangely, from the moment Nekhludoff realised that it was he who
was so bad and disgusting to himself, others were no longer disgusting to
him; on the contrary, he felt a kindly respect for Agraphena Petrovna, and
for Corney.
He would have liked to go and confess to Corney also, but Corney’s
manner was so insinuatingly deferential that he had not the resolution to do
it.
On the way to the Law Courts, passing along the same streets with the
same isvostchik as the day before, he was surprised what a different being
he felt himself to be. The marriage with Missy, which only yesterday
seemed so probable, appeared quite impossible now. The day before he felt
it was for him to choose, and had no doubts that she would be happy to
marry him; to-day he felt himself unworthy not only of marrying, but even
of being intimate with her. “If she only knew what I am, nothing would
induce her to receive me. And only yesterday I was finding fault with her

because she flirted with N—-. Anyhow, even if she consented to marry me,
could I be, I won’t say happy, but at peace, knowing that the other was here
in prison, and would to-day or to-morrow he taken to Siberia with a gang of
other prisoners, while I accepted congratulations and made calls with my
young wife; or while I count the votes at the meetings, for and against the
motion brought forward by the rural inspection, etc., together with the
Marechal de Noblesse, whom I abominably deceive, and afterwards make
appointments with his wife (how abominable!) or while I continue to work
at my picture, which will certainly never get finished? Besides, I have no
business to waste time on such things. I can do nothing of the kind now,” he
continued to himself, rejoicing at the change he felt within himself. “The
first thing now is to see the advocate and find out his decision, and then . . .
then go and see her and tell her everything.”
And when he pictured to himself how he would see her, and tell her all,
confess his sin to her, and tell her that he would do all in his power to atone
for his sin, he was touched at his own goodness, and the tears came to his
eyes.

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE ABSURDITY OF LAW
—REFLECTIONS OF A JURYMAN.
On coming into the Law Courts Nekhludoff met the usher of yesterday,
who to-day seemed to him much to be pitied, in the corridor, and asked him
where those prisoners who had been sentenced were kept, and to whom one
had to apply for permission to visit them. The usher told him that the
condemned prisoners were kept in different places, and that, until they
received their sentence in its final form, the permission to visit them
depended on the president. “I’ll come and call you myself, and take you to
the president after the session. The president is not even here at present.
After the session! And now please come in; we are going to commence.”
Nekhludoff thanked the usher for his kindness, and went into the
jurymen’s room. As he was approaching the room, the other jurymen were
just leaving it to go into the court. The merchant had again partaken of a
little refreshment, and was as merry as the day before, and greeted
Nekhludoff like an old friend. And to-day Peter Gerasimovitch did not
arouse any unpleasant feelings in Nekhludoff by his familiarity and his loud
laughter. Nekhludoff would have liked to tell all the jurymen about his
relations to yesterday’s prisoner. “By rights,” he thought, “I ought to have
got up yesterday during the trial and disclosed my guilt.”
He entered the court with the other jurymen, and witnessed the same
procedure as the day before.
“The judges are coming,” was again proclaimed, and again three men,
with embroidered collars, ascended the platform, and there was the same
settling of the jury on the high-backed chairs, the same gendarmes, the
same portraits, the same priest, and Nekhludoff felt that, though he knew
what he ought to do, he could not interrupt all this solemnity. The
preparations for the trials were just the same as the day before, excepting
that the swearing in of the jury and the president’s address to them were
omitted.
The case before the Court this day was one of burglary. The prisoner,
guarded by two gendarmes with naked swords, was a thin, narrow-chested

lad of 20, with a bloodless, sallow face, dressed in a grey cloak. He sat
alone in the prisoner’s dock. This boy was accused of having, together with
a companion, broken the lock of a shed and stolen several old mats valued
at 3 roubles [the rouble is worth a little over two shillings, and contains 100
copecks] and 67 copecks. According to the indictment, a policeman had
stopped this boy as he was passing with his companion, who was carrying
the mats on his shoulder. The boy and his companion confessed at once, and
were both imprisoned. The boy’s companion, a locksmith, died in prison,
and so the boy was being tried alone. The old mats were lying on the table
as the objects of material evidence. The business was conducted just in the
same manner as the day before, with the whole armoury of evidence,
proofs, witnesses, swearing in, questions, experts, and cross-examinations.
In answer to every question put to him by the president, the prosecutor, or
the advocate, the policeman (one of the witnesses) in variably ejected the
words: “just so,” or “Can’t tell.” Yet, in spite of his being stupefied, and
rendered a mere machine by military discipline, his reluctance to speak
about the arrest of this prisoner was evident. Another witness, an old house
proprietor, and owner of the mats, evidently a rich old man, when asked
whether the mats were his, reluctantly identified them as such. When the
public prosecutor asked him what he meant to do with these mats, what use
they were to him, he got angry, and answered: “The devil take those mats; I
don’t want them at all. Had I known there would be all this bother about
them I should not have gone looking for them, but would rather have added
a ten-rouble note or two to them, only not to be dragged here and pestered
with questions. I have spent a lot on isvostchiks. Besides, I am not well. I
have been suffering from rheumatism for the last seven years.” It was thus
the witness spoke.
The accused himself confessed everything, and looking round stupidly,
like an animal that is caught, related how it had all happened. Still the
public prosecutor, drawing up his shoulders as he had done the day before,
asked subtle questions calculated to catch a cunning criminal.
In his speech he proved that the theft had been committed from a
dwelling-place, and a lock had been broken; and that the boy, therefore,
deserved a heavy punishment. The advocate appointed by the Court proved
that the theft was not committed from a dwelling-place, and that, though the
crime was a serious one, the prisoner was not so very dangerous to society
as the prosecutor stated. The president assumed the role of absolute

neutrality in the same way as he had done on the previous day, and
impressed on the jury facts which they all knew and could not help
knowing. Then came an interval, just as the day before, and they smoked;
and again the usher called out “The judges are coming,” and in the same
way the two gendarmes sat trying to keep awake and threatening the
prisoner with their naked weapons.
The proceedings showed that this boy was apprenticed by his father at a
tobacco factory, where he remained five years. This year he had been
discharged by the owner after a strike, and, having lost his place, he
wandered about the town without any work, drinking all he possessed. In a
traktir [cheap restaurant] he met another like himself, who had lost his place
before the prisoner had, a locksmith by trade and a drunkard. One night,
those two, both drunk, broke the lock of a shed and took the first thing they
happened to lay hands on. They confessed all and were put in prison, where
the locksmith died while awaiting the trial. The boy was now being tried as
a dangerous creature, from whom society must be protected.
“Just as dangerous a creature as yesterday’s culprit,” thought Nekhludoff,
listening to all that was going on before him. “They are dangerous, and we
who judge them? I, a rake, an adulterer, a deceiver. We are not dangerous.
But, even supposing that this boy is the most dangerous of all that are here
in the court, what should be done from a common-sense point of view when
he has been caught? It is clear that he is not an exceptional evil-doer, but a
most ordinary boy; every one sees it—and that he has become what he is
simply because he got into circumstances that create such characters, and,
therefore, to prevent such a boy from going wrong the circumstances that
create these unfortunate beings must be done away with.
“But what do we do? We seize one such lad who happens to get caught,
knowing well that there are thousands like him whom we have not caught,
and send him to prison, where idleness, or most unwholesome, useless
labour is forced on him, in company of others weakened and ensnared by
the lives they have led. And then we send him, at the public expense, from
the Moscow to the Irkoutsk Government, in company with the most
depraved of men.
“But we do nothing to destroy the conditions in which people like these
are produced; on the contrary, we support the establishments where they are
formed. These establishments are well known: factories, mills, workshops,

public-houses, gin-shops, brothels. And we do not destroy these places, but,
looking at them as necessary, we support and regulate them. We educate in
this way not one, but millions of people, and then catch one of them and
imagine that we have done something, that we have guarded ourselves, and
nothing more can be expected of us. Have we not sent him from the
Moscow to the Irkoutsk Government?” Thus thought Nekhludoff with
unusual clearness and vividness, sitting in his high-backed chair next to the
colonel, and listening to the different intonations of the advocates’,
prosecutor’s, and president’s voices, and looking at their self-confident
gestures. “And how much and what hard effort this pretence requires,”
continued Nekhludoff in his mind, glancing round the enormous room, the
portraits, lamps, armchairs, uniforms, the thick walls and large windows;
and picturing to himself the tremendous size of the building, and the still
more ponderous dimensions of the whole of this organisation, with its army
of officials, scribes, watchmen, messengers, not only in this place, but all
over Russia, who receive wages for carrying on this comedy which no one
needs. “Supposing we spent one-hundredth of these efforts helping these
castaways, whom we now only regard as hands and bodies, required by us
for our own peace and comfort. Had some one chanced to take pity on him
and given some help at the time when poverty made them send him to town,
it might have been sufficient,” Nekhludoff thought, looking at the boy’s
piteous face. “Or even later, when, after 12 hours’ work at the factory, he
was going to the public-house, led away by his companions, had some one
then come and said, ‘Don’t go, Vania; it is not right,’ he would not have
gone, nor got into bad ways, and would not have done any wrong.
“But no; no one who would have taken pity on him came across this
apprentice in the years he lived like a poor little animal in the town, and
with his hair cut close so as not to breed vermin, and ran errands for the
workmen. No, all he heard and saw, from the older workmen and his
companions, since he came to live in town, was that he who cheats, drinks,
swears, who gives another a thrashing, who goes on the loose, is a fine
fellow. Ill, his constitution undermined by unhealthy labour, drink, and
debauchery—bewildered as in a dream, knocking aimlessly about town, he
gets into some sort of a shed, and takes from there some old mats, which
nobody needs—and here we, all of us educated people, rich or comfortably
off, meet together, dressed in good clothes and fine uniforms, in a splendid

apartment, to mock this unfortunate brother of ours whom we ourselves
have ruined.
“Terrible! It is difficult to say whether the cruelty or the absurdity is
greater, but the one and the other seem to reach their climax.”
Nekhludoff thought all this, no longer listening to what was going on,
and he was horror-struck by that which was being revealed to him. He could
not understand why he had not been able to see all this before, and why
others were unable to see it.

CHAPTER XXXV. THE PROCUREUR—
NEKHLUDOFF REFUSES TO SERVE.
During an interval Nekhludoff got up and went out into the corridor, with
the intention of not returning to the court. Let them do what they liked with
him, he could take no more part in this awful and horrid tomfoolery.
Having inquired where the Procureur’s cabinet was he went straight to
him. The attendant did not wish to let him in, saying that the Procureur was
busy, but Nekhludoff paid no heed and went to the door, where he was met
by an official. He asked to be announced to the Procureur, saying he was on
the jury and had a very important communication to make.
His title and good clothes were of assistance to him. The official
announced him to the Procureur, and Nekhludoff was let in. The Procureur
met him standing, evidently annoyed at the persistence with which
Nekhludoff demanded admittance.
“What is it you want?” the Procureur asked, severely.
“I am on the jury; my name is Nekhludoff, and it is absolutely necessary
for me to see the prisoner Maslova,” Nekhludoff said, quickly and
resolutely, blushing, and feeling that he was taking a step which would have
a decisive influence on his life.
The Procureur was a short, dark man, with short, grizzly hair, quick,
sparkling eyes, and a thick beard cut close on his projecting lower jaw.
“Maslova? Yes, of course, I know. She was accused of poisoning,” the
Procureur said, quietly. “But why do you want to see her?” And then, as if
wishing to tone down his question, he added, “I cannot give you the
permission without knowing why you require it.”
“I require it for a particularly important reason.”
“Yes?” said the Procureur, and, lifting his eyes, looked attentively at
Nekhludoff. “Has her case been heard or not?”
“She was tried yesterday, and unjustly sentenced; she is innocent.”
“Yes? If she was sentenced only yesterday,” went on the Procureur,
paying no attention to Nekhludoff’s statement concerning Maslova’s

innocence, “she must still be in the preliminary detention prison until the
sentence is delivered in its final form. Visiting is allowed there only on
certain days; I should advise you to inquire there.”
“But I must see her as soon as possible,” Nekhludoff said, his jaw
trembling as he felt the decisive moment approaching.
“Why must you?” said the Procureur, lifting his brows with some
agitation.
“Because I betrayed her and brought her to the condition which exposed
her to this accusation.”
“All the same, I cannot see what it has to do with visiting her.”
“This: that whether I succeed or not in getting the sentence changed I
want to follow her, and—marry her,” said Nekhludoff, touched to tears by
his own conduct, and at the same time pleased to see the effect he produced
on the Procureur.
“Really! Dear me!” said the Procureur. “This is certainly a very
exceptional case. I believe you are a member of the Krasnoporsk rural
administration?” he asked, as if he remembered having heard before of this
Nekhludoff, who was now making so strange a declaration.
“I beg your pardon, but I do not think that has anything to do with my
request,” answered Nekhludoff, flushing angrily.
“Certainly not,” said the Procureur, with a scarcely perceptible smile and
not in the least abashed; “only your wish is so extraordinary and so out of
the common.”
“Well; but can I get the permission?”
“The permission? Yes, I will give you an order of admittance directly.
Take a seat.”
He went up to the table, sat down, and began to write. “Please sit down.”
Nekhludoff continued to stand.
Having written an order of admittance, and handed it to Nekhludoff, the
Procureur looked curiously at him.
“I must also state that I can no longer take part in the sessions.”
“Then you will have to lay valid reasons before the Court, as you, of
course, know.”

“My reasons are that I consider all judging not only useless, but
immoral.”
“Yes,” said the Procureur, with the same scarcely perceptible smile, as if
to show that this kind of declaration was well known to him and belonged
to the amusing sort. “Yes, but you will certainly understand that I as
Procureur, can not agree with you on this point. Therefore, I should advise
you to apply to the Court, which will consider your declaration, and find it
valid or not valid, and in the latter case will impose a fine. Apply, then, to
the Court.”
“I have made my declaration, and shall apply nowhere else,” Nekhludoff
said, angrily.
“Well, then, good-afternoon,” said the Procureur, bowing his head,
evidently anxious to be rid of this strange visitor.
“Who was that you had here?” asked one of the members of the Court, as
he entered, just after Nekhludoff left the room.
“Nekhludoff, you know; the same that used to make all sorts of strange
statements at the Krasnoporsk rural meetings. Just fancy! He is on the jury,
and among the prisoners there is a woman or girl sentenced to penal
servitude, whom he says he betrayed, and now he wants to marry her.”
“You don’t mean to say so.”
“That’s what he told me. And in such a strange state of excitement!”
“There is something abnormal in the young men of to-day.”
“Oh, but he is not so very young.”
“Yes. But how tiresome your famous Ivoshenka was. He carries the day
by wearying one out. He talked and talked without end.”
“Oh, that kind of people should be simply stopped, or they will become
real obstructionists.”

CHAPTER XXXVI. NEKHLUDOFF
ENDEAVOURS TO VISIT MASLOVA.
From the Procureur Nekhludoff went straight to the preliminary detention
prison. However, no Maslova was to be found there, and the inspector
explained to Nekhludoff that she would probably be in the old temporary
prison. Nekhludoff went there.
Yes, Katerina Maslova was there.
The distance between the two prisons was enormous, and Nekhludoff
only reached the old prison towards evening. He was going up to the door
of the large, gloomy building, but the sentinel stopped him and rang. A
warder came in answer to the bell. Nekhludoff showed him his order of
admittance, but the warder said he could not let him in without the
inspector’s permission. Nekhludoff went to see the inspector. As he was
going up the stairs he heard distant sounds of some complicated bravura,
played on the piano. When a cross servant girl, with a bandaged eye,
opened the door to him, those sounds seemed to escape from the room and
to strike his car. It was a rhapsody of Liszt’s, that everybody was tired of,
splendidly played but only to one point. When that point was reached the
same thing was repeated. Nekhludoff asked the bandaged maid whether the
inspector was in. She answered that he was not in.
“Will he return soon?”
The rhapsody again stopped and recommenced loudly and brilliantly
again up to the same charmed point.
“I will go and ask,” and the servant went away.
“Tell him he is not in and won’t be to-day; he is out visiting. What do
they come bothering for?” came the sound of a woman’s voice from behind
the door, and again the rhapsody rattled on and stopped, and the sound of a
chair pushed back was heard. It was plain the irritated pianist meant to
rebuke the tiresome visitor, who had come at an untimely hour. “Papa is not
in,” a pale girl with crimped hair said, crossly, coming out into the ante-
room, but, seeing a young man in a good coat, she softened.

“Come in, please. . . . What is it you want?”
“I want to see a prisoner in this prison.”
“A political one, I suppose?”
“No, not a political one. I have a permission from the Procureur.”
“Well, I don’t know, and papa is out; but come in, please,” she said,
again, “or else speak to the assistant. He is in the office at present; apply
there. What is your name?”
“I thank you,” said Nekhludoff, without answering her question, and
went out.
The door was not yet closed after him when the same lively tones
recommenced. In the courtyard Nekhludoff met an officer with bristly
moustaches, and asked for the assistant-inspector. It was the assistant
himself. He looked at the order of admittance, but said that he could not
decide to let him in with a pass for the preliminary prison. Besides, it was
too late. “Please to come again to-morrow. To morrow, at 10, everybody is
allowed to go in. Come then, and the inspector himself will be at home.
Then you can have the interview either in the common room or, if the
inspector allows it, in the office.”
And so Nekhludoff did not succeed in getting an interview that day, and
returned home. As he went along the streets, excited at the idea of meeting
her, he no longer thought about the Law Courts, but recalled his
conversations with the Procureur and the inspector’s assistant. The fact that
he had been seeking an interview with her, and had told the Procureur, and
had been in two prisons, so excited him that it was long before he could
calm down. When he got home he at once fetched out his diary, that had
long remained untouched, read a few sentences out of it, and then wrote as
follows:
“For two years I have not written anything in my diary, and thought I
never should return to this childishness. Yet it is not childishness, but
converse with my own self, with this real divine self which lives in every
man. All this time that I slept there was no one for me to converse with. I
was awakened by an extraordinary event on the 28th of April, in the Law
Court, when I was on the jury. I saw her in the prisoners’ dock, the Katusha
betrayed by me, in a prisoner’s cloak, condemned to penal servitude
through a strange mistake, and my own fault. I have just been to the

Procureur’s and to the prison, but I was not admitted. I have resolved to do
all I can to see her, to confess to her, and to atone for my sin, even by a
marriage. God help me. My soul is at peace and I am full of joy.”

CHAPTER XXXVII. MASLOVA RECALLS THE
PAST.
That night Maslova lay awake a long time with her eyes open looking at
the door, in front of which the deacon’s daughter kept passing. She was
thinking that nothing would induce her to go to the island of Sakhalin and
marry a convict, but would arrange matters somehow with one of the prison
officials, the secretary, a warder, or even a warder’s assistant. “Aren’t they
all given that way? Only I must not get thin, or else I am lost.”
She thought of how the advocate had looked at her, and also the
president, and of the men she met, and those who came in on purpose at the
court. She recollected how her companion, Bertha, who came to see her in
prison, had told her about the student whom she had “loved” while she was
with Kitaeva, and who had inquired about her, and pitied her very much.
She recalled many to mind, only not Nekhludoff. She never brought back to
mind the days of her childhood and youth, and her love to Nekhludoff. That
would have been too painful. These memories lay untouched somewhere
deep in her soul; she had forgotten him, and never recalled and never even
dreamt of him. To-day, in the court, she did not recognise him, not only
because when she last saw him he was in uniform, without a beard, and had
only a small moustache and thick, curly, though short hair, and now was
bald and bearded, but because she never thought about him. She had buried
his memory on that terrible dark night when he, returning from the army,
had passed by on the railway without stopping to call on his aunts. Katusha
then knew her condition. Up to that night she did not consider the child that
lay beneath her heart a burden. But on that night everything changed, and
the child became nothing but a weight.
His aunts had expected Nekhludoff, had asked him to come and see them
in passing, but he had telegraphed that he could not come, as he had to be in
Petersburg at an appointed time. When Katusha heard this she made up her
mind to go to the station and see him. The train was to pass by at two
o’clock in the night. Katusha having helped the old ladies to bed, and
persuaded a little girl, the cook’s daughter, Mashka, to come with her, put

on a pair of old boots, threw a shawl over her head, gathered up her dress,
and ran to the station.
It was a warm, rainy, and windy autumn night. The rain now pelted down
in warm, heavy drops, now stopped again. It was too dark to see the path
across the field, and in the wood it was pitch black, so that although
Katusha knew the way well, she got off the path, and got to the little station
where the train stopped for three minutes, not before, as she had hoped, but
after the second bell had been rung. Hurrying up the platform, Katusha saw
him at once at the windows of a first-class carriage. Two officers sat
opposite each other on the velvet-covered seats, playing cards. This carriage
was very brightly lit up; on the little table between the seats stood two thick,
dripping candles. He sat in his closefitting breeches on the arm of the seat,
leaning against the back, and laughed. As soon as she recognised him she
knocked at the carriage window with her benumbed hand, but at that
moment the last bell rang, and the train first gave a backward jerk, and then
gradually the carriages began to move forward. One of the players rose with
the cards in his hand, and looked out. She knocked again, and pressed her
face to the window, but the carriage moved on, and she went alongside
looking in. The officer tried to lower the window, but could not. Nekhludoff
pushed him aside and began lowering it himself. The train went faster, so
that she had to walk quickly. The train went on still faster and the window
opened. The guard pushed her aside, and jumped in. Katusha ran on, along
the wet boards of the platform, and when she came to the end she could
hardly stop herself from falling as she ran down the steps of the platform.
She was running by the side of the railway, though the first-class carriage
had long passed her, and the second-class carriages were gliding by faster,
and at last the third-class carriages still faster. But she ran on, and when the
last carriage with the lamps at the back had gone by, she had already
reached the tank which fed the engines, and was unsheltered from the wind,
which was blowing her shawl about and making her skirt cling round her
legs. The shawl flew off her head, but still she ran on.
“Katerina Michaelovna, you’ve lost your shawl!” screamed the little girl,
who was trying to keep up with her.
Katusha stopped, threw back her head, and catching hold of it with both
hands sobbed aloud. “Gone!” she screamed.

“He is sitting in a velvet arm-chair and joking and drinking, in a brightly
lit carriage, and I, out here in the mud, in the darkness, in the wind and the
rain, am standing and weeping,” she thought to herself; and sat down on the
ground, sobbing so loud that the little girl got frightened, and put her arms
round her, wet as she was.
“Come home, dear,” she said.
“When a train passes—then under a carriage, and there will be an end,”
Katusha was thinking, without heeding the girl.
And she made up her mind to do it, when, as it always happens, when a
moment of quiet follows great excitement, he, the child—his child—made
himself known within her. Suddenly all that a moment before had been
tormenting her, so that it had seemed impossible to live, all her bitterness
towards him, and the wish to revenge herself, even by dying, passed away;
she grew quieter, got up, put the shawl on her head, and went home.
Wet, muddy, and quite exhausted, she returned, and from that day the
change which brought her where she now was began to operate in her soul.
Beginning from that dreadful night, she ceased believing in God and in
goodness. She had herself believed in God, and believed that other people
also believed in Him; but after that night she became convinced that no one
believed, and that all that was said about God and His laws was deception
and untruth. He whom she loved, and who had loved her—yes, she knew
that—had thrown her away; had abused her love. Yet he was the best of all
the people she knew. All the rest were still worse. All that afterwards
happened to her strengthened her in this belief at every step. His aunts, the
pious old ladies, turned her out when she could no longer serve them as she
used to. And of all those she met, the women used her as a means of getting
money, the men, from the old police officer down to the warders of the
prison, looked at her as on an object for pleasure. And no one in the world
cared for aught but pleasure. In this belief the old author with whom she
had come together in the second year of her life of independence had
strengthened her. He had told her outright that it was this that constituted
the happiness of life, and he called it poetical and aesthetic.
Everybody lived for himself only, for his pleasure, and all the talk
concerning God and righteousness was deception. And if sometimes doubts
arose in her mind and she wondered why everything was so ill-arranged in
the world that all hurt each other, and made each other suffer, she thought it

best not to dwell on it, and if she felt melancholy she could smoke, or,
better still, drink, and it would pass.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. SUNDAY IN PRISON—
PREPARING FOR MASS.
On Sunday morning at five o’clock, when a whistle sounded in the
corridor of the women’s ward of the prison, Korableva, who was already
awake, called Maslova.
“Oh, dear! life again,” thought Maslova, with horror, involuntarily
breathing in the air that had become terribly noisome towards the morning.
She wished to fall asleep again, to enter into the region of oblivion, but the
habit of fear overcame sleepiness, and she sat up and looked round, drawing
her feet under her. The women had all got up; only the elder children were
still asleep. The spirit-trader was carefully drawing a cloak from under the
children, so as not to wake them. The watchman’s wife was hanging up the
rags to dry that served the baby as swaddling clothes, while the baby was
screaming desperately in Theodosia’s arms, who was trying to quiet it. The
consumptive woman was coughing with her hands pressed to her chest,
while the blood rushed to her face, and she sighed loudly, almost screaming,
in the intervals of coughing. The fat, red-haired woman was lying on her
back, with knees drawn up, and loudly relating a dream. The old woman
accused of incendiarism was standing in front of the image, crossing herself
and bowing, and repeating the same words over and over again. The
deacon’s daughter sat on the bedstead, looking before her, with a dull,
sleepy face. Khoroshavka was twisting her black, oily, coarse hair round her
fingers. The sound of slipshod feet was heard in the passage, and the door
opened to let in two convicts, dressed in jackets and grey trousers that did
not reach to their ankles. With serious, cross faces they lifted the stinking
tub and carried it out of the cell. The women went out to the taps in the
corridor to wash. There the red-haired woman again began a quarrel with a
woman from another cell.
“Is it the solitary cell you want?” shouted an old jailer, slapping the red-
haired woman on her bare, fat back, so that it sounded through the corridor.
“You be quiet.”

“Lawks! the old one’s playful,” said the woman, taking his action for a
caress.
“Now, then, be quick; get ready for the mass.” Maslova had hardly time
to do her hair and dress when the inspector came with his assistants.
“Come out for inspection,” cried a jailer.
Some more prisoners came out of other cells and stood in two rows along
the corridor; each woman had to place her hand on the shoulder of the
woman in front of her. They were all counted.
After the inspection the woman warder led the prisoners to church.
Maslova and Theodosia were in the middle of a column of over a hundred
women, who had come out of different cells. All were dressed in white
skirts, white jackets, and wore white kerchiefs on their heads, except a few
who had their own coloured clothes on. These were wives who, with their
children, were following their convict husbands to Siberia. The whole flight
of stairs was filled by the procession. The patter of softly-shod feet mingled
with the voices and now and then a laugh. When turning, on the landing,
Maslova saw her enemy, Botchkova, in front, and pointed out her angry
face to Theodosia. At the bottom of the stairs the women stopped talking.
Bowing and crossing themselves, they entered the empty church, which
glistened with gilding. Crowding and pushing one another, they took their
places on the right.
After the women came the men condemned to banishment, those serving
their term in the prison, and those exiled by their Communes; and, coughing
loudly, they took their stand, crowding the left side and the middle of the
church.
On one side of the gallery above stood the men sentenced to penal
servitude in Siberia, who had been let into the church before the others.
Each of them had half his head shaved, and their presence was indicated by
the clanking of the chains on their feet. On the other side of the gallery
stood those in preliminary confinement, without chains, their heads not
shaved.
The prison church had been rebuilt and ornamented by a rich merchant,
who spent several tens of thousands of roubles on it, and it glittered with
gay colours and gold. For a time there was silence in the church, and only
coughing, blowing of noses, the crying of babies, and now and then the
rattling of chains, was heard. But at last the convicts that stood in the

middle moved, pressed against each other, leaving a passage in the centre of
the church, down which the prison inspector passed to take his place in
front of every one in the nave.

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE PRISON CHURCH—
BLIND LEADERS OF THE BLIND.
The service began.

It consisted of the following. The priest, having dressed in a strange and
very inconvenient garb, made of gold cloth, cut and arranged little bits of
bread on a saucer, and then put them into a cup with wine, repeating at the
same time different names and prayers. Meanwhile the deacon first read
Slavonic prayers, difficult to understand in themselves, and rendered still
more incomprehensible by being read very fast, and then sang them turn
and turn about with the convicts. The contents of the prayers were chiefly
the desire for the welfare of the Emperor and his family. These petitions
were repeated many times, separately and together with other prayers, the
people kneeling. Besides this, several verses from the Acts of the Apostles
were read by the deacon in a peculiarly strained voice, which made it
impossible to understand what he read, and then the priest read very
distinctly a part of the Gospel according to St. Mark, in which it said that
Christ, having risen from the dead before flying up to heaven to sit down at
His Father’s right hand, first showed Himself to Mary Magdalene, out of
whom He had driven seven devils, and then to eleven of His disciples, and
ordered them to preach the Gospel to the whole creation, and the priest
added that if any one did not believe this he would perish, but he that
believed it and was baptised should be saved, and should besides drive out
devils and cure people by laying his hands on them, should talk in strange
tongues, should take up serpents, and if he drank poison should not die, but
remain well.
The essence of the service consisted in the supposition that the bits cut up
by the priest and put by him into the wine, when manipulated and prayed
over in a certain way, turned into the flesh and blood of God.
These manipulations consisted in the priest’s regularly lifting and holding
up his arms, though hampered by the gold cloth sack he had on, then,
sinking on to his knees and kissing the table and all that was on it, but

chiefly in his taking a cloth by two of its corners and waving it regularly
and softly over the silver saucer and golden cup. It was supposed that, at
this point, the bread and the wine turned into flesh and blood; therefore, this
part of the service was performed with the greatest solemnity.
“Now, to the blessed, most pure, and most holy Mother of God,” the
priest cried from the golden partition which divided part of the church from
the rest, and the choir began solemnly to sing that it was very right to
glorify the Virgin Mary, who had borne Christ without losing her virginity,
and was therefore worthy of greater honour than some kind of cherubim,
and greater glory than some kind of seraphim. After this the transformation
was considered accomplished, and the priest having taken the napkin off the
saucer, cut the middle bit of bread in four, and put it into the wine, and then
into his mouth. He was supposed to have eaten a bit of God’s flesh and
swallowed a little of His blood. Then the priest drew a curtain, opened the
middle door in the partition, and, taking the gold cup in his hands, came out
of the door, inviting those who wished to do so also to come and eat some
of God’s flesh and blood that was contained in the cup. A few children
appeared to wish to do so.
After having asked the children their names, the priest carefully took out
of the cup, with a spoon, and shoved a bit of bread soaked in wine deep into
the mouth of each child in turn, and the deacon, while wiping the children’s
mouths, sang, in a merry voice, that the children were eating the flesh and
drinking the blood of God. After this the priest carried the cup back behind
the partition, and there drank all the remaining blood and ate up all the bits
of flesh, and after having carefully sucked his moustaches and wiped his
mouth, he stepped briskly from behind the partition, the soles of his calfskin
boots creaking. The principal part of this Christian service was now
finished, but the priest, wishing to comfort the unfortunate prisoners, added
to the ordinary service another. This consisted of his going up to the gilt
hammered-out image (with black face and hands) supposed to represent the
very God he had been eating, illuminated by a dozen wax candles, and
proceeding, in a strange, discordant voice, to hum or sing the following
words:
“Jesu sweetest, glorified of the Apostles, Jesu lauded by the martyrs,
almighty Monarch, save me, Jesu my Saviour. Jesu, most beautiful, have
mercy on him who cries to Thee, Saviour Jesu. Born of prayer Jesu, all thy

saints, all thy prophets, save and find them worthy of the joys of heaven.
Jesu, lover of men.”
Then he stopped, drew breath, crossed himself, bowed to the ground, and
every one did the same—the inspector, the warders, the prisoners; and from
above the clinking of the chains sounded more unintermittently. Then he
continued: “Of angels the Creator and Lord of powers, Jesu most
wonderful, the angels’ amazement, Jesu most powerful, of our forefathers
the Redeemer. Jesu sweetest, of patriarchs the praise. Jesu most glorious, of
kings the strength. Jesu most good, of prophets the fulfilment. Jesu most
amazing, of martyrs the strength. Jesu most humble, of monks the joy. Jesu
most merciful, of priests the sweetness. Jesu most charitable, of the fasting
the continence. Jesu most sweet, of the just the joy. Jesu most pure, of the
celibates the chastity. Jesu before all ages of sinners the salvation. Jesu, son
of God, have mercy on me.”
Every time he repeated the word “Jesu” his voice became more and more
wheezy. At last he came to a stop, and holding up his silk-lined cassock, and
kneeling down on one knee, he stooped down to the ground and the choir
began to sing, repeating the words, “Jesu, Son of God, have mercy on me,”
and the convicts fell down and rose again, shaking back the hair that was
left on their heads, and rattling with the chains that were bruising their thin
ankles.
This continued for a long time. First came the glorification, which ended
with the words, “Have mercy on me.” Then more glorifications, ending
with “Alleluia!” And the convicts made the sign of the cross, and bowed,
first at each sentence, then after every two and then after three, and all were
very glad when the glorification ended, and the priest shut the book with a
sigh of relief and retired behind the partition. One last act remained. The
priest took a large, gilt cross, with enamel medallions at the ends, from a
table, and came out into the centre of the church with it. First the inspector
came up and kissed the cross, then the jailers, then the convicts, pushing
and abusing each other in whispers. The priest, talking to the inspector,
pushed the cross and his hand now against the mouths and now against the
noses of the convicts, who were trying to kiss both the cross and the hand of
the priest. And thus ended the Christian service, intended for the comfort
and the teaching of these strayed brothers.

CHAPTER XL. THE HUSKS OF RELIGION.
And none of those present, from the inspector down to Maslova, seemed
conscious of the fact that this Jesus, whose name the priest repeated such a
great number of times, and whom he praised with all these curious
expressions, had forbidden the very things that were being done there; that
He had prohibited not only this meaningless much-speaking and the
blasphemous incantation over the bread and wine, but had also, in the
clearest words, forbidden men to call other men their master, and to pray in
temples; and had ordered that every one should pray in solitude, had
forbidden to erect temples, saying that He had come to destroy them, and
that one should worship, not in a temple, but in spirit and in truth; and,
above all, that He had forbidden not only to judge, to imprison, to torment,
to execute men, as was being done here, but had prohibited any kind of
violence, saying that He had come to give freedom to the captives.
No one present seemed conscious that all that was going on here was the
greatest blasphemy and a supreme mockery of that same Christ in whose
name it was being done. No one seemed to realise that the gilt cross with
the enamel medallions at the ends, which the priest held out to the people to
be kissed, was nothing but the emblem of that gallows on which Christ had
been executed for denouncing just what was going on here. That these
priests, who imagined they were eating and drinking the body and blood of
Christ in the form of bread and wine, did in reality eat and drink His flesh
and His blood, but not as wine and bits of bread, but by ensnaring “these
little ones” with whom He identified Himself, by depriving them of the
greatest blessings and submitting them to most cruel torments, and by
hiding from men the tidings of great joy which He had brought. That
thought did not enter into the mind of any one present.
The priest did his part with a quiet conscience, because he was brought
up from childhood to consider that the only true faith was the faith which
had been held by all the holy men of olden times and was still held by the
Church, and demanded by the State authorities. He did not believe that the
bread turned into flesh, that it was useful for the soul to repeat so many
words, or that he had actually swallowed a bit of God. No one could believe

this, but he believed that one ought to hold this faith. What strengthened
him most in this faith was the fact that, for fulfilling the demands of this
faith, he had for the last 15 years been able to draw an income, which
enabled him to keep his family, send his son to a gymnasium and his
daughter to a school for the daughters of the clergy. The deacon believed in
the same manner, and even more firmly than the priest, for he had forgotten
the substance of the dogmas of this faith, and knew only that the prayers for
the dead, the masses, with and without the acathistus, all had a definite
price, which real Christians readily paid, and, therefore, he called out his
“have mercy, have mercy,” very willingly, and read and said what was
appointed, with the same quiet certainty of its being necessary to do so with
which other men sell faggots, flour, or potatoes. The prison inspector and
the warders, though they had never understood or gone into the meaning of
these dogmas and of all that went on in church, believed that they must
believe, because the higher authorities and the Tsar himself believed in it.
Besides, though faintly (and themselves unable to explain why), they felt
that this faith defended their cruel occupations. If this faith did not exist it
would have been more difficult, perhaps impossible, for them to use all
their powers to torment people, as they were now doing, with a quiet
conscience. The inspector was such a kind-hearted man that he could not
have lived as he was now living unsupported by his faith. Therefore, he
stood motionless, bowed and crossed himself zealously, tried to feel
touched when the song about the cherubims was being sung, and when the
children received communion he lifted one of them, and held him up to the
priest with his own hands.
The great majority of the prisoners believed that there lay a mystic power
in these gilt images, these vestments, candles, cups, crosses, and this
repetition of incomprehensible words, “Jesu sweetest” and “have mercy”—
a power through which might be obtained much convenience in this and in
the future life. Only a few clearly saw the deception that was practised on
the people who adhered to this faith, and laughed at it in their hearts; but the
majority, having made several attempts to get the conveniences they
desired, by means of prayers, masses, and candles, and not having got them
(their prayers remaining unanswered), were each of them convinced that
their want of success was accidental, and that this organisation, approved by
the educated and by archbishops, is very important and necessary, if not for
this, at any rate for the next life.

Maslova also believed in this way. She felt, like the rest, a mixed
sensation of piety and dulness. She stood at first in a crowd behind a railing,
so that she could see no one but her companions; but when those to receive
communion moved on, she and Theodosia stepped to the front, and they
saw the inspector, and, behind him, standing among the warders, a little
peasant, with a very light beard and fair hair. This was Theodosia’s
husband, and he was gazing with fixed eyes at his wife. During the
acathistus Maslova occupied herself in scrutinising him and talking to
Theodosia in whispers, and bowed and made the sign of the cross only
when every one else did.

CHAPTER XLI. VISITING DAY—THE MEN’S
WARD.
Nekhludoff left home early. A peasant from the country was still driving
along the side street and calling out in a voice peculiar to his trade, “Milk!
milk! milk!”
The first warm spring rain had fallen the day before, and now wherever
the ground was not paved the grass shone green. The birch trees in the
gardens looked as if they were strewn with green fluff, the wild cherry and
the poplars unrolled their long, balmy buds, and in shops and dwelling-
houses the double window-frames were being removed and the windows
cleaned.
In the Tolkoochi [literally, jostling market, where second-hand clothes
and all sorts of cheap goods are sold] market, which Nekhludoff had to pass
on his way, a dense crowd was surging along the row of booths, and tattered
men walked about selling top-boots, which they carried under their arms,
and renovated trousers and waistcoats, which hung over their shoulders.
Men in clean coats and shining boots, liberated from the factories, it
being Sunday, and women with bright silk kerchiefs on their heads and
cloth jackets trimmed with jet, were already thronging at the door of the
traktir. Policemen, with yellow cords to their uniforms and carrying pistols,
were on duty, looking out for some disorder which might distract the ennui
that oppressed them. On the paths of the boulevards and on the newly-
revived grass, children and dogs ran about, playing, and the nurses sat
merrily chattering on the benches. Along the streets, still fresh and damp on
the shady side, but dry in the middle, heavy carts rumbled unceasingly, cabs
rattled and tramcars passed ringing by. The air vibrated with the pealing and
clanging of church bells, that were calling the people to attend to a service
like that which was now being conducted in the prison. And the people,
dressed in their Sunday best, were passing on their way to their different
parish churches.
The isvostchik did not drive Nekhludoff up to the prison itself, but to the
last turning that led to the prison.

Several persons—men and women—most of them carrying small
bundles, stood at this turning, about 100 steps from the prison. To the right
there were several low wooden buildings; to the left, a two-storeyed house
with a signboard. The huge brick building, the prison proper, was just in
front, and the visitors were not allowed to come up to it. A sentinel was
pacing up and down in front of it, and shouted at any one who tried to pass
him.
At the gate of the wooden buildings, to the right, opposite the sentinel,
sat a warder on a bench, dressed in uniform, with gold cords, a notebook in
his hands. The visitors came up to him, and named the persons they wanted
to see, and he put the names down. Nekhludoff also went up, and named
Katerina Maslova. The warder wrote down the name.
“Why—don’t they admit us yet?” asked Nekhludoff.
“The service is going on. When the mass is over, you’ll be admitted.”
Nekhludoff stepped aside from the waiting crowd. A man in tattered
clothes, crumpled hat, with bare feet and red stripes all over his face,
detached himself from the crowd, and turned towards the prison.
“Now, then, where are you going?” shouted the sentinel with the gun.
“And you hold your row,” answered the tramp, not in the least abashed
by the sentinel’s words, and turned back. “Well, if you’ll not let me in, I’ll
wait. But, no! Must needs shout, as if he were a general.”
The crowd laughed approvingly. The visitors were, for the greater part,
badly-dressed people; some were ragged, but there were also some
respectable-looking men and women. Next to Nekhludoff stood a clean-
shaven, stout, and red-cheeked man, holding a bundle, apparently
containing under-garments. This was the doorkeeper of a bank; he had
come to see his brother, who was arrested for forgery. The good-natured
fellow told Nekhludoff the whole story of his life, and was going to
question him in turn, when their attention was aroused by a student and a
veiled lady, who drove up in a trap, with rubber tyres, drawn by a large
thoroughbred horse. The student was holding a large bundle. He came up to
Nekhludoff, and asked if and how he could give the rolls he had brought in
alms to the prisoners. His fiancee wished it (this lady was his fiancee), and
her parents had advised them to take some rolls to the prisoners.

“I myself am here for the first time,” said Nekhludoff, “and don’t know;
but I think you had better ask this man,” and he pointed to the warder with
the gold cords and the book, sitting on the right.
As they were speaking, the large iron door with a window in it opened,
and an officer in uniform, followed by another warder, stepped out. The
warder with the notebook proclaimed that the admittance of visitors would
now commence. The sentinel stepped aside, and all the visitors rushed to
the door as if afraid of being too late; some even ran. At the door there
stood a warder who counted the visitors as they came in, saying aloud, 16,
17, and so on. Another warder stood inside the building and also counted
the visitors as they entered a second door, touching each one with his hand,
so that when they went away again not one visitor should be able to remain
inside the prison and not one prisoner might get out. The warder, without
looking at whom he was touching, slapped Nekhludoff on the back, and
Nekhludoff felt hurt by the touch of the warder’s hand; but, remembering
what he had come about, he felt ashamed of feeling dissatisfied and taking
offence.
The first apartment behind the entrance doors was a large vaulted room
with iron bars to the small windows. In this room, which was called the
meeting-room, Nekhludoff was startled by the sight of a large picture of the
Crucifixion.
“What’s that for?” he thought, his mind involuntarily connecting the
subject of the picture with liberation and not with imprisonment.
He went on, slowly letting the hurrying visitors pass before, and
experiencing a mingled feeling of horror at the evil-doers locked up in this
building, compassion for those who, like Katusha and the boy they tried the
day before, must be here though guiltless, and shyness and tender emotion
at the thought of the interview before him. The warder at the other end of
the meeting-room said something as they passed, but Nekhludoff, absorbed
by his own thoughts, paid no attention to him, and continued to follow the
majority of the visitors, and so got into the men’s part of the prison instead
of the women’s.
Letting the hurrying visitors pass before him, he was the last to get into
the interviewing-room. As soon as Nekhludoff opened the door of this
room, he was struck by the deafening roar of a hundred voices shouting at
once, the reason of which he did not at once understand. But when he came

nearer to the people, he saw that they were all pressing against a net that
divided the room in two, like flies settling on sugar, and he understood what
it meant. The two halves of the room, the windows of which were opposite
the door he had come in by, were separated, not by one, but by two nets
reaching from the floor to the ceiling. The wire nets were stretched 7 feet
apart, and soldiers were walking up and down the space between them. On
the further side of the nets were the prisoners, on the nearer, the visitors.
Between them was a double row of nets and a space of 7 feet wide, so that
they could not hand anything to one another, and any one whose sight was
not very good could not even distinguish the face on the other side. It was
also difficult to talk; one had to scream in order to be heard.
On both sides were faces pressed close to the nets, faces of wives,
husbands, fathers, mothers, children, trying to see each other’s features and
to say what was necessary in such a way as to be understood.
But as each one tried to be heard by the one he was talking to, and his
neighbour tried to do the same, they did their best to drown each other’s
voices’ and that was the cause of the din and shouting which struck
Nekhludoff when he first came in. It was impossible to understand what
was being said and what were the relations between the different people.
Next Nekhludoff an old woman with a kerchief on her head stood
trembling, her chin pressed close to the net, and shouting something to a
young fellow, half of whose head was shaved, who listened attentively with
raised brows. By the side of the old woman was a young man in a peasant’s
coat, who listened, shaking his head, to a boy very like himself. Next stood
a man in rags, who shouted, waving his arm and laughing. Next to him a
woman, with a good woollen shawl on her shoulders, sat on the floor
holding a baby in her lap and crying bitterly. This was apparently the first
time she saw the greyheaded man on the other side in prison clothes, and
with his head shaved. Beyond her was the doorkeeper, who had spoken to
Nekhludoff outside; he was shouting with all his might to a greyhaired
convict on the other side.
When Nekhludoff found that he would have to speak in similar
conditions, a feeling of indignation against those who were able to make
and enforce these conditions arose in him; he was surprised that, placed in
such a dreadful position, no one seemed offended at this outrage on human

feelings. The soldiers, the inspector, the prisoners themselves, acted as if
acknowledging all this to be necessary.
Nekhludoff remained in this room for about five minutes, feeling
strangely depressed, conscious of how powerless he was, and at variance
with all the world. He was seized with a curious moral sensation like
seasickness.

CHAPTER XLII. VISITING DAY—THE
WOMEN’S WARD.
“Well, but I must do what I came here for,” he said, trying to pick up
courage. “What is to be done now?” He looked round for an official, and
seeing a thin little man in the uniform of an officer going up and down
behind the people, he approached him.
“Can you tell me, sir,” he said, with exceedingly strained politeness of
manner, “where the women are kept, and where one is allowed to interview
them?”
“Is it the women’s ward you want to go to?”
“Yes, I should like to see one of the women prisoners,” Nekhludoff said,
with the same strained politeness.
“You should have said so when you were in the hall. Who is it, then, that
you want to see?”
“I want to see a prisoner called Katerina Maslova.”
“Is she a political one?”
“No, she is simply . . .”
“What! Is she sentenced?”
“Yes; the day before yesterday she was sentenced,” meekly answered
Nekhludoff, fearing to spoil the inspector’s good humour, which seemed to
incline in his favour.
“If you want to go to the women’s ward please to step this way,” said the
officer, having decided from Nekhludoff’s appearance that he was worthy
of attention. “Sideroff, conduct the gentleman to the women’s ward,” he
said, turning to a moustached corporal with medals on his breast.
“Yes, sir.”
At this moment heart-rending sobs were heard coming from some one
near the net.
Everything here seemed strange to Nekhludoff; but strangest of all was
that he should have to thank and feel obligation towards the inspector and

the chief warders, the very men who were performing the cruel deeds that
were done in this house.
The corporal showed Nekhludoff through the corridor, out of the men’s
into the women’s interviewing-room.
This room, like that of the men, was divided by two wire nets; but it was
much smaller, and there were fewer visitors and fewer prisoners, so that
there was less shouting than in the men’s room. Yet the same thing was
going on here, only, between the nets instead of soldiers there was a woman
warder, dressed in a blue-edged uniform jacket, with gold cords on the
sleeves, and a blue belt. Here also, as in the men’s room, the people were
pressing close to the wire netting on both sides; on the nearer side, the
townspeople in varied attire; on the further side, the prisoners, some in
white prison clothes, others in their own coloured dresses. The whole length
of the net was taken up by the people standing close to it. Some rose on
tiptoe to be heard across the heads of others; some sat talking on the floor.
The most remarkable of the prisoners, both by her piercing screams and
her appearance, was a thin, dishevelled gipsy. Her kerchief had slipped off
her curly hair, and she stood near a post in the middle of the prisoner’s
division, shouting something, accompanied by quick gestures, to a gipsy
man in a blue coat, girdled tightly below the waist. Next the gipsy man, a
soldier sat on the ground talking to prisoner; next the soldier, leaning close
to the net, stood a young peasant, with a fair beard and a flushed face,
keeping back his tears with difficulty. A pretty, fair-haired prisoner, with
bright blue eyes, was speaking to him. These two were Theodosia and her
husband. Next to them was a tramp, talking to a broad-faced woman; then
two women, then a man, then again a woman, and in front of each a
prisoner. Maslova was not among them. But some one stood by the window
behind the prisoners, and Nekhludoff knew it was she. His heart began to
beat faster, and his breath stopped. The decisive moment was approaching.
He went up to the part of the net where he could see the prisoner, and
recognised her at once. She stood behind the blue-eyed Theodosia, and
smiled, listening to what Theodosia was saying. She did not wear the prison
cloak now, but a white dress, tightly drawn in at the waist by a belt, and
very full in the bosom. From under her kerchief appeared the black ringlets
of her fringe, just the same as in the court.
“Now, in a moment it will be decided,” he thought.

“How shall I call her? Or will she come herself?”
She was expecting Bertha; that this man had come to see her never
entered her head.
“Whom do you want?” said the warder who was walking between the
nets, coming up to Nekhludoff.
“Katerina Maslova,” Nekhludoff uttered, with difficulty.
“Katerina Maslova, some one to see you,” cried the warder.

CHAPTER XLIII. NEKHLUDOFF VISITS
MASLOVA.
Maslova looked round, and with head thrown back and expanded chest,
came up to the net with that expression of readiness which he well knew,
pushed in between two prisoners, and gazed at Nekhludoff with a surprised
and questioning look. But, concluding from his clothing he was a rich man,
she smiled.
“Is it me you want?” she asked, bringing her smiling face, with the
slightly squinting eyes, nearer the net.
“I, I—I wished to see—” Nekhludoff did not know how to address her. “I
wished to see you—I—” He was not speaking louder than usual.
“No; nonsense, I tell you!” shouted the tramp who stood next to him.
“Have you taken it or not?”
“Dying, I tell you; what more do you want?” some one else was
screaming at his other side. Maslova could not hear what Nekhludoff was
saying, but the expression of his face as he was speaking reminded her of
him. She did not believe her own eyes; still the smile vanished from her
face and a deep line of suffering appeared on her brow.
“I cannot hear what you are saying,” she called out, wrinkling her brow
and frowning more and more.
“I have come,” said Nekhludoff. “Yes, I am doing my duty—I am
confessing,” thought Nekhludoff; and at this thought the tears came in his
eyes, and he felt a choking sensation in his throat, and holding on with both
hands to the net, he made efforts to keep from bursting into tears.
“I say, why do you shove yourself in where you’re not wanted?” some
one shouted at one side of him.
“God is my witness; I know nothing,” screamed a prisoner from the other
side.
Noticing his excitement, Maslova recognised him.
“You’re like . . . but no; I don’t know you,” she shouted, without looking
at him, and blushing, while her face grew still more stern.

“I have come to ask you to forgive me,” he said, in a loud but
monotonous voice, like a lesson learnt by heart. Having said these words he
became confused; but immediately came the thought that, if he felt
ashamed, it was all the better; he had to bear this shame, and he continued
in a loud voice:
“Forgive me; I have wronged you terribly.”
She stood motionless and without taking her squinting eyes off him.
He could not continue to speak, and stepping away from the net he tried
to suppress the sobs that were choking him.
The inspector, the same officer who had directed Nekhludoff to the
women’s ward, and whose interest he seemed to have aroused, came into
the room, and, seeing Nekhludoff not at the net, asked him why he was not
talking to her whom he wanted to see. Nekhludoff blew his nose, gave
himself a shake, and, trying to appear calm, said:
“It’s so inconvenient through these nets; nothing can be heard.”
Again the inspector considered for a moment.
“Ah, well, she can be brought out here for awhile. Mary Karlovna,”
turning to the warder, “lead Maslova out.”
A minute later Maslova came out of the side door. Stepping softly, she
came up close to Nekhludoff, stopped, and looked up at him from under her
brows. Her black hair was arranged in ringlets over her forehead in the
same way as it had been two days ago; her face, though unhealthy and
puffy, was attractive, and looked perfectly calm, only the glittering black
eyes glanced strangely from under the swollen lids.
“You may talk here,” said the inspector, and shrugging his shoulders he
stepped aside with a look of surprise. Nekhludoff moved towards a seat by
the wall.
Maslova cast a questioning look at the inspector, and then, shrugging her
shoulders in surprise, followed Nekhludoff to the bench, and having
arranged her skirt, sat down beside him.
“I know it is hard for you to forgive me,” he began, but stopped. His tears
were choking him. “But though I can’t undo the past, I shall now do what is
in my power. Tell me—”

“How have you managed to find me?” she said, without answering his
question, neither looking away from him nor quite at him, with her
squinting eyes.
“O God, help me! Teach me what to do,” Nekhludoff thought, looking at
her changed face. “I was on the jury the day before yesterday,” he said.
“You did not recognise me?”
“No, I did not; there was not time for recognitions. I did not even look,”
she said.
“There was a child, was there not?” he asked.
“Thank God! he died at once,” she answered, abruptly and viciously.
“What do you mean? Why?”
“I was so ill myself, I nearly died,” she said, in the same quiet voice,
which Nekhludoff had not expected and could not understand.
“How could my aunts have let you go?”
“Who keeps a servant that has a baby? They sent me off as soon as they
noticed. But why speak of this? I remember nothing. That’s all finished.”
“No, it is not finished; I wish to redeem my sin.”
“There’s nothing to redeem. What’s been has been and is passed,” she
said; and, what he never expected, she looked at him and smiled in an
unpleasantly luring, yet piteous, manner.
Maslova never expected to see him again, and certainly not here and not
now; therefore, when she first recognised him, she could not keep back the
memories which she never wished to revive. In the first moment she
remembered dimly that new, wonderful world of feeling and of thought
which had been opened to her by the charming young man who loved her
and whom she loved, and then his incomprehensible cruelty and the whole
string of humiliations and suffering which flowed from and followed that
magic joy. This gave her pain, and, unable to understand it, she did what she
was always in the habit of doing, she got rid of these memories by
enveloping them in the mist of a depraved life. In the first moment, she
associated the man now sitting beside her with the lad she had loved; but
feeling that this gave her pain, she dissociated them again. Now, this well-
dressed, carefully-got-up gentleman with perfumed beard was no longer the
Nekhludoff whom she had loved but only one of the people who made use
of creatures like herself when they needed them, and whom creatures like

herself had to make use of in their turn as profitably as they could; and that
is why she looked at him with a luring smile and considered silently how
she could best make use of him.
“That’s all at an end,” she said. “Now I’m condemned to Siberia,” and
her lip trembled as she was saying this dreadful word.
“I knew; I was certain you were not guilty,” said Nekhludoff.
“Guilty! of course not; as if I could be a thief or a robber.” She stopped,
considering in what way she could best get something out of him.
“They say here that all depends on the advocate,” she began. “A petition
should be handed in, only they say it’s expensive.”
“Yes, most certainly,” said Nekhludoff. “I have already spoken to an
advocate.”
“No money ought to be spared; it should be a good one,” she said.
“I shall do all that is possible.”
They were silent, and then she smiled again in the same way.
“And I should like to ask you . . . a little money if you can . . . not much;
ten roubles, I do not want more,” she said, suddenly.
“Yes, yes,” Nekhludoff said, with a sense of confusion, and felt for his
purse.
She looked rapidly at the inspector, who was walking up and down the
room. “Don’t give it in front of him; he’d take it away.”
Nekhludoff took out his purse as soon as the inspector had turned his
back; but had no time to hand her the note before the inspector faced them
again, so he crushed it up in his hand.
“This woman is dead,” Nekhludoff thought, looking at this once sweet,
and now defiled, puffy face, lit up by an evil glitter in the black, squinting
eyes which were now glancing at the hand in which he held the note, then
following the inspector’s movements, and for a moment he hesitated. The
tempter that had been speaking to him in the night again raised its voice,
trying to lead him out of the realm of his inner into the realm of his outer
life, away from the question of what he should do to the question of what
the consequences would be, and what would be practical.
“You can do nothing with this woman,” said the voice; “you will only tie
a stone round your neck, which will help to drown you and hinder you from

being useful to others.
“Is it not better to give her all the money that is here, say good-bye, and
finish with her forever?” whispered the voice.
But here he felt that now, at this very moment, something most important
was taking place in his soul—that his inner life was, as it were, wavering in
the balance, so that the slightest effort would make it sink to this side or the
other. And he made this effort by calling to his assistance that God whom he
had felt in his soul the day before, and that God instantly responded. He
resolved to tell her everything now—at once.
“Katusha, I have come to ask you to forgive me, and you have given me
no answer. Have you forgiven me? Will you ever forgive me?” he asked.
She did not listen to him, but looked at his hand and at the inspector, and
when the latter turned she hastily stretched out her hand, grasped the note,
and hid it under her belt.
“That’s odd, what you are saying there,” she said, with a smile of
contempt, as it seemed to him.
Nekhludoff felt that there was in her soul one who was his enemy and
who was protecting her, such as she was now, and preventing him from
getting at her heart. But, strange to say, this did not repel him, but drew him
nearer to her by some fresh, peculiar power. He knew that he must waken
her soul, that this was terribly difficult, but the very difficulty attracted him.
He now felt towards her as he had never felt towards her or any one else
before. There was nothing personal in this feeling: he wanted nothing from
her for himself, but only wished that she might not remain as she now was,
that she might awaken and become again what she had been.
“Katusha, why do you speak like that? I know you; I remember you—
and the old days in Papovo.”
“What’s the use of recalling what’s past?” she remarked, drily.
“I am recalling it in order to put it right, to atone for my sin, Katusha,”
and he was going to say that he would marry her, but, meeting her eyes, he
read in them something so dreadful, so coarse, so repellent, that he could
not go on.
At this moment the visitors began to go. The inspector came up to
Nekhludoff and said that the time was up.

“Good-bye; I have still much to say to you, but you see it is impossible to
do so now,” said Nekhludoff, and held out his hand. “I shall come again.”
“I think you have said all.”
She took his hand but did not press it.
“No; I shall try to see you again, somewhere where we can talk, and then
I shall tell you what I have to say-something very important.”
“Well, then, come; why not?” she answered, and smiled with that
habitual, inviting, and promising smile which she gave to the men whom
she wished to please.
“You are more than a sister to me,” said Nekhludoff.
“That’s odd,” she said again, and went behind the grating.

CHAPTER XLIV. MASLOVA’S VIEW OF LIFE.
Before the first interview, Nekhludoff thought that when she saw him and
knew of his intention to serve her, Katusha would be pleased and touched,
and would be Katusha again; but, to his horror, he found that Katusha
existed no more, and there was Maslova in her place. This astonished and
horrified him.
What astonished him most was that Katusha was not ashamed of her
position—not the position of a prisoner (she was ashamed of that), but her
position as a prostitute. She seemed satisfied, even proud of it. And, yet,
how could it be otherwise? Everybody, in order to be able to act, has to
consider his occupation important and good. Therefore, in whatever
position a person is, he is certain to form such a view of the life of men in
general which will make his occupation seem important and good.
It is usually imagined that a thief, a murderer, a spy, a prostitute,
acknowledging his or her profession as evil, is ashamed of it. But the
contrary is true. People whom fate and their sin-mistakes have placed in a
certain position, however false that position may be, form a view of life in
general which makes their position seem good and admissible. In order to
keep up their view of life, these people instinctively keep to the circle of
those people who share their views of life and their own place in it. This
surprises us, where the persons concerned are thieves, bragging about their
dexterity, prostitutes vaunting their depravity, or murderers boasting of their
cruelty. This surprises us only because the circle, the atmosphere in which
these people live, is limited, and we are outside it. But can we not observe
the same phenomenon when the rich boast of their wealth, i.e., robbery; the
commanders in the army pride themselves on victories, i.e., murder; and
those in high places vaunt their power, i.e., violence? We do not see the
perversion in the views of life held by these people, only because the circle
formed by them is more extensive, and we ourselves are moving inside of
it.
And in this manner Maslova had formed her views of life and of her own
position. She was a prostitute condemned to Siberia, and yet she had a

conception of life which made it possible for her to be satisfied with herself,
and even to pride herself on her position before others.
According to this conception, the highest good for all men without
exception—old, young, schoolboys, generals, educated and uneducated,
was connected with the relation of the sexes; therefore, all men, even when
they pretended to be occupied with other things, in reality took this view.
She was an attractive woman, and therefore she was an important and
necessary person. The whole of her former and present life was a
confirmation of the correctness of this conception.
With such a view of life, she was by no means the lowest, but a very
important person. And Maslova prized this view of life more than anything;
she could not but prize it, for, if she lost the importance that such a view of
life gave her among men, she would lose the meaning of her life. And, in
order not to lose the meaning of her life, she instinctively clung to the set
that looked at life in the same way as she did. Feeling that Nekhludoff
wanted to lead her out into another world, she resisted him, foreseeing that
she would have to lose her place in life, with the self-possession and self-
respect it gave her. For this reason she drove from her the recollections of
her early youth and her first relations with Nekhludoff. These recollections
did not correspond with her present conception of the world, and were
therefore quite rubbed out of her mind, or, rather, lay somewhere buried and
untouched, closed up and plastered over so that they should not escape, as
when bees, in order to protect the result of their labour, will sometimes
plaster a nest of worms. Therefore, the present Nekhludoff was not the man
she had once loved with a pure love, but only a rich gentleman whom she
could, and must, make use of, and with whom she could only have the same
relations as with men in general.
“No, I could not tell her the chief thing,” thought Nekhludoff, moving
towards the front doors with the rest of the people. “I did not tell her that I
would marry her; I did not tell her so, but I will,” he thought.
The two warders at the door let out the visitors, counting them again, and
touching each one with their hands, so that no extra person should go out,
and none remain within. The slap on his shoulder did not offend Nekhludoff
this time; he did not even notice it.

CHAPTER XLV. FANARIN, THE ADVOCATE—
THE PETITION.
Nekhludoff meant to rearrange the whole of his external life, to let his
large house and move to an hotel, but Agraphena Petrovna pointed out that
it was useless to change anything before the winter. No one would rent a
town house for the summer; anyhow, he would have to live and keep his
things somewhere. And so all his efforts to change his manner of life (he
meant to live more simply: as the students live) led to nothing. Not only did
everything remain as it was, but the house was suddenly filled with new
activity. All that was made of wool or fur was taken out to be aired and
beaten. The gate-keeper, the boy, the cook, and Corney himself took part in
this activity. All sorts of strange furs, which no one ever used, and various
uniforms were taken out and hung on a line, then the carpets and furniture
were brought out, and the gate-keeper and the boy rolled their sleeves up
their muscular arms and stood beating these things, keeping strict time,
while the rooms were filled with the smell of naphthaline.
When Nekhludoff crossed the yard or looked out of the window and saw
all this going on, he was surprised at the great number of things there were,
all quite useless. Their only use, Nekhludoff thought, was the providing of
exercise for Agraphena Petrovna, Corney, the gate-keeper, the boy, and the
cook.
“But it’s not worth while altering my manner of life now,” he thought,
“while Maslova’s case is not decided. Besides, it is too difficult. It will alter
of itself when she will be set free or exiled, and I follow her.”
On the appointed day Nekhludoff drove up to the advocate Fanarin’s own
splendid house, which was decorated with huge palms and other plants, and
wonderful curtains, in fact, with all the expensive luxury witnessing to the
possession of much idle money, i.e., money acquired without labour, which
only those possess who grow rich suddenly. In the waiting-room, just as in a
doctor’s waiting-room, he found many dejected-looking people sitting
round several tables, on which lay illustrated papers meant to amuse them,
awaiting their turns to be admitted to the advocate. The advocate’s assistant

sat in the room at a high desk, and having recognised Nekhludoff, he came
up to him and said he would go and announce him at once. But the assistant
had not reached the door before it opened and the sounds of loud, animated
voices were heard; the voice of a middle-aged, sturdy merchant, with a red
face and thick moustaches, and the voice of Fanarin himself. Fanarin was
also a middle-aged man of medium height, with a worn look on his face.
Both faces bore the expression which you see on the faces of those who
have just concluded a profitable but not quite honest transaction.
“Your own fault, you know, my dear sir,” Fanarin said, smiling.
“We’d all be in ‘eaven were it not for hour sins.”
“Oh, yes, yes; we all know that,” and both laughed un-naturally.
“Oh, Prince Nekhludoff! Please to step in,” said Fanarin, seeing him, and,
nodding once more to the merchant, he led Nekhludoff into his business
cabinet, furnished in a severely correct style.
“Won’t you smoke?” said the advocate, sitting down opposite Nekhludoff
and trying to conceal a smile, apparently still excited by the success of the
accomplished transaction.
“Thanks; I have come about Maslova’s case.”
“Yes, yes; directly! But oh, what rogues these fat money bags are!” he
said. “You saw this here fellow. Why, he has about twelve million roubles,
and he cannot speak correctly; and if he can get a twenty-five rouble note
out of you he’ll have it, if he’s to wrench it out with his teeth.”
“He says ‘’eaven’ and ‘hour,’ and you say ‘this here fellow,’” Nekhludoff
thought, with an insurmountable feeling of aversion towards this man who
wished to show by his free and easy manner that he and Nekhludoff
belonged to one and the same camp, while his other clients belonged to
another.
“He has worried me to death—a fearful scoundrel. I felt I must relieve
my feelings,” said the advocate, as if to excuse his speaking about things
that had no reference to business. “Well, how about your case? I have read
it attentively, but do not approve of it. I mean that greenhorn of an advocate
has left no valid reason for an appeal.”
“Well, then, what have you decided?”
“One moment. Tell him,” he said to his assistant, who had just come in,
“that I keep to what I have said. If he can, it’s all right; if not, no matter.”

“But he won’t agree.”
“Well, no matter,” and the advocate frowned.
“There now, and it is said that we advocates get our money for nothing,”
he remarked, after a pause. “I have freed one insolvent debtor from a totally
false charge, and now they all flock to me. Yet every such case costs
enormous labour. Why, don’t we, too, ‘lose bits of flesh in the inkstand?’ as
some writer or other has said. Well, as to your case, or, rather, the case you
are taking an interest in. It has been conducted abominably. There is no
good reason for appealing. Still,” he continued, “we can but try to get the
sentence revoked. This is what I have noted down.” He took up several
sheets of paper covered with writing, and began to read rapidly, slurring
over the uninteresting legal terms and laying particular stress on some
sentences. “To the Court of Appeal, criminal department, etc., etc.
According to the decisions, etc., the verdict, etc., So-and-so Maslova
pronounced guilty of having caused the death through poison of the
merchant Smelkoff, and has, according to Statute 1454 of the penal code,
been sentenced to Siberia,” etc., etc. He stopped. Evidently, in spite of his
being so used to it, he still felt pleasure in listening to his own productions.
“This sentence is the direct result of the most glaring judicial perversion
and error,” he continued, impressively, “and there are grounds for its
revocation. Firstly, the reading of the medical report of the examination of
Smelkoff’s intestines was interrupted by the president at the very beginning.
This is point one.”
“But it was the prosecuting side that demanded this reading,” Nekhludoff
said, with surprise.
“That does not matter. There might have been reasons for the defence to
demand this reading, too.”
“Oh, but there could have been no reason whatever for that.”
“It is a ground for appeal, though. To continue: ‘Secondly,’ he went on
reading, ‘when Maslova’s advocate, in his speech for the defence, wishing
to characterise Maslova’s personality, referred to the causes of her fall, he
was interrupted by the president calling him to order for the alleged
deviation from the direct subject. Yet, as has been repeatedly pointed out by
the Senate, the elucidation of the criminal’s characteristics and his or her
moral standpoint in general has a significance of the first importance in

criminal cases, even if only as a guide in the settling of the question of
imputation.’ That’s point two,” he said, with a look at Nekhludoff.
“But he spoke so badly that no one could make anything of it,”
Nekhludoff said, still more astonished.
“The fellow’s quite a fool, and of course could not be expected to say
anything sensible,” Fanarin said, laughing; “but, all the same, it will do as a
reason for appeal. Thirdly: ‘The president, in his summing up, contrary to
the direct decree of section 1, statute 801, of the criminal code, omitted to
inform the jury what the judicial points are that constitute guilt; and did not
mention that having admitted the fact of Maslova having administered the
poison to Smelkoff, the jury had a right not to impute the guilt of murder to
her, since the proofs of wilful intent to deprive Smelkoff of life were absent,
and only to pronounce her guilty of carelessness resulting in the death of the
merchant, which she did not desire.’ This is the chief point.”
“Yes; but we ought to have known that ourselves. It was our mistake.”
“And now the fourth point,” the advocate continued. “The form of the
answer given by the jury contained an evident contradiction. Maslova is
accused of wilfully poisoning Smelkoff, her one object being that of
cupidity, the only motive to commit murder she could have had. The jury in
their verdict acquit her of the intent to rob, or participation in the stealing of
valuables, from which it follows that they intended also to acquit her of the
intent to murder, and only through a misunderstanding, which arose from
the incompleteness of the president’s summing up, omitted to express it in
due form in their answer. Therefore an answer of this kind by the jury
absolutely demanded the application of statutes 816 and 808 of the criminal
code of procedure, i.e., an explanation by the president to the jury of the
mistake made by them, and another debate on the question of the prisoner’s
guilt.”
“Then why did the president not do it?”
“I, too, should like to know why,” Fanarin said, laughing.
“Then the Senate will, of course, correct this error?”
“That will all depend on who will preside there at the time. Well, now,
there it is. I have further said,” he continued, rapidly, “a verdict of this kind
gave the Court no right to condemn Maslova to be punished as a criminal,
and to apply section 3, statute 771 of the penal code to her case. This is a

decided and gross violation of the basic principles of our criminal law. In
view of the reasons stated, I have the honour of appealing to you, etc., etc.,
the refutation, according to 909, 910, and section 2, 912 and 928 statute of
the criminal code, etc., etc. . . . to carry this case before another department
of the same Court for a further examination. There; all that can be done is
done, but, to be frank, I have little hope of success, though, of course, it all
depends on what members will be present at the Senate. If you have any
influence there you can but try.”
“I do know some.”
“All right; only be quick about it. Else they’ll all go off for a change of
air; then you may have to wait three months before they return. Then, in
case of failure, we have still the possibility of appealing to His Majesty.
This, too, depends on the private influence you can bring to work. In this
case, too, I am at your service; I mean as to the working of the petition, not
the influence.”
“Thank you. Now as to your fees?”
“My assistant will hand you the petition and tell you.”
“One thing more. The Procureur gave me a pass for visiting this person in
prison, but they tell me I must also get a permission from the governor in
order to get an interview at another time and in another place than those
appointed. Is this necessary?”
“Yes, I think so. But the governor is away at present; a vice-governor is
in his place. And he is such an impenetrable fool that you’ll scarcely be able
to do anything with him.”
“Is it Meslennikoff?”
“Yes.”
“I know him,” said Nekhludoff, and got up to go. At this moment a
horribly ugly, little, bony, snub-nosed, yellow-faced woman flew into the
room. It was the advocate’s wife, who did not seem to be in the least bit
troubled by her ugliness. She was attired in the most original manner; she
seemed enveloped in something made of velvet and silk, something yellow
and green, and her thin hair was crimped.
She stepped out triumphantly into the ante-room, followed by a tall,
smiling man, with a greenish complexion, dressed in a coat with silk
facings, and a white tie. This was an author. Nekhludoff knew him by sight.

She opened the cabinet door and said, “Anatole, you must come to me.
Here is Simeon Ivanovitch, who will read his poems, and you must
absolutely come and read about Garshin.”
Nekhludoff noticed that she whispered something to her husband, and,
thinking it was something concerning him, wished to go away, but she
caught him up and said: “I beg your pardon, Prince, I know you, and,
thinking an introduction superfluous, I beg you to stay and take part in our
literary matinee. It will be most interesting. M. Fanarin will read.”
“You see what a lot I have to do,” said Fanarin, spreading out his hands
and smilingly pointing to his wife, as if to show how impossible it was to
resist so charming a creature.
Nekhludoff thanked the advocate’s wife with extreme politeness for the
honour she did him in inviting him, but refused the invitation with a sad and
solemn look, and left the room.
“What an affected fellow!” said the advocate’s wife, when he had gone
out.
In the ante-room the assistant handed him a ready-written petition, and
said that the fees, including the business with the Senate and the
commission, would come to 1,000 roubles, and explained that M. Fanarin
did not usually undertake this kind of business, but did it only to oblige
Nekhludoff.
“And about this petition. Who is to sign it?”
“The prisoner may do it herself, or if this is inconvenient, M. Fanarin
can, if he gets a power of attorney from her.”
“Oh, no. I shall take the petition to her and get her to sign it,” said
Nekhludoff, glad of the opportunity of seeing her before the appointed day.

CHAPTER XLVI. A PRISON FLOGGING.
At the usual time the jailer’s whistle sounded in the corridors of the
prison, the iron doors of the cells rattled, bare feet pattered, heels clattered,
and the prisoners who acted as scavengers passed along the corridors,
filling the air with disgusting smells. The prisoners washed, dressed, and
came out for revision, then went to get boiling water for their tea.
The conversation at breakfast in all the cells was very lively. It was all
about two prisoners who were to be flogged that day. One, Vasiliev, was a
young man of some education, a clerk, who had killed his mistress in a fit
of jealousy. His fellow-prisoners liked him because he was merry and
generous and firm in his behaviour with the prison authorities. He knew the
laws and insisted on their being carried out. Therefore he was disliked by
the authorities. Three weeks before a jailer struck one of the scavengers
who had spilt some soup over his new uniform. Vasiliev took the part of the
scavenger, saying that it was not lawful to strike a prisoner.
“I’ll teach you the law,” said the jailer, and gave Vasiliev a scolding.
Vasiliev replied in like manner, and the jailer was going to hit him, but
Vasiliev seized the jailer’s hands, held them fast for about three minutes,
and, after giving the hands a twist, pushed the jailer out of the door. The
jailer complained to the inspector, who ordered Vasiliev to be put into a
solitary cell.
The solitary cells were a row of dark closets, locked from outside, and
there were neither beds, nor chairs, nor tables in them, so that the inmates
had to sit or lie on the dirty floor, while the rats, of which there were a great
many in those cells, ran across them. The rats were so bold that they stole
the bread from the prisoners, and even attacked them if they stopped
moving. Vasiliev said he would not go into the solitary cell, because he had
not done anything wrong; but they used force. Then he began struggling,
and two other prisoners helped him to free himself from the jailers. All the
jailers assembled, and among them was Petrov, who was distinguished for
his strength. The prisoners got thrown down and pushed into the solitary
cells.

The governor was immediately informed that something very like a
rebellion had taken place. And he sent back an order to flog the two chief
offenders, Vasiliev and the tramp, Nepomnishy, giving each thirty strokes
with a birch rod. The flogging was appointed to take place in the women’s
interviewing-room.
All this was known in the prison since the evening, and it was being
talked about with animation in all the cells.
Korableva, Khoroshevka, Theodosia, and Maslova sat together in their
corner, drinking tea, all of them flushed and animated by the vodka they had
drunk, for Maslova, who now had a constant supply of vodka, freely treated
her companions to it.
“He’s not been a-rioting, or anything,” Korableva said, referring to
Vasiliev, as she bit tiny pieces off a lump of sugar with her strong teeth. “He
only stuck up for a chum, because it’s not lawful to strike prisoners
nowadays.”
“And he’s a fine fellow, I’ve heard say,” said Theodosia, who sat
bareheaded, with her long plaits round her head, on a log of wood opposite
the shelf bedstead on which the teapot stood.
“There, now, if you were to ask him,” the watchman’s wife said to
Maslova (by him she meant Nekhludoff).
“I shall tell him. He’ll do anything for me,” Maslova said, tossing her
head, and smiling.
“Yes, but when is he coming? and they’ve already gone to fetch them,”
said Theodosia. “It is terrible,” she added, with a sigh.
“I once did see how they flogged a peasant in the village. Father-in-law,
he sent me once to the village elder. Well, I went, and there . . . “ The
watchman’s wife began her long story, which was interrupted by the sound
of voices and steps in the corridor above them.
The women were silent, and sat listening.
“There they are, hauling him along, the devils!” Khoroshavka said.
“They’ll do him to death, they will. The jailers are so enraged with him
because he never would give in to them.”
All was quiet again upstairs, and the watchman’s wife finished her story
of how she was that frightened when she went into the barn and saw them
flogging a peasant, her inside turned at the sight, and so on. Khoroshevka

related how Schegloff had been flogged, and never uttered a sound. Then
Theodosia put away the tea things, and Korableva and the watchman’s wife
took up their sewing. Maslova sat down on the bedstead, with her arms
round her knees, dull and depressed. She was about to lie down and try to
sleep, when the woman warder called her into the office to see a visitor.
“Now, mind, and don’t forget to tell him about us,” the old woman
(Menshova) said, while Maslova was arranging the kerchief on her head
before the dim looking-glass. “We did not set fire to the house, but he
himself, the fiend, did it; his workman saw him do it, and will not damn his
soul by denying it. You just tell to ask to see my Mitri. Mitri will tell him all
about it, as plain as can be. Just think of our being locked up in prison when
we never dreamt of any ill, while he, the fiend, is enjoying himself at the
pub, with another man’s wife.”
“That’s not the law,” remarked Korableva.
“I’ll tell him—I’ll tell him,” answered Maslova. “Suppose I have another
drop, just to keep up courage,” she added, with a wink; and Korableva
poured out half a cup of vodka, which Maslova drank. Then, having wiped
her mouth and repeating the words “just to keep up courage,” tossing her
head and smiling gaily, she followed the warder along the corridor.

CHAPTER XLVII. NEKHLUDOFF AGAIN
VISITS MASLOVA.
Nekhludoff had to wait in the hall for a long time. When he had arrived at
the prison and rung at the entrance door, he handed the permission of the
Procureur to the jailer on duty who met him.
“No, no,” the jailer on duty said hurriedly, “the inspector is engaged.”
“In the office?” asked Nekhludoff.
“No, here in the interviewing-room.”.
“Why, is it a visiting day to-day?”
“No; it’s special business.”
“I should like to see him. What am I to do?” said Nekhludoff.
“When the inspector comes out you’ll tell him—wait a bit,” said the
jailer.
At this moment a sergeant-major, with a smooth, shiny face and
moustaches impregnated with tobacco smoke, came out of a side door, with
the gold cords of his uniform glistening, and addressed the jailer in a severe
tone.
“What do you mean by letting any one in here? The office. . . .”
“I was told the inspector was here,” said Nekhludoff, surprised at the
agitation he noticed in the sergeant-major’s manner.
At this moment the inner door opened, and Petrov came out, heated and
perspiring.
“He’ll remember it,” he muttered, turning to the sergeant major. The
latter pointed at Nekhludoff by a look, and Petrov knitted his brows and
went out through a door at the back.
“Who will remember it? Why do they all seem so confused? Why did the
sergeant-major make a sign to him?” Nekhludoff thought.
The sergeant-major, again addressing Nekhludoff, said: “You cannot
meet here; please step across to the office.” And Nekhludoff was about to
comply when the inspector came out of the door at the back, looking even

more confused than his subordinates, and sighing continually. When he saw
Nekhludoff he turned to the jailer.
“Fedotoff, have Maslova, cell 5, women’s ward, taken to the office.”
“Will you come this way, please,” he said, turning to Nekhludoff. They
ascended a steep staircase and entered a little room with one window, a
writing-table, and a few chairs in it. The inspector sat down.
“Mine are heavy, heavy duties,” he remarked, again addressing
Nekhludoff, and took out a cigarette.
“You are tired, evidently,” said Nekhludoff.
“Tired of the whole of the service—the duties are very trying. One tries
to lighten their lot and only makes it worse; my only thought is how to get
away. Heavy, heavy duties!”
Nekhludoff did not know what the inspector’s particular difficulties were,
but he saw that to-day he was in a peculiarly dejected and hopeless
condition, calling for pity.
“Yes, I should think the duties were heavy for a kind-hearted man,” he
said. “Why do you serve in this capacity?”
“I have a family.”
“But, if it is so hard—”
“Well, still you know it is possible to be of use in some measure; I soften
down all I can. Another in my place would conduct the affairs quite
differently. Why, we have more than 2,000 persons here. And what persons!
One must know how to manage them. It is easier said than done, you know.
After all, they are also men; one cannot help pitying them.” The inspector
began telling Nekhludoff of a fight that had lately taken place among the
convicts, which had ended by one man being killed.
The story was interrupted by the entrance of Maslova, who was
accompanied by a jailer.
Nekhludoff saw her through the doorway before she had noticed the
inspector. She was following the warder briskly, smiling and tossing her
head. When she saw the inspector she suddenly changed, and gazed at him
with a frightened look; but, quickly recovering, she addressed Nekhludoff
boldly and gaily.

“How d’you do?” she said, drawling out her words, and smilingly took
his hand and shook it vigorously, not like the first time.
“Here, I’ve brought you a petition to sign,” said Nekhludoff, rather
surprised by the boldness with which she greeted him to-day.
“The advocate has written out a petition which you will have to sign, and
then we shall send it to Petersburg.”
“All right! That can be done. Anything you like,” she said, with a wink
and a smile.
And Nekhludoff drew a folded paper from his pocket and went up to the
table.
“May she sign it here?” asked Nekhludoff, turning to the inspector.
“It’s all right, it’s all right! Sit down. Here’s a pen; you can write?” said
the inspector.
“I could at one time,” she said; and, after arranging her skirt and the
sleeves of her jacket, she sat down at the table, smiled awkwardly, took the
pen with her small, energetic hand, and glanced at Nekhludoff with a laugh.
Nekhludoff told her what to write and pointed out the place where to
sign.
Sighing deeply as she dipped her pen into the ink, and carefully shaking
some drops off the pen, she wrote her name.
“Is it all?” she asked, looking from Nekhludoff to the inspector, and
putting the pen now on the inkstand, now on the papers.
“I have a few words to tell you,” Nekhludoff said, taking the pen from
her.
“All right; tell me,” she said. And suddenly, as if remembering
something, or feeling sleepy, she grew serious.
The inspector rose and left the room, and Nekhludoff remained with her.

CHAPTER XLVIII. MASLOVA REFUSES TO
MARRY.
The jailer who had brought Maslova in sat on a windowsill at some
distance from them.
The decisive moment had come for Nekhludoff. He had been incessantly
blaming himself for not having told her the principal thing at the first
interview, and was now determined to tell her that he would marry her. She
was sitting at the further side of the table. Nekhludoff sat down opposite
her. It was light in the room, and Nekhludoff for the first time saw her face
quite near. He distinctly saw the crowsfeet round her eyes, the wrinkles
round her mouth, and the swollen eyelids. He felt more sorry than before.
Leaning over the table so as not to be heard by the jailer—a man of Jewish
type with grizzly whiskers, who sat by the window—Nekhludoff said:
“Should this petition come to nothing we shall appeal to the Emperor. All
that is possible shall be done.”
“There, now, if we had had a proper advocate from the first,” she
interrupted. “My defendant was quite a silly. He did nothing but pay me
compliments,” she said, and laughed. “If it had then been known that I was
acquainted with you, it would have been another matter. They think every
one’s a thief.”
“How strange she is to-day,” Nekhludoff thought, and was just going to
say what he had on his mind when she began again:
“There’s something I want to say. We have here an old woman; such a
fine one, d’you know, she just surprises every one; she is imprisoned for
nothing, and her son, too, and everybody knows they are innocent, though
they are accused of having set fire to a house. D’you know, hearing I was
acquainted with you, she says: ‘Tell him to ask to see my son; he’ll tell him
all about it.”’ Thus spoke Maslova, turning her head from side to side, and
glancing at Nekhludoff. “Their name’s Menshoff. Well, will you do it? Such
a fine old thing, you know; you can see at once she’s innocent. You’ll do it,
there’s a dear,” and she smiled, glanced up at him, and then cast down her
eyes.

“All right. I’ll find out about them,” Nekhludoff said, more and more
astonished by her free-and-easy manner. “But I was going to speak to you
about myself. Do you remember what I told you last time?”
“You said a lot last time. What was it you told me?” she said, continuing
to smile and to turn her head from side to side.
“I said I had come to ask you to forgive me,” he began.
“What’s the use of that? Forgive, forgive, where’s the good of—”
“To atone for my sin, not by mere words, but in deed. I have made up my
mind to marry you.”
An expression of fear suddenly came over her face. Her squinting eyes
remained fixed on him, and yet seemed not to be looking at him.
“What’s that for?” she said, with an angry frown.
“I feel that it is my duty before God to do it.”
“What God have you found now? You are not saying what you ought to.
God, indeed! What God? You ought to have remembered God then,” she
said, and stopped with her mouth open. It was only now that Nekhludoff
noticed that her breath smelled of spirits, and that he understood the cause
of her excitement.
“Try and be calm,” he said.
“Why should I be calm?” she began, quickly, flushing scarlet. “I am a
convict, and you are a gentleman and a prince. There’s no need for you to
soil yourself by touching me. You go to your princesses; my price is a ten-
rouble note.”
“However cruelly you may speak, you cannot express what I myself am
feeling,” he said, trembling all over; “you cannot imagine to what extent I
feel myself guilty towards you.”
“Feel yourself guilty?” she said, angrily mimicking him. “You did not
feel so then, but threw me 100 roubles. That’s your price.”
“I know, I know; but what is to be done now?” said Nekhludoff. “I have
decided not to leave you, and what I have said I shall do.”
“And I say you sha’n’t,” she said, and laughed aloud.
“Katusha,” he said, touching her hand.
“You go away. I am a convict and you a prince, and you’ve no business
here,” she cried, pulling away her hand, her whole appearance transformed

by her wrath. “You’ve got pleasure out of me in this life, and want to save
yourself through me in the life to come. You are disgusting to me—your
spectacles and the whole of your dirty fat mug. Go, go!” she screamed,
starting to her feet.
The jailer came up to them.
“What are you kicking up this row for?’ That won’t—”
“Let her alone, please,” said Nekhludoff.
“She must not forget herself,” said the jailer. “Please wait a little,” said
Nekhludoff, and the jailer returned to the window.
Maslova sat down again, dropping her eyes and firmly clasping her small
hands.
Nekhludoff stooped over her, not knowing what to do.
“You do not believe me?” he said.
“That you mean to marry me? It will never be. I’ll rather hang myself. So
there!”
“Well, still I shall go on serving you.”
“That’s your affair, only I don’t want anything from you. I am telling you
the plain truth,” she said. “Oh, why did I not die then?” she added, and
began to cry piteously.
Nekhludoff could not speak; her tears infected him.
She lifted her eyes, looked at him in surprise, and began to wipe her tears
with her kerchief.
The jailer came up again and reminded them that it was time to part.
Maslova rose.
“You are excited. If it is possible, I shall come again tomorrow; you think
it over,” said Nekhludoff.
She gave him no answer and, without looking up, followed the jailer out
of the room.
“Well, lass, you’ll have rare times now,” Korableva said, when Maslova
returned to the cell. “Seems he’s mighty sweet on you; make the most of it
while he’s after you. He’ll help you out. Rich people can do anything.”
“Yes, that’s so,” remarked the watchman’s wife, with her musical voice.
“When a poor man thinks of getting married, there’s many a slip ‘twixt the

cup and the lip; but a rich man need only make up his mind and it’s done.
We knew a toff like that duckie. What d’you think he did?”
“Well, have you spoken about my affairs?” the old woman asked.
But Maslova gave her fellow-prisoners no answer; she lay down on the
shelf bedstead, her squinting eyes fixed on a corner of the room, and lay
there until the evening.
A painful struggle went on in her soul. What Nekhludoff had told her
called up the memory of that world in which she had suffered and which
she had left without having understood, hating it. She now feared to wake
from the trance in which she was living. Not having arrived at any
conclusion when evening came, she again bought some vodka and drank
with her companions.

CHAPTER XLIX. VERA DOUKHOVA.
“So this is what it means, this,” thought Nekhludoff as he left the prison,
only now fully understanding his crime. If he had not tried to expiate his
guilt he would never have found out how great his crime was. Nor was this
all; she, too, would never have felt the whole horror of what had been done
to her. He only now saw what he had done to the soul of this woman; only
now she saw and understood what had been done to her.
Up to this time Nekhludoff had played with a sensation of self-
admiration, had admired his own remorse; now he was simply filled with
horror. He knew he could not throw her up now, and yet he could not
imagine what would come of their relations to one another.
Just as he was going out, a jailer, with a disagreeable, insinuating
countenance, and a cross and medals on his breast, came up and handed him
a note with an air of mystery.
“Here is a note from a certain person, your honour,” he said to
Nekhludoff as he gave him the envelope.
“What person?”
“You will know when you read it. A political prisoner. I am in that ward,
so she asked me; and though it is against the rules, still feelings of humanity
—” The jailer spoke in an unnatural manner.
Nekhludoff was surprised that a jailer of the ward where political
prisoners were kept should pass notes inside the very prison walls, and
almost within sight of every one; he did not then know that this was both a
jailer and a spy. However, he took the note and read it on coming out of the
prison.
The note was written in a bold hand, and ran as follows: “Having heard
that you visit the prison, and are interested in the case of a criminal
prisoner, the desire of seeing you arose in me. Ask for a permission to see
me. I can give you a good deal of information concerning your protegee,
and also our group.—Yours gratefully, VERA DOUKHOVA.”
Vera Doukhova had been a school-teacher in an out-of-the-way village of
the Novgorod Government, where Nekhludoff and some friends of his had

once put up while bear hunting. Nekhludoff gladly and vividly recalled
those old days, and his acquaintance with Doukhova. It was just before
Lent, in an isolated spot, 40 miles from the railway. The hunt had been
successful; two bears had been killed; and the company were having dinner
before starting on their return journey, when the master of the hut where
they were putting up came in to say that the deacon’s daughter wanted to
speak to Prince Nekhludoff. “Is she pretty?” some one asked. “None of that,
please,” Nekhludoff said, and rose with a serious look on his face. Wiping
his mouth, and wondering what the deacon’s daughter might want of him,
he went into the host’s private hut.
There he found a girl with a felt hat and a warm cloak on—a sinewy,
ugly girl; only her eyes with their arched brows were beautiful.
“Here, miss, speak to him,” said the old housewife; “this is the prince
himself. I shall go out meanwhile.”
“In what way can I be of service to you?” Nekhludoff asked.
“I—I—I see you are throwing away your money on such nonsense—on
hunting,” began the girl, in great confusion. “I know—I only want one thing
—to be of use to the people, and I can do nothing because I know nothing
—” Her eyes were so truthful, so kind, and her expression of resoluteness
and yet bashfulness was so touching, that Nekhludoff, as it often happened
to him, suddenly felt as if he were in her position, understood, and
sympathised.
“What can I do, then?”
“I am a teacher, but should like to follow a course of study; and I am not
allowed to do so. That is, not that I am not allowed to; they’d allow me to,
but I have not got the means. Give them to me, and when I have finished
the course I shall repay you. I am thinking the rich kill bears and give the
peasants drink; all this is bad. Why should they not do good? I only want 80
roubles. But if you don’t wish to, never mind,” she added, gravely.
“On the contrary, I am very grateful to you for this opportunity. . . . I will
bring it at once,” said Nekhludoff.
He went out into the passage, and there met one of his comrades, who
had been overhearing his conversation. Paying no heed to his chaffing,
Nekhludoff got the money out of his bag and took it to her.
“Oh, please, do not thank me; it is I who should thank you,” he said.

It was pleasant to remember all this now; pleasant to remember that he
had nearly had a quarrel with an officer who tried to make an objectionable
joke of it, and how another of his comrades had taken his part, which led to
a closer friendship between them. How successful the whole of that hunting
expedition had been, and how happy he had felt when returning to the
railway station that night. The line of sledges, the horses in tandem, glide
quickly along the narrow road that lies through the forest, now between
high trees, now between low firs weighed down by the snow, caked in
heavy lumps on their branches. A red light flashes in the dark, some one
lights an aromatic cigarette. Joseph, a bear driver, keeps running from
sledge to sledge, up to his knees in snow, and while putting things to rights
he speaks about the elk which are now going about on the deep snow and
gnawing the bark off the aspen trees, of the bears that are lying asleep in
their deep hidden dens, and his breath comes warm through the opening in
the sledge cover. All this came back to Nekhludoff’s mind; but, above all,
the joyous sense of health, strength, and freedom from care: the lungs
breathing in the frosty air so deeply that the fur cloak is drawn tightly on his
chest, the fine snow drops off the low branches on to his face, his body is
warm, his face feels fresh, and his soul is free from care, self-reproach, fear,
or desire. How beautiful it was. And now, O God! what torment, what
trouble!
Evidently Vera Doukhova was a revolutionist and imprisoned as such. He
must see her, especially as she promised to advise him how to lighten
Maslova’s lot.

CHAPTER L. THE VICE-GOVERNOR OF THE
PRISON.
Awaking early the next morning, Nekhludoff remembered what he had
done the day before, and was seized with fear.
But in spite of this fear, he was more determined than ever to continue
what he had begun.
Conscious of a sense of duty, he left the house and went to see
Maslennikoff in order to obtain from him a permission to visit Maslova in
prison, and also the Menshoffs—mother and son—about whom Maslova
had spoken to him. Nekhludoff had known this Maslennikoff a long time;
they had been in the regiment together. At that time Maslennikoff was
treasurer to the regiment.
He was a kind-hearted and zealous officer, knowing and wishing to know
nothing beyond the regiment and the Imperial family. Now Nekhludoff saw
him as an administrator, who had exchanged the regiment for an
administrative office in the government where he lived. He was married to a
rich and energetic woman, who had forced him to exchange military for
civil service. She laughed at him, and caressed him, as if he were her own
pet animal. Nekhludoff had been to see them once during the winter, but the
couple were so uninteresting to him that he had not gone again.
At the sight of Nekhludoff Maslennikoff’s face beamed all over. He had
the same fat red face, and was as corpulent and as well dressed as in his
military days. Then, he used to be always dressed in a well-brushed
uniform, made according to the latest fashion, tightly fitting his chest and
shoulders; now, it was a civil service uniform he wore, and that, too, tightly
fitted his well-fed body and showed off his broad chest, and was cut
according to the latest fashion. In spite of the difference in age
(Maslennikoff was 40), the two men were very familiar with one another.
“Halloo, old fellow! How good of you to come! Let us go and see my
wife. I have just ten minutes to spare before the meeting. My chief is away,
you know. I am at the head of the Government administration,” he said,
unable to disguise his satisfaction.

“I have come on business.”
“What is it?” said Maslennikoff, in an anxious and severe tone, putting
himself at once on his guard.
“There is a person, whom I am very much interested in, in prison” (at the
word “prison” Maslennikoff’s face grew stern); “and I should like to have
an interview in the office, and not in the common visiting-room. I have
been told it depended on you.”
“Certainly, mon cher,” said Maslennikoff, putting both hands on
Nekhludoff’s knees, as if to tone down his grandeur; “but remember, I am
monarch only for an hour.”
“Then will you give me an order that will enable me to see her?”
“It’s a woman?”
“Yes.”
“What is she there for?”
“Poisoning, but she has been unjustly condemned.”
“Yes, there you have it, your justice administered by jury, ils n’en font
point d’autres,” he said, for some unknown reason, in French. “I know you
do not agree with me, but it can’t be helped, c’est mon opinion bien
arretee,” he added, giving utterance to an opinion he had for the last twelve
months been reading in the retrograde Conservative paper. “I know you are
a Liberal.”
“I don’t know whether I am a Liberal or something else,” Nekhludoff
said, smiling; it always surprised him to find himself ranked with a political
party and called a Liberal, when he maintained that a man should be heard
before he was judged, that before being tried all men were equal, that
nobody at all ought to be ill-treated and beaten, but especially those who
had not yet been condemned by law. “I don’t know whether I am a Liberal
or not; but I do know that however had the present way of conducting a trial
is, it is better than the old.”
“And whom have you for an advocate?”
“I have spoken to Fanarin.”
“Dear me, Fanarin!” said Meslennikoff, with a grimace, recollecting how
this Fanarin had examined him as a witness at a trial the year before and
had, in the politest manner, held him up to ridicule for half an hour.

“I should not advise you to have anything to do with him. Fanarin est un
homme tare.”
“I have one more request to make,” said Nekhludoff, without answering
him. “There’s a girl whom I knew long ago, a teacher; she is a very pitiable
little thing, and is now also imprisoned, and would like to see me. Could
you give me a permission to visit her?”
Meslennikoff bent his head on one side and considered.
“She’s a political one?”
“Yes, I have been told so.”
“Well, you see, only relatives get permission to visit political prisoners.
Still, I’ll give you an open order. Je sais que vous n’abuserez pas. What’s
the name of your protegee? Doukhova? Elle est jolie?”
“Hideuse.”
Maslennikoff shook his head disapprovingly, went up to the table, and
wrote on a sheet of paper, with a printed heading: “The bearer, Prince
Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff, is to be allowed to interview in the prison
office the meschanka Maslova, and also the medical assistant, Doukhova,”
and he finished with an elaborate flourish.
“Now you’ll be able to see what order we have got there. And it is very
difficult to keep order, it is so crowded, especially with people condemned
to exile; but I watch strictly, and love the work. You will see they are very
comfortable and contented. But one must know how to deal with them.
Only a few days ago we had a little trouble—insubordination; another
would have called it mutiny, and would have made many miserable, but
with us it all passed quietly. We must have solicitude on one hand, firmness
and power on the other,” and he clenched the fat, white, turquoise-ringed
fist, which issued out of the starched cuff of his shirt sleeve, fastened with a
gold stud. “Solicitude and firm power.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Nekhludoff. “I went there twice,
and felt very much depressed.”
“Do you know, you ought to get acquainted with the Countess Passek,”
continued Maslennikoff, growing talkative. “She has given herself up
entirely to this sort of work. Elle fait beaucoup de bien. Thanks to her—and,
perhaps I may add without false modesty, to me—everything has been
changed, changed in such a way that the former horrors no longer exist, and

they are really quite comfortable there. Well, you’ll see. There’s Fanarin. I
do not know him personally; besides, my social position keeps our ways
apart; but he is positively a bad man, and besides, he takes the liberty of
saying such things in the court—such things!”
“Well, thank you,” Nekhludoff said, taking the paper, and without
listening further he bade good-day to his former comrade.
“And won’t you go in to see my wife?”
“No, pray excuse me; I have no time now.”
“Dear me, why she will never forgive me,” said Maslennikoff,
accompanying his old acquaintance down to the first landing, as he was in
the habit of doing to persons of not the greatest, but the second greatest
importance, with whom he classed Nekhludoff; “now do go in, if only for a
moment.”
But Nekhludoff remained firm; and while the footman and the door-
keeper rushed to give him his stick and overcoat, and opened the door,
outside of which there stood a policeman, Nekhludoff repeated that he
really could not come in.
“Well, then; on Thursday, please. It is her ‘at-home.’ I will tell her you
will come,” shouted Maslennikoff from the stairs.

CHAPTER LI. THE CELLS.
Nekhludoff drove that day straight from Maslennikoff’s to the prison,
and went to the inspector’s lodging, which he now knew. He was again
struck by the sounds of the same piano of inferior quality; but this time it
was not a rhapsody that was being played, but exercises by Clementi, again
with the same vigour, distinctness, and quickness. The servant with the
bandaged eye said the inspector was in, and showed Nekhludoff to a small
drawing-room, in which there stood a sofa and, in front of it, a table, with a
large lamp, which stood on a piece of crochet work, and the paper shade of
which was burnt on one side. The chief inspector entered, with his usual sad
and weary look.
“Take a seat, please. What is it you want?” he said, buttoning up the
middle button of his uniform.
“I have just been to the vice-governor’s, and got this order from him. I
should like to see the prisoner Maslova.”
“Markova?” asked the inspector, unable to bear distinctly because of the
music.
“Maslova!”
“Well, yes.” The inspector got up and went to the door whence proceeded
Clementi’s roulades.
“Mary, can’t you stop just a minute?” he said, in a voice that showed that
this music was the bane of his life. “One can’t hear a word.”
The piano was silent, but one could hear the sound of reluctant steps, and
some one looked in at the door.
The inspector seemed to feel eased by the interval of silence, lit a thick
cigarette of weak tobacco, and offered one to Nekhludoff.
Nekhludoff refused.
“What I want is to see Maslova.”
“Oh, yes, that can be managed. Now, then, what do you want?” he said,
addressing a little girl of five or six, who came into the room and walked up

to her father with her head turned towards Nekhludoff, and her eyes fixed
on him.
“There, now, you’ll fall down,” said the inspector, smiling, as the little
girl ran up to him, and, not looking where she was going, caught her foot in
a little rug.
“Well, then, if I may, I shall go.”
“It’s not very convenient to see Maslova to-day,” said the inspector.
“How’s that?”
“Well, you know, it’s all your own fault,” said the inspector, with a slight
smile. “Prince, give her no money into her hands. If you like, give it me. I
will keep it for her. You see, you gave her some money yesterday; she got
some spirits (it’s an evil we cannot manage to root out), and to-day she is
quite tipsy, even violent.”
“Can this be true?”
“Oh, yes, it is. I have even been obliged to have recourse to severe
measures, and to put her into a separate cell. She is a quiet woman in an
ordinary way. But please do not give her any money. These people are so
—” What had happened the day before came vividly back to Nekhludoff’s
mind, and again he was seized with fear.
“And Doukhova, a political prisoner; might I see her?”
“Yes, if you like,” said the inspector. He embraced the little girl, who was
still looking at Nekhludoff, got up, and, tenderly motioning her aside, went
into the ante-room. Hardly had he got into the overcoat which the maid
helped him to put on, and before he had reached the door, the distinct
sounds of Clementi’s roulades again began.
“She entered the Conservatoire, but there is such disorder there. She has
a great gift,” said the inspector, as they went down the stairs. “She means to
play at concerts.”
The inspector and Nekhludoff arrived at the prison. The gates were
instantly opened as they appeared. The jailers, with their fingers lifted to
their caps, followed the inspector with their eyes. Four men, with their
heads half shaved, who were carrying tubs filled with something, cringed
when they saw the inspector. One of them frowned angrily, his black eyes
glaring.

“Of course a talent like that must be developed; it would not do to bury
it, but in a small lodging, you know, it is rather hard.” The inspector went
on with the conversation, taking no notice of the prisoners.
“Who is it you want to see?”
“Doukhova.”
“Oh, she’s in the tower. You’ll have to wait a little,” he said.
“Might I not meanwhile see the prisoners Menshoff, mother and son,
who are accused of incendiarism?”
“Oh, yes. Cell No. 21. Yes, they can be sent for.”
“But might I not see Menshoff in his cell?”
“Oh, you’ll find the waiting-room more pleasant.”
“No. I should prefer the cell. It is more interesting.”
“Well, you have found something to be interested in!”
Here the assistant, a smartly-dressed officer, entered the side door.
“Here, see the Prince into Menshoff’s cell, No. 21,” said the inspector to
his assistant, “and then take him to the office. And I’ll go and call—What’s
her name? Vera Doukhova.”
The inspector’s assistant was young, with dyed moustaches, and
diffusing the smell of eau-de-cologne. “This way, please,” he said to
Nekhludoff, with a pleasant smile. “Our establishment interests you?”
“Yes, it does interest me; and, besides, I look upon it as a duty to help a
man who I heard was confined here, though innocent.”
The assistant shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, that may happen,” he said quietly, politely stepping aside to let the
visitor enter, the stinking corridor first. “But it also happens that they lie.
Here we are.”
The doors of the cells were open, and some of the prisoners were in the
corridor. The assistant nodded slightly to the jailers, and cast a side glance
at the prisoners, who, keeping close to the wall, crept back to their cells, or
stood like soldiers, with their arms at their sides, following the official with
their eyes. After passing through one corridor, the assistant showed
Nekhludoff into another to the left, separated from the first by an iron door.
This corridor was darker, and smelt even worse than the first. The corridor

had doors on both sides, with little holes in them about an inch in diameter.
There was only an old jailer, with an unpleasant face, in this corridor.
“Where is Menshoff?” asked the inspector’s assistant.
“The eighth cell to the left.”
“And these? Are they occupied?” asked Nekhludoff.
“Yes, all but one.”

CHAPTER LII. NO. 21.
“May I look in?” asked Nekhludoff.

“Oh, certainly,” answered the assistant, smiling, and turned to the jailer
with some question.
Nekhludoff looked into one of the little holes, and saw a tall young man
pacing up and down the cell. When the man heard some one at the door he
looked up with a frown, but continued walking up and down.
Nekhludoff looked into another hole. His eye met another large eye
looking out of the hole at him, and he quickly stepped aside. In the third cell
he saw a very small man asleep on the bed, covered, head and all, with his
prison cloak. In the fourth a broad-faced man was sitting with his elbows on
his knees and his head low down. At the sound of footsteps this man raised
his head and looked up. His face, especially his large eyes, bore the
expression of hopeless dejection. One could see that it did not even interest
him to know who was looking into his cell. Whoever it might be, he
evidently hoped for nothing good from him. Nekhludoff was seized with
dread, and went to Menshoff’s cell, No. 21, without stopping to look
through any more holes. The jailer unlocked the door and opened it. A
young man, with long neck, well-developed muscles, a small head, and
kind, round eyes, stood by the bed, hastily putting on his cloak, and looking
at the newcomers with a frightened face. Nekhludoff was specially struck
by the kind, round eyes that were throwing frightened and inquiring glances
in turns at him, at the jailer, and at the assistant, and back again.
“Here’s a gentleman wants to inquire into your affair.”
“Thank you kindly.”
“Yes, I was told about you,” Nekhludoff said, going through the cell up
to the dirty grated window, “and I should like to hear all about it from
yourself.”
Menshoff also came up to the window, and at once started telling his
story, at first looking shyly at the inspector’s assistant, but growing
gradually bolder. When the assistant left the cell and went into the corridor

to give some order the man grew quite bold. The story was told with the
accent and in the manner common to a most ordinary good peasant lad. To
hear it told by a prisoner dressed in this degrading clothing, and inside a
prison, seemed very strange to Nekhludoff. Nekhludoff listened, and at the
same time kept looking around him—at the low bedstead with its straw
mattress, the window and the dirty, damp wall, and the piteous face and
form of this unfortunate, disfigured peasant in his prison cloak and shoes,
and he felt sadder and sadder, and would have liked not to believe what this
good-natured fellow was saying. It seemed too dreadful to think that men
could do such a thing as to take a man, dress him in convict clothes, and put
him in this horrible place without any reason only because he himself had
been injured. And yet the thought that this seemingly true story, told with
such a good-natured expression on the face, might be an invention and a lie
was still more dreadful. This was the story: The village public-house keeper
had enticed the young fellow’s wife. He tried to get justice by all sorts of
means. But everywhere the public-house keeper managed to bribe the
officials, and was acquitted. Once, he took his wife back by force, but she
ran away next day. Then he came to demand her back, but, though he saw
her when he came in, the public-house keeper told him she was not there,
and ordered him to go away. He would not go, so the public-house keeper
and his servant beat him so that they drew blood. The next day a fire broke
out in the public-house, and the young man and his mother were accused of
having set the house on fire. He had not set it on fire, but was visiting a
friend at the time.
“And it is true that you did not set it on fire?”
“It never entered my head to do it, sir. It must be my enemy that did it
himself. They say he had only just insured it. Then they said it was mother
and I that did it, and that we had threatened him. It is true I once did go for
him, my heart couldn’t stand it any longer.”
“Can this be true?”
“God is my witness it is true. Oh, sir, be so good—” and Nekhludoff had
some difficulty to prevent him from bowing down to the ground. “You see I
am perishing without any reason.” His face quivered and he turned up the
sleeve of his cloak and began to cry, wiping the tears with the sleeve of his
dirty shirt.
“Are you ready?” asked the assistant.

“Yes. Well, cheer up. We will consult a good lawyer, and will do what we
can,” said Nekhludoff, and went out. Menshoff stood close to the door, so
that the jailer knocked him in shutting it, and while the jailer was locking it
he remained looking out through the little hole.

CHAPTER LIII. VICTIMS OF GOVERNMENT.
Passing back along the broad corridor (it was dinner time, and the cell
doors were open), among the men dressed in their light yellow cloaks,
short, wide trousers, and prison shoes, who were looking eagerly at him,
Nekhludoff felt a strange mixture of sympathy for them, and horror and
perplexity at the conduct of those who put and kept them here, and, besides,
he felt, he knew not why, ashamed of himself calmly examining it all.
In one of the corridors, some one ran, clattering with his shoes, in at the
door of a cell. Several men came out from here, and stood in Nekhludoff’s
way, bowing to him.
“Please, your honour (we don’t know what to call you), get our affair
settled somehow.”
“I am not an official. I know nothing about it.”
“Well, anyhow, you come from outside; tell somebody—one of the
authorities, if need be,” said an indignant voice. “Show some pity on us, as
a human being. Here we are suffering the second month for nothing.”
“What do you mean? Why?” said Nekhludoff.
“Why? We ourselves don’t know why, but are sitting here the second
month.”
“Yes, it’s quite true, and it is owing to an accident,” said the inspector.
“These people were taken up because they had no passports, and ought to
have been sent back to their native government; but the prison there is
burnt, and the local authorities have written, asking us not to send them on.
So we have sent all the other passportless people to their different
governments, but are keeping these.”
“What! For no other reason than that?” Nekhludoff exclaimed, stopping
at the door.
A crowd of about forty men, all dressed in prison clothes, surrounded
him and the assistant, and several began talking at once. The assistant
stopped them.
“Let some one of you speak.”

A tall, good-looking peasant, a stone-mason, of about fifty, stepped out
from the rest. He told Nekhludoff that all of them had been ordered back to
their homes and were now being kept in prison because they had no
passports, yet they had passports which were only a fortnight overdue. The
same thing had happened every year; they had many times omitted to renew
their passports till they were overdue, and nobody had ever said anything;
but this year they had been taken up and were being kept in prison the
second month, as if they were criminals.
“We are all masons, and belong to the same artel. We are told that the
prison in our government is burnt, but this is not our fault. Do help us.”
Nekhludoff listened, but hardly understood what the good-looking old
man was saying, because his attention was riveted to a large, dark-grey,
many-legged louse that was creeping along the good-looking man’s cheek.
“How’s that? Is it possible for such a reason?” Nekhludoff said, turning
to the assistant.
“Yes, they should have been sent off and taken back to their homes,”
calmly said the assistant, “but they seem to have been forgotten or
something.”
Before the assistant had finished, a small, nervous man, also in prison
dress, came out of the crowd, and, strangely contorting his mouth, began to
say that they were being ill-used for nothing.
“Worse than dogs,” he began.
“Now, now; not too much of this. Hold your tongue, or you know—”
“What do I know?” screamed the little man, desperately. “What is our
crime?”
“Silence!” shouted the assistant, and the little man was silent.
“But what is the meaning of all this?” Nekhludoff thought to himself as
he came out of the cell, while a hundred eyes were fixed upon him through
the openings of the cell doors and from the prisoners that met him, making
him feel as if he were running the gauntlet.
“Is it really possible that perfectly innocent people are kept here?”
Nekhludoff uttered when they left the corridor.
“What would you have us do? They lie so. To hear them talk they are all
of them innocent,” said the inspector’s assistant. “But it does happen that

some are really imprisoned for nothing.”
“Well, these have done nothing.”
“Yes, we must admit it. Still, the people are fearfully spoilt. There are
such types—desperate fellows, with whom one has to look sharp. To-day
two of that sort had to be punished.”
“Punished? How?”
“Flogged with a birch-rod, by order.”
“But corporal punishment is abolished.”
“Not for such as are deprived of their rights. They are still liable to it.”
Nekhludoff thought of what he had seen the day before while waiting in
the hall, and now understood that the punishment was then being inflicted,
and the mixed feeling of curiosity, depression, perplexity, and moral nausea,
that grew into physical sickness, took hold of him more strongly than ever
before.
Without listening to the inspector’s assistant, or looking round, he
hurriedly left the corridor, and went to the office. The inspector was in the
office, occupied with other business, and had forgotten to send for
Doukhova. He only remembered his promise to have her called when
Nekhludoff entered the office.
“Sit down, please. I’ll send for her at once,” said the inspector.

CHAPTER LIV. PRISONERS AND FRIENDS.
The office consisted of two rooms. The first room, with a large,
dilapidated stove and two dirty windows, had a black measure for
measuring the prisoners in one corner, and in another corner hung a large
image of Christ, as is usual in places where they torture people. In this room
stood several jailers. In the next room sat about twenty persons, men and
women in groups and in pairs, talking in low voices. There was a writing
table by the window.
The inspector sat down by the table, and offered Nekhludoff a chair
beside him. Nekhludoff sat down, and looked at the people in the room.
The first who drew his attention was a young man with a pleasant face,
dressed in a short jacket, standing in front of a middle-aged woman with
dark eyebrows, and he was eagerly telling her something and gesticulating
with his hands. Beside them sat an old man, with blue spectacles, holding
the hand of a young woman in prisoner’s clothes, who was telling him
something. A schoolboy, with a fixed, frightened look on his face, was
gazing at the old man. In one corner sat a pair of lovers. She was quite
young and pretty, and had short, fair hair, looked energetic, and was
elegantly dressed; he had fine features, wavy hair, and wore a rubber jacket.
They sat in their corner and seemed stupefied with love. Nearest to the table
sat a grey-haired woman dressed in black, evidently the mother of a young,
consumptive-looking fellow, in the same kind of jacket. Her head lay on his
shoulder. She was trying to say something, but the tears prevented her from
speaking; she began several times, but had to stop. The young man held a
paper in his hand, and, apparently not knowing what to do, kept folding and
pressing it with an angry look on his face.
Beside them was a short-haired, stout, rosy girl, with very prominent
eyes, dressed in a grey dress and a cape; she sat beside the weeping mother,
tenderly stroking her. Everything about this girl was beautiful; her large,
white hands, her short, wavy hair, her firm nose and lips, but the chief
charm of her face lay in her kind, truthful hazel eyes. The beautiful eyes
turned away from the mother for a moment when Nekhludoff came in, and
met his look. But she turned back at once and said something to the mother.

Not far from the lovers a dark, dishevelled man, with a gloomy face, sat
angrily talking to a beardless visitor, who looked as if he belonged to the
Scoptsy sect.
At the very door stood a young man in a rubber jacket, who seemed more
concerned about the impression he produced on the onlooker than about
what he was saying. Nekhludoff, sitting by the inspector’s side, looked
round with strained curiosity. A little boy with closely-cropped hair came up
to him and addressed him in a thin little voice.
“And whom are you waiting for?”
Nekhludoff was surprised at the question, but looking at the boy, and
seeing the serious little face with its bright, attentive eyes fixed on him,
answered him seriously that he was waiting for a woman of his
acquaintance.
“Is she, then, your sister?” the boy asked.
“No, not my sister,” Nekhludoff answered in surprise.
“And with whom are you here?” he inquired of the boy.
“I? With mamma; she is a political one,” he replied.
“Mary Pavlovna, take Kolia!” said the inspector, evidently considering
Nekhludoff’s conversation with the boy illegal.
Mary Pavlovna, the beautiful girl who had attracted Nekhludoff’s
attention, rose tall and erect, and with firm, almost manly steps, approached
Nekhludoff and the boy.
“What is he asking you? Who you are?” she inquired with a slight smile,
and looking straight into his face with a trustful look in her kind, prominent
eyes, and as simply as if there could be no doubt whatever that she was and
must be on sisterly terms with everybody.
“He likes to know everything,” she said, looking at the boy with so sweet
and kind a smile that both the boy and Nekhludoff were obliged to smile
back.
“He was asking me whom I have come to see.”
“Mary Pavlovna, it is against the rules to speak to strangers. You know it
is,” said the inspector.
“All right, all right,” she said, and went back to the consumptive lad’s
mother, holding Kolia’s little hand in her large, white one, while he

continued gazing up into her face.
“Whose is this little boy?” Nekhludoff asked of the inspector.
“His mother is a political prisoner, and he was born in prison,” said the
inspector, in a pleased tone, as if glad to point out how exceptional his
establishment was.
“Is it possible?”
“Yes, and now he is going to Siberia with her.”
“And that young girl?”
“I cannot answer your question,” said the inspector, shrugging his
shoulders. “Besides, here is Doukhova.”

CHAPTER LV. VERA DOUKHOVA EXPLAINS.
Through a door, at the back of the room, entered, with a wriggling gait,
the thin, yellow Vera Doukhova, with her large, kind eyes.
“Thanks for having come,” she said, pressing Nekhludoff’s hand. “Do
you remember me? Let us sit down.”
“I did not expect to see you like this.”
“Oh, I am very happy. It is so delightful, so delightful, that I desire
nothing better,” said Vera Doukhova, with the usual expression of fright in
the large, kind, round eyes fixed on Nekhludoff, and twisting the terribly
thin, sinewy neck, surrounded by the shabby, crumpled, dirty collar of her
bodice. Nekhludoff asked her how she came to be in prison.
In answer she began relating all about her affairs with great animation.
Her speech was intermingled with a great many long words, such as
propaganda, disorganisation, social groups, sections and sub-sections, about
which she seemed to think everybody knew, but which Nekhludoff had
never heard of.
She told him all the secrets of the Nardovolstvo, [literally, “People’s
Freedom,” a revolutionary movement] evidently convinced that he was
pleased to hear them. Nekhludoff looked at her miserable little neck, her
thin, unkempt hair, and wondered why she had been doing all these strange
things, and why she was now telling all this to him. He pitied her, but not as
he had pitied Menshoff, the peasant, kept for no fault of his own in the
stinking prison. She was pitiable because of the confusion that filled her
mind. It was clear that she considered herself a heroine, and was ready to
give her life for a cause, though she could hardly have explained what that
cause was and in what its success would lie.
The business that Vera Doukhova wanted to see Nekhludoff about was
the following: A friend of hers, who had not even belonged to their “sub-
group,” as she expressed it, had been arrested with her about five months
before, and imprisoned in the Petropavlovsky fortress because some
prohibited books and papers (which she had been asked to keep) had been
found in her possession. Vera Doukhova felt herself in some measure to

blame for her friend’s arrest, and implored Nekhludoff, who had
connections among influential people, to do all he could in order to set this
friend free.
Besides this, Doukhova asked him to try and get permission for another
friend of hers, Gourkevitch (who was also imprisoned in the
Petropavlovsky fortress), to see his parents, and to procure some scientific
books which he required for his studies. Nekhludoff promised to do what he
could when he went to Petersburg.
As to her own story, this is what she said: Having finished a course of
midwifery, she became connected with a group of adherents to the
Nardovolstvo, and made up her mind to agitate in the revolutionary
movement. At first all went on smoothly. She wrote proclamations and
occupied herself with propaganda work in the factories; then, an important
member having been arrested, their papers were seized and all concerned
were arrested. “I was also arrested, and shall be exiled. But what does it
matter? I feel perfectly happy.” She concluded her story with a piteous
smile.
Nekhludoff made some inquiries concerning the girl with the prominent
eyes. Vera Doukhova told him that this girl was the daughter of a general,
and had been long attached to the revolutionary party, and was arrested
because she had pleaded guilty to having shot a gendarme. She lived in a
house with some conspirators, where they had a secret printing press. One
night, when the police came to search this house, the occupiers resolved to
defend themselves, put out the light, and began destroying the things that
might incriminate them. The police forced their way in, and one of the
conspirators fired, and mortally wounded a gendarme. When an inquiry was
instituted, this girl said that it was she who had fired, although she had
never had a revolver in her hands, and would not have hurt a fly. And she
kept to it, and was now condemned to penal servitude in Siberia.
“An altruistic, fine character,” said Vera Doukhova, approvingly.
The third business that Vera Doukhova wanted to talk about concerned
Maslova. She knew, as everybody does know in prison, the story of
Maslova’s life and his connection with her, and advised him to take steps to
get her removed into the political prisoner’s ward, or into the hospital to
help to nurse the sick, of which there were very many at that time, so that
extra nurses were needed.

Nekhludoff thanked her for the advice, and said he would try to act upon
it.

CHAPTER LVI. NEKHLUDOFF AND THE
PRISONERS.
Their conversation was interrupted by the inspector, who said that the
time was up, and the prisoners and their friends must part. Nekhludoff took
leave of Vera Doukhova and went to the door, where he stopped to watch
what was going on.
The inspector’s order called forth only heightened animation among the
prisoners in the room, but no one seemed to think of going. Some rose and
continued to talk standing, some went on talking without rising. A few
began crying and taking leave of each other. The mother and her
consumptive son seemed especially pathetic. The young fellow kept
twisting his bit of paper and his face seemed angry, so great were his efforts
not to be infected by his mother’s emotion. The mother, hearing that it was
time to part, put her head on his shoulder and sobbed and sniffed aloud.
The girl with the prominent eyes—Nekhludoff could not help watching
her—was standing opposite the sobbing mother, and was saying something
to her in a soothing tone. The old man with the blue spectacles stood
holding his daughter’s hand and nodding in answer to what she said. The
young lovers rose, and, holding each other’s hands, looked silently into one
another’s eyes.
“These are the only two who are merry,” said a young man with a short
coat who stood by Nekhludoff’s side, also looking at those who were about
to part, and pointed to the lovers. Feeling Nekhludoff’s and the young
man’s eyes fixed on them, the lovers—the young man with the rubber coat
and the pretty girl—stretched out their arms, and with their hands clasped in
each other’s, danced round and round again. “To-night they are going to be
married here in prison, and she will follow him to Siberia,” said the young
man.
“What is he?”
“A convict, condemned to penal servitude. Let those two at least have a
little joy, or else it is too painful,” the young man added, listening to the
sobs of the consumptive lad’s mother.

“Now, my good people! Please, please do not oblige me to have recourse
to severe measures,” the inspector said, repeating the same words several
times over. “Do, please,” he went on in a weak, hesitating manner. “It is
high time. What do you mean by it? This sort of thing is quite impossible. I
am now asking you for the last time,” he repeated wearily, now putting out
his cigarette and then lighting another.
It was evident that, artful, old, and common as were the devices enabling
men to do evil to others without feeling responsible for it, the inspector
could not but feel conscious that he was one of those who were guilty of
causing the sorrow which manifested itself in this room. And it was
apparent that this troubled him sorely. At length the prisoners and their
visitors began to go—the first out of the inner, the latter out of the outer
door. The man with the rubber jacket passed out among them, and the
consumptive youth and the dishevelled man. Mary Pavlovna went out with
the boy born in prison.
The visitors went out too. The old man with the blue spectacles, stepping
heavily, went out, followed by Nekhludoff.
“Yes, a strange state of things this,” said the talkative young man, as if
continuing an interrupted conversation, as he descended the stairs side by
side with Nekhludoff. “Yet we have reason to be grateful to the inspector
who does not keep strictly to the rules, kind-hearted fellow. If they can get a
talk it does relieve their hearts a bit, after all!”
While talking to the young man, who introduced himself as Medinzeff,
Nekhludoff reached the hall. There the inspector came up to them with
weary step.
“If you wish to see Maslova,” he said, apparently desiring to be polite to
Nekhludoff, “please come to-morrow.”
“Very well,” answered Nekhludoff, and hurried away, experiencing more
than ever that sensation of moral nausea which he always felt on entering
the prison.
The sufferings of the evidently innocent Menshoff seemed terrible, and
not so much his physical suffering as the perplexity, the distrust in the good
and in God which he must feel, seeing the cruelty of the people who
tormented him without any reason.

Terrible were the disgrace and sufferings cast on these hundreds of
guiltless people simply because something was not written on paper as it
should have been. Terrible were the brutalised jailers, whose occupation is
to torment their brothers, and who were certain that they were fulfilling an
important and useful duty; but most terrible of all seemed this sickly,
elderly, kind-hearted inspector, who was obliged to part mother and son,
father and daughter, who were just the same sort of people as he and his
own children.
“What is it all for?” Nekhludoff asked himself, and could not find an
answer.

CHAPTER LVII. THE VICE-GOVERNOR’S
“AT-HOME”.
The next day Nekhludoff went to see the advocate, and spoke to him
about the Menshoffs’ case, begging him to undertake their defence. The
advocate promised to look into the case, and if it turned out to be as
Nekhludoff said he would in all probability undertake the defence free of
charge. Then Nekhludoff told him of the 130 men who were kept in prison
owing to a mistake. “On whom did it depend? Whose fault was it?”
The advocate was silent for a moment, evidently anxious to give a correct
reply.
“Whose fault is it? No one’s,” he said, decidedly. “Ask the Procureur,
he’ll say it is the Governor’s; ask the Governor, he’ll say it is the
Procureur’s fault. No one is in fault.”
“I am just going to see the Vice-Governor. I shall tell him.”
“Oh, that’s quite useless,” said the advocate, with a smile. “He is such a
—he is not a relation or friend of yours?—such a blockhead, if I may say
so, and yet a crafty animal at the same time.”
Nekhludoff remembered what Maslennikoff had said about the advocate,
and did not answer, but took leave and went on to Maslennikoff’s. He had
to ask Maslennikoff two things: about Maslova’s removal to the prison
hospital, and about the 130 passportless men innocently imprisoned.
Though it was very hard to petition a man whom he did not respect, and by
whose orders men were flogged, yet it was the only means of gaining his
end, and he had to go through with it.
As he drove up to Maslennikoff’s house Nekhludoff saw a number of
different carriages by the front door, and remembered that it was
Maslennikoff’s wife’s “at-home” day, to which he had been invited. At the
moment Nekhludoff drove up there was a carriage in front of the door, and
a footman in livery, with a cockade in his hat, was helping a lady down the
doorstep. She was holding up her train, and showing her thin ankles, black
stockings, and slippered feet. Among the carriages was a closed landau,
which he knew to be the Korchagins’.

The grey-haired, red-checked coachman took off his hat and bowed in a
respectful yet friendly manner to Nekhludoff, as to a gentleman he knew
well. Nekhludoff had not had time to inquire for Maslennikoff, when the
latter appeared on the carpeted stairs, accompanying a very important guest
not only to the first landing but to the bottom of the stairs. This very
important visitor, a military man, was speaking in French about a lottery for
the benefit of children’s homes that were to be founded in the city, and
expressed the opinion that this was a good occupation for the ladies. “It
amuses them, and the money comes.”
“Qu’elles s’amusent et que le bon dieu les benisse. M. Nekhludoff! How
d’you do? How is it one never sees you?” he greeted Nekhludoff. “Allez
presenter vos devoirs a Madame. And the Korchagins are here et Nadine
Bukshevden. Toutes les jolies femmes de la ville,” said the important guest,
slightly raising his uniformed shoulders as he presented them to his own
richly liveried servant to have his military overcoat put on. “Au revoir, mon
cher.” And he pressed Maslennikoff’s hand.
“Now, come up; I am so glad,” said Maslennikoff, grasping Nekhludoff’s
hand. In spite of his corpulency Maslennikoff hurried quickly up the stairs.
He was in particularly good spirits, owing to the attention paid him by the
important personage. Every such attention gave him the same sense of
delight as is felt by an affectionate dog when its master pats it, strokes it, or
scratches its ears. It wags its tail, cringes, jumps about, presses its ears
down, and madly rushes about in a circle. Maslennikoff was ready to do the
same. He did not notice the serious expression on Nekhludoff’s face, paid
no heed to his words, but pulled him irresistibly towards the drawing-room,
so that it was impossible for Nekhludoff not to follow. “Business after
wards. I shall do whatever you want,” said Meslennikoff, as he drew
Nekhludoff through the dancing hall. “Announce Prince Nekhludoff,” he
said to a footman, without stopping on his way. The footman started off at a
trot and passed them.
“Vous n’avez qu’ a ordonner. But you must see my wife. As it is, I got it
for letting you go without seeing her last time.”
By the time they reached the drawing-room the footman had already
announced Nekhludoff, and from between the bonnets and heads that
surrounded it the smiling face of Anna Ignatievna, the Vice-Governor’s
wife, beamed on Nekhludoff. At the other end of the drawing-room several

ladies were seated round the tea-table, and some military men and some
civilians stood near them. The clatter of male and female voices went on
unceasingly.
“Enfin! you seem to have quite forgotten us. How have we offended?”
With these words, intended to convey an idea of intimacy which had never
existed between herself and Nekhludoff, Anna Ignatievna greeted the
newcomer.
“You are acquainted?—Madam Tilyaevsky, M. Chernoff. Sit down a bit
nearer. Missy vene donc a notre table on vous apportera votre the . . . And
you,” she said, having evidently forgotten his name, to an officer who was
talking to Missy, “do come here. A cup of tea, Prince?”
“I shall never, never agree with you. It’s quite simple; she did not love,” a
woman’s voice was heard saying.
“But she loved tarts.”
“Oh, your eternal silly jokes!” put in, laughingly, another lady
resplendent in silks, gold, and jewels.
“C’est excellent these little biscuits, and so light. I think I’ll take
another.”
“Well, are you moving soon?”
“Yes, this is our last day. That’s why we have come. Yes, it must be
lovely in the country; we are having a delightful spring.”
Missy, with her hat on, in a dark-striped dress of some kind that fitted her
like a skin, was looking very handsome. She blushed when she saw
Nekhludoff.
“And I thought you had left,” she said to him.
“I am on the point of leaving. Business is keeping me in town, and it is
on business I have come here.”
“Won’t you come to see mamma? She would like to see you,” she said,
and knowing that she was saying what was not true, and that he knew it
also, she blushed still more.
“I fear I shall scarcely have time,” Nekhludoff said gloomily, trying to
appear as if he had not noticed her blush. Missy frowned angrily, shrugged
her shoulders, and turned towards an elegant officer, who grasped the empty

cup she was holding, and knocking his sword against the chairs, manfully
carried the cup across to another table.
“You must contribute towards the Home fund.”
“I am not refusing, but only wish to keep my bounty fresh for the lottery.
There I shall let it appear in all its glory.”
“Well, look out for yourself,” said a voice, followed by an evidently
feigned laugh.
Anna Ignatievna was in raptures; her “at-home” had turned out a brilliant
success. “Micky tells me you are busying yourself with prison work. I can
understand you so well,” she said to Nekhludoff. “Micky (she meant her fat
husband, Maslennikoff) may have other defects, but you know how kind-
hearted he is. All these miserable prisoners are his children. He does not
regard them in any other light. Il est d’une bonte—-” and she stopped,
finding no words to do justice to this bonte of his, and quickly turned to a
shrivelled old woman with bows of lilac ribbon all over, who came in just
then.
Having said as much as was absolutely necessary, and with as little
meaning as conventionality required, Nekhludoff rose and went up to
Meslennikoff. “Can you give me a few minutes’ hearing, please?”
“Oh, yes. Well, what is it?”
“Let us come in here.”
They entered a small Japanese sitting-room, and sat down by the window.

CHAPTER LVIII. THE VICE-GOVERNOR
SUSPICIOUS.
“Well? Je suis a vous. Will you smoke? But wait a bit; we must be
careful and not make a mess here,” said Maslennikoff, and brought an
ashpan. “Well?”
“There are two matters I wish to ask you about.”
“Dear me!”
An expression of gloom and dejection came over Maslennikoff’s
countenance, and every trace of the excitement, like that of the dog’s whom
its master has scratched behind the cars, vanished completely. The sound of
voices reached them from the drawing-room. A woman’s voice was heard,
saying, “Jamais je ne croirais,” and a man’s voice from the other side
relating something in which the names of la Comtesse Voronzoff and Victor
Apraksine kept recurring. A hum of voices, mixed with laughter, came from
another side. Maslennikoff tried to listen to what was going on in the
drawing-room and to what Nekhludoff was saying at the same time.
“I am again come about that same woman,” said Nekhludoff.
“Oh, yes; I know. The one innocently condemned.”
“I would like to ask that she should be appointed to serve in the prison
hospital. I have been told that this could be arranged.”
Maslennikoff compressed his lips and meditated. “That will be scarcely
possible,” he said. “However, I shall see what can be done, and shall wire
you an answer tomorrow.”
“I have been told that there were many sick, and help was needed.”
“All right, all right. I shall let you know in any case.”
“Please do,” said Nekhludoff.
The sound of a general and even a natural laugh came from the drawing-
room.
“That’s all that Victor. He is wonderfully sharp when he is in the right
vein,” said Maslennikoff.

“The next thing I wanted to tell you,” said Nekhludoff, “is that 130
persons are imprisoned only because their passports are overdue. They have
been kept here a month.”
And he related the circumstances of the case.
“How have you come to know of this?” said Maslennikoff, looking
uneasy and dissatisfied.
“I went to see a prisoner, and these men came and surrounded me in the
corridor, and asked . . .”
“What prisoner did you go to see?”
“A peasant who is kept in prison, though innocent. I have put his case
into the hands of a lawyer. But that is not the point.”
“Is it possible that people who have done no wrong are imprisoned only
because their passports are overdue? And . . .”
“That’s the Procureur’s business,” Maslennikoff interrupted, angrily.
“There, now, you see what it is you call a prompt and just form of trial. It is
the business of the Public Prosecutor to visit the prison and to find out if the
prisoners are kept there lawfully. But that set play cards; that’s all they do.”
“Am I to understand that you can do nothing?” Nekhludoff said,
despondently, remembering that the advocate had foretold that the
Governor would put the blame on the Procureur.
“Oh, yes, I can. I shall see about it at once.”
“So much the worse for her. C’est un souffre douleur,” came the voice of
a woman, evidently indifferent to what she was saying, from the drawing-
room.
“So much the better. I shall take it also,” a man’s voice was heard to say
from the other side, followed by the playful laughter of a woman, who was
apparently trying to prevent the man from taking something away from her.
“No, no; not on any account,” the woman’s voice said.
“All right, then. I shall do all this,” Maslennikoff repeated, and put out
the cigarette he held in his white, turquoise-ringed hand. “And now let us
join the ladies.”
“Wait a moment,” Nekhludoff said, stopping at the door of the drawing-
room. “I was told that some men had received corporal punishment in the
prison yesterday. Is this true?”

Maslennikoff blushed.
“Oh, that’s what you are after? No, mon cher, decidedly it won’t do to let
you in there; you want to get at everything. Come, come; Anna is calling
us,” he said, catching Nekhludoff by the arm, and again becoming as
excited as after the attention paid him by the important person, only now his
excitement was not joyful, but anxious.
Nekhludoff pulled his arm away, and without taking leave of any one and
without saying a word, he passed through the drawing-room with a dejected
look, went down into the hall, past the footman, who sprang towards him,
and out at the street door.
“What is the matter with him? What have you done to him?” asked Anna
of her husband.
“This is a la Francaise,” remarked some one.
“A la Francaise, indeed—it is a la Zoulou.”
“Oh, but he’s always been like that.”
Some one rose, some one came in, and the clatter went on its course. The
company used this episode with Nekhludoff as a convenient topic of
conversation for the rest of the “at-home.”
On the day following his visit to Maslennikoff, Nekhludoff received a
letter from him, written in a fine, firm hand, on thick, glazed paper, with a
coat-of-arms, and sealed with sealing-wax. Maslennikoff said that he had
written to the doctor concerning Maslova’s removal to the hospital, and
hoped Nekhludoff’s wish would receive attention. The letter was signed,
“Your affectionate elder comrade,” and the signature ended with a large,
firm, and artistic flourish. “Fool!” Nekhludoff could not refrain from
saying, especially because in the word “comrade” he felt Maslennikoff’s
condescension towards him, i.e., while Maslennikoff was filling this
position, morally most dirty and shameful, he still thought himself a very
important man, and wished, if not exactly to flatter Nekhludoff, at least to
show that he was not too proud to call him comrade.

CHAPTER LIX. NEKHLUDOFF’S THIRD
INTERVIEW WITH MASLOVA IN PRISON.
One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own
special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic,
apathetic, etc. Men are not like that. We may say of a man that he is more
often kind than cruel, oftener wise than stupid, oftener energetic than
apathetic, or the reverse; but it would be false to say of one man that he is
kind and wise, of another that he is wicked and foolish. And yet we always
classify mankind in this way. And this is untrue. Men are like rivers: the
water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is
more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull,
now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs
of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes
another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining
the same man, In some people these changes are very rapid, and Nekhludoff
was such a man. These changes in him were due to physical and to spiritual
causes. At this time he experienced such a change.
That feeling of triumph and joy at the renewal of life which he had
experienced after the trial and after the first interview with Katusha,
vanished completely, and after the last interview fear and revulsion took the
place of that joy. He was determined not to leave her, and not to change his
decision of marrying her, if she wished it; but it seemed very hard, and
made him suffer.
On the day after his visit to Maslennikoff, he again went to the prison to
see her.
The inspector allowed him to speak to her, only not in the advocate’s
room nor in the office, but in the women’s visiting-room. In spite of his
kindness, the inspector was more reserved with Nekhludoff than hitherto.
An order for greater caution had apparently been sent, as a result of his
conversation with Meslennikoff.
“You may see her,” the inspector said; “but please remember what I said
as regards money. And as to her removal to the hospital, that his excellency

wrote to me about, it can be done; the doctor would agree. Only she herself
does not wish it. She says, ‘Much need have I to carry out the slops for the
scurvy beggars.’ You don’t know what these people are, Prince,” he added.
Nekhludoff did not reply, but asked to have the interview. The inspector
called a jailer, whom Nekhludoff followed into the women’s visiting-room,
where there was no one but Maslova waiting. She came from behind the
grating, quiet and timid, close up to him, and said, without looking at him:
“Forgive me, Dmitri Ivanovitch, I spoke hastily the day before
yesterday.”
“It is not for me to forgive you,” Nekhludoff began.
“But all the same, you must leave me,” she interrupted, and in the terribly
squinting eyes with which she looked at him Nekhludoff read the former
strained, angry expression.
“Why should I leave you?”
“So.”
“But why so?”
She again looked up, as it seemed to him, with the same angry look.
“Well, then, thus it is,” she said. “You must leave me. It is true what I am
saying. I cannot. You just give it up altogether.” Her lips trembled and she
was silent for a moment. “It is true. I’d rather hang myself.”
Nekhludoff felt that in this refusal there was hatred and unforgiving
resentment, but there was also something besides, something good. This
confirmation of the refusal in cold blood at once quenched all the doubts in
Nekhludoff’s bosom, and brought back the serious, triumphant emotion he
had felt in relation to Katusha.
“Katusha, what I have said I will again repeat,” he uttered, very seriously.
“I ask you to marry me. If you do not wish it, and for as long as you do not
wish it, I shall only continue to follow you, and shall go where you are
taken.”
“That is your business. I shall not say anything more,” she answered, and
her lips began to tremble again.
He, too, was silent, feeling unable to speak.
“I shall now go to the country, and then to Petersburg,” he said, when he
was quieter again. “I shall do my utmost to get your—our case, I mean,

reconsidered, and by the help of God the sentence may be revoked.”
“And if it is not revoked, never mind. I have deserved it, if not in this
case, in other ways,” she said, and he saw how difficult it was for her to
keep down her tears.
“Well, have you seen Menshoff?” she suddenly asked, to hide her
emotion. “It’s true they are innocent, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Such a splendid old woman,” she said.
There was another pause.
“Well, and as to the hospital?” she suddenly said, and looking at him with
her squinting eyes. “If you like, I will go, and I shall not drink any spirits,
either.”
Nekhludoff looked into her eyes. They were smiling.
“Yes, yes, she is quite a different being,” Nekhludoff thought. After all
his former doubts, he now felt something he had never before experienced
—the certainty that love is invincible.
When Maslova returned to her noisome cell after this interview, she took
off her cloak and sat down in her place on the shelf bedstead with her hands
folded on her lap. In the cell were only the consumptive woman, the
Vladimir woman with her baby, Menshoff’s old mother, and the
watchman’s wife. The deacon’s daughter had the day before been declared
mentally diseased and removed to the hospital. The rest of the women were
away, washing clothes. The old woman was asleep, the cell door stood
open, and the watchman’s children were in the corridor outside. The
Vladimir woman, with her baby in her arms, and the watchman’s wife, with
the stocking she was knitting with deft fingers, came up to Maslova. “Well,
have you had a chat?” they asked. Maslova sat silent on the high bedstead,
swinging her legs, which did not reach to the floor.
“What’s the good of snivelling?” said the watchman’s wife. “The chief
thing’s not to go down into the dumps. Eh, Katusha? Now, then!” and she
went on, quickly moving her fingers.
Maslova did not answer.
“And our women have all gone to wash,” said the Vladimir woman. “I
heard them say much has been given in alms to-day. Quite a lot has been

brought.”
“Finashka,” called out the watchman’s wife, “where’s the little imp gone
to?”
She took a knitting needle, stuck it through both the ball and the stocking,
and went out into the corridor.
At this moment the sound of women’s voices was heard from the
corridor, and the inmates of the cell entered, with their prison shoes, but no
stockings on their feet. Each was carrying a roll, some even two. Theodosia
came at once up to Maslova.
“What’s the matter; is anything wrong?” Theodosia asked, looking
lovingly at Maslova with her clear, blue eyes. “This is for our tea,” and she
put the rolls on a shelf.
“Why, surely he has not changed his mind about marrying?” asked
Korableva.
“No, he has not, but I don’t wish to,” said Maslova, “and so I told him.”
“More fool you!” muttered Korableva in her deep tones.
“If one’s not to live together, what’s the use of marrying?” said
Theodosia.
“There’s your husband—he’s going with you,” said the watchman’s wife.
“Well, of course, we’re married,” said Theodosia. “But why should he go
through the ceremony if he is not to live with her?”
“Why, indeed! Don’t be a fool! You know if he marries her she’ll roll in
wealth,” said Korableva.
“He says, ‘Wherever they take you, I’ll follow,’” said Maslova. “If he
does, it’s well; if he does not, well also. I am not going to ask him to. Now
he is going to try and arrange the matter in Petersburg. He is related to all
the Ministers there. But, all the same, I have no need of him,” she
continued.
“Of course not,” suddenly agreed Korableva, evidently thinking about
something else as she sat examining her bag. “Well, shall we have a drop?”
“You have some,” replied Maslova. “I won’t.”

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I. PROPERTY IN LAND.
It was possible for Maslova’s case to come before the Senate in a
fortnight, at which time Nekhludoff meant to go to Petersburg, and, if need
be, to appeal to the Emperor (as the advocate who had drawn up the petition
advised) should the appeal be disregarded (and, according to the advocate,
it was best to be prepared for that, since the causes for appeal were so
slight). The party of convicts, among whom was Maslova, would very
likely leave in the beginning of June. In order to be able to follow her to
Siberia, as Nekhludoff was firmly resolved to do, he was now obliged to
visit his estates, and settle matters there. Nekhludoff first went to the
nearest, Kousminski, a large estate that lay in the black earth district, and
from which he derived the greatest part of his income.
He had lived on that estate in his childhood and youth, and had been
there twice since, and once, at his mother’s request, he had taken a German
steward there, and had with him verified the accounts. The state of things
there and the peasants’ relations to the management, i.e., the landlord, had
therefore been long known to him. The relations of the peasants to the
administration were those of utter dependence on that management.
Nekhludoff knew all this when still a university student, he had confessed
and preached Henry Georgeism, and, on the basis of that teaching, had
given the land inherited from his father to the peasants. It is true that after
entering the army, when he got into the habit of spending 20,000 roubles a
year, those former occupations ceased to be regarded as a duty, and were
forgotten, and he not only left off asking himself where the money his
mother allowed him came from, but even avoided thinking about it. But his
mother’s death, the coming into the property, and the necessity of managing
it, again raised the question as to what his position in reference to private
property in land was. A month before Nekhludoff would have answered that
he had not the strength to alter the existing order of things; that it was not
he who was administering the estate; and would one way or another have
eased his conscience, continuing to live far from his estates, and having the
money sent him. But now he decided that he could not leave things to go on
as they were, but would have to alter them in a way unprofitable to himself,

even though he had all these complicated and difficult relations with the
prison world which made money necessary, as well as a probable journey to
Siberia before him. Therefore he decided not to farm the land, but to let it to
the peasants at a low rent, to enable them to cultivate it without depending
on a landlord. More than once, when comparing the position of a landowner
with that of an owner of serfs, Nekhludoff had compared the renting of land
to the peasants instead of cultivating it with hired labour, to the old system
by which serf proprietors used to exact a money payment from their serfs in
place of labour. It was not a solution of the problem, and yet a step towards
the solution; it was a movement towards a less rude form of slavery. And it
was in this way he meant to act.
Nekhludoff reached Kousminski about noon. Trying to simplify his life
in every way, he did not telegraph, but hired a cart and pair at the station.
The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen coat, with a belt below his long
waist. He was glad to talk to the gentleman, especially because while they
were talking his broken-winded white horse and the emaciated spavined
one could go at a foot-pace, which they always liked to do.
The driver spoke about the steward at Kousminski without knowing that
he was driving “the master.” Nekhludoff had purposely not told him who he
was.
“That ostentatious German,” said the driver (who had been to town and
read novels) as he sat sideways on the box, passing his hand from the top to
the bottom of his long whip, and trying to show off his accomplishments
—“that ostentatious German has procured three light bays, and when he
drives out with his lady—-oh, my! At Christmas he had a Christmas-tree in
the big house. I drove some of the visitors there. It had ‘lectric lights; you
could not see the like of it in the whole of the government. What’s it to him,
he has cribbed a heap of money. I heard say he has bought an estate.”
Nekhludoff had imagined that he was quite indifferent to the way the
steward managed his estate, and what advantages the steward derived from
it. The words of the long-waisted driver, however, were not pleasant to hear.
A dark cloud now and then covered the sun; the larks were soaring above
the fields of winter corn; the forests were already covered with fresh young
green; the meadows speckled with grazing cattle and horses. The fields
were being ploughed, and Nekhludoff enjoyed the lovely day. But every
now and then he had an unpleasant feeling, and, when he asked himself

what it was caused by, he remembered what the driver had told him about
the way the German was managing Kousminski. When he got to his estate
and set to work this unpleasant feeling vanished.
Looking over the books in the office, and a talk with the foreman, who
naively pointed out the advantages to be derived from the facts that the
peasants had very little land of their own and that it lay in the midst of the
landlord’s fields, made Nekhludoff more than ever determined to leave off
farming and to let his land to the peasants.
From the office books and his talk with the foreman, Nekhludoff found
that two-thirds of the best of the cultivated land was still being tilled with
improved machinery by labourers receiving fixed wages, while the other
third was tilled by the peasants at the rate of five roubles per desiatin [about
two and three-quarter acres]. So that the peasants had to plough each
desiatin three times, harrow it three times, sow and mow the corn, make it
into sheaves, and deliver it on the threshing ground for five roubles, while
the same amount of work done by wage labour came to at least 10 roubles.
Everything the peasants got from the office they paid for in labour at a very
high price. They paid in labour for the use of the meadows, for wood, for
potato-stalks, and were nearly all of them in debt to the office. Thus, for the
land that lay beyond the cultivated fields, which the peasants hired, four
times the price that its value would bring in if invested at five per cent was
taken from the peasants.
Nekhludoff had known all this before, but he now saw it in a new light,
and wondered how he and others in his position could help seeing how
abnormal such conditions are. The steward’s arguments that if the land were
let to the peasants the agricultural implements would fetch next to nothing,
as it would be impossible to get even a quarter of their value for them, and
that the peasants would spoil the land, and how great a loser Nekhludoff
would be, only strengthened Nekhludoff in the opinion that he was doing a
good action in letting the land to the peasants and thus depriving himself of
a large part of his income. He decided to settle this business now, at once,
while he was there. The reaping and selling of the corn he left for the
steward to manage in due season, and also the selling of the agricultural
implements and useless buildings. But he asked his steward to call the
peasants of the three neighbouring villages that lay in the midst of his estate

(Kousminski) to a meeting, at which he would tell them of his intentions
and arrange about the price at which they were to rent the land.
With the pleasant sense of the firmness he had shown in the face of the
steward’s arguments, and his readiness to make a sacrifice, Nekhludoff left
the office, thinking over the business before him, and strolled round the
house, through the neglected flower-garden—this year the flowers were
planted in front of the steward’s house—over the tennis ground, now
overgrown with dandelions, and along the lime-tree walk, where he used to
smoke his cigar, and where he had flirted with the pretty Kirimova, his
mother’s visitor. Having briefly prepared in his mind the speech he was
going to make to the peasants, he again went in to the steward, and, after
tea, having once more arranged his thoughts, he went into the room
prepared for him in the big house, which used to be a spare bedroom.
In this clean little room, with pictures of Venice on the walls, and a
mirror between the two windows, there stood a clean bed with a spring
mattress, and by the side of it a small table, with a decanter of water,
matches, and an extinguisher. On a table by the looking-glass lay his open
portmanteau, with his dressing-case and some books in it; a Russian book,
The Investigation of the Laws of Criminality, and a German and an English
book on the same subject, which he meant to read while travelling in the
country. But it was too late to begin to-day, and he began preparing to go to
bed.
An old-fashioned inlaid mahogany arm-chair stood in the corner of the
room, and this chair, which Nekhludoff remembered standing in his
mother’s bedroom, suddenly raised a perfectly unexpected sensation in his
soul. He was suddenly filled with regret at the thought of the house that
would tumble to ruin, and the garden that would run wild, and the forest
that would be cut down, and all these farmyards, stables, sheds, machines,
horses, cows which he knew had cost so much effort, though not to himself,
to acquire and to keep. It had seemed easy to give up all this, but now it was
hard, not only to give this, but even to let the land and lose half his income.
And at once a consideration, which proved that it was unreasonable to let
the land to the peasants, and thus to destroy his property, came to his
service. “I must not hold property in land. If I possess no property in land, I
cannot keep up the house and farm. And, besides, I am going to Siberia, and
shall not need either the house or the estate,” said one voice. “All this is

so,” said another voice, “but you are not going to spend all your life in
Siberia. You may marry, and have children, and must hand the estate on to
them in as good a condition as you received it. There is a duty to the land,
too. To give up, to destroy everything is very easy; to acquire it very
difficult. Above all, you must consider your future life, and what you will
do with yourself, and you must dispose of your property accordingly. And
are you really firm in your resolve? And then, are you really acting
according to your conscience, or are you acting in order to be admired of
men?” Nekhludoff asked himself all this, and had to acknowledge that he
was influenced by the thought of what people would say about him. And the
more he thought about it the more questions arose, and the more unsolvable
they seemed.
In hopes of ridding himself of these thoughts by falling asleep, and
solving them in the morning when his head would be fresh, he lay down on
his clean bed. But it was long before he could sleep. Together with the fresh
air and the moonlight, the croaking of the frogs entered the room, mingling
with the trills of a couple of nightingales in the park and one close to the
window in a bush of lilacs in bloom. Listening to the nightingales and the
frogs, Nekhludoff remembered the inspector’s daughter, and her music, and
the inspector; that reminded him of Maslova, and how her lips trembled,
like the croaking of the frogs, when she said, “You must just leave it.” Then
the German steward began going down to the frogs, and had to be held
back, but he not only went down but turned into Maslova, who began
reproaching Nekhludoff, saying, “You are a prince, and I am a convict.”
“No, I must not give in,” thought Nekhludoff, waking up, and again asking
himself, “Is what I am doing right? I do not know, and no matter, no matter,
I must only fall asleep now.” And he began himself to descend where he
had seen the inspector and Maslova climbing down to, and there it all
ended.

CHAPTER II. EFFORTS AT LAND
RESTORATION.
The next day Nekhludoff awoke at nine o’clock. The young office clerk
who attended on “the master” brought him his boots, shining as they had
never shone before, and some cold, beautifully clear spring water, and
informed him that the peasants were already assembling.
Nekhludoff jumped out of bed, and collected his thoughts. Not a trace of
yesterday’s regret at giving up and thus destroying his property remained
now. He remembered this feeling of regret with surprise; he was now
looking forward with joy to the task before him, and could not help being
proud of it. He could see from the window the old tennis ground,
overgrown with dandelions, on which the peasants were beginning to
assemble. The frogs had not croaked in vain the night before; the day was
dull. There was no wind; a soft warm rain had begun falling in the morning,
and hung in drops on leaves, twigs, and grass. Besides the smell of the fresh
vegetation, the smell of damp earth, asking for more rain, entered in at the
window. While dressing, Nekhludoff several times looked out at the
peasants gathered on the tennis ground. One by one they came, took off
their hats or caps to one another, and took their places in a circle, leaning on
their sticks. The steward, a stout, muscular, strong young man, dressed in a
short pea-jacket, with a green stand-up collar, and enormous buttons, came
to say that all had assembled, but that they might wait until Nekhludoff had
finished his breakfast—tea and coffee, whichever he pleased; both were
ready.
“No, I think I had better go and see them at once,” said Nekhludoff, with
an unexpected feeling of shyness and shame at the thought of the
conversation he was going to have with the peasants. He was going to fulfil
a wish of the peasants, the fulfilment of which they did not even dare to
hope for—to let the land to them at a low price, i.e., to confer a great boon;
and yet he felt ashamed of something. When Nekhludoff came up to the
peasants, and the fair, the curly, the bald, the grey heads were bared before
him, he felt so confused that he could say nothing. The rain continued to

come down in small drops, that remained on the hair, the beards, and the
fluff of the men’s rough coats. The peasants looked at “the master,” waiting
for him to speak, and he was so abashed that he could not speak. This
confused silence was broken by the sedate, self-assured German steward,
who considered himself a good judge of the Russian peasant, and who
spoke Russian remarkably well. This strong, over-fed man, and Nekhludoff
himself, presented a striking contrast to the peasants, with their thin,
wrinkled faces and the shoulder blades protruding beneath their coarse
coats.
“Here’s the Prince wanting to do you a favor, and to let the land to you;
only you are not worthy of it,” said the steward.
“How are we not worthy of it, Vasili Karlovitch? Don’t we work for you?
We were well satisfied with the deceased lady—God have mercy on her
soul—and the young Prince will not desert us now. Our thanks to him,” said
a redhaired, talkative peasant.
“Yes, that’s why I have called you together. I should like to let you have
all the land, if you wish it.”
The peasants said nothing, as if they did not understand or did not believe
it.
“Let’s see. Let us have the land? What do you mean?” asked a middle-
aged man.
“To let it to you, that you might have the use of it, at a low rent.”
“A very agreeable thing,” said an old man.
“If only the pay is such as we can afford,” said another.
“There’s no reason why we should not rent the land.”
“We are accustomed to live by tilling the ground.”
“And it’s quieter for you, too, that way. You’ll have to do nothing but
receive the rent. Only think of all the sin and worry now!” several voices
were heard saying.
“The sin is all on your side,” the German remarked. “If only you did your
work, and were orderly.”
“That’s impossible for the likes of us,” said a sharp-nosed old man. “You
say, ‘Why do you let the horse get into the corn?’ just as if I let it in. Why, I
was swinging my scythe, or something of the kind, the livelong day, till the

day seemed as long as a year, and so I fell asleep while watching the herd of
horses at night, and it got into your oats, and now you’re skinning me.”
“And you should keep order.”
“It’s easy for you to talk about order, but it’s more than our strength will
bear,” answered a tall, dark, hairy middleaged man.
“Didn’t I tell you to put up a fence?”
“You give us the wood to make it of,” said a short, plain-looking peasant.
“I was going to put up a fence last year, and you put me to feed vermin in
prison for three months. That was the end of that fence.”
“What is it he is saying?” asked Nekhludoff, turning to the steward.
“Der ersto Dieb im Dorfe,” [The greatest thief in the village] answered
the steward in German. “He is caught stealing wood from the forest every
year.” Then turning to the peasant, he added, “You must learn to respect
other people’s property.”
“Why, don’t we respect you?” said an old man. “We are obliged to
respect you. Why, you could twist us into a rope; we are in your hands.”
“Eh, my friend, it’s impossible to do you. It’s you who are ever ready to
do us,” said the steward.
“Do you, indeed. Didn’t you smash my jaw for me, and I got nothing for
it? No good going to law with the rich, it seems.”
“You should keep to the law.”
A tournament of words was apparently going on without those who took
part in it knowing exactly what it was all about; but it was noticeable that
there was bitterness on one side, restricted by fear, and on the other a
consciousness of importance and power. It was very trying to Nekhludoff to
listen to all this, so he returned to the question of arranging the amount and
the terms of the rent.
“Well, then, how about the land? Do you wish to take it, and what price
will you pay if I let you have the whole of it?”
“The property is yours: it is for you to fix the price.”
Nekhludoff named the price. Though it was far below that paid in the
neighbourhood, the peasants declared it too high, and began bargaining, as
is customary among them. Nekhludoff thought his offer would be accepted
with pleasure, but no signs of pleasure were visible.

One thing only showed Nekhludoff that his offer was a profitable one to
the peasants. The question as to who would rent the land, the whole
commune or a special society, was put, and a violent dispute arose among
those peasants who were in favour of excluding the weak and those not
likely to pay the rent regularly, and the peasants who would have to be
excluded on that score. At last, thanks to the steward, the amount and the
terms of the rent were fixed, and the peasants went down the hill towards
their villages, talking noisily, while Nekhludoff and the steward went into
the office to make up the agreement. Everything was settled in the way
Nekhludoff wished and expected it to be. The peasants had their land 30 per
cent. cheaper than they could have got it anywhere in the district, the
revenue from the land was diminished by half, but was more than sufficient
for Nekhludoff, especially as there would be money coming in for a forest
he sold, as well as for the agricultural implements, which would be sold,
too. Everything seemed excellently arranged, yet he felt ashamed of
something. He could see that the peasants, though they spoke words of
thanks, were not satisfied, and had expected something greater. So it turned
out that he had deprived himself of a great deal, and yet not done what the
peasants had expected.
The next day the agreement was signed, and accompanied by several old
peasants, who had been chosen as deputies, Nekhludoff went out, got into
the steward’s elegant equipage (as the driver from the station had called it),
said “good-bye” to the peasants, who stood shaking their heads in a
dissatisfied and disappointed manner, and drove off to the station.
Nekhludoff was dissatisfied with himself without knowing why, but all the
time he felt sad and ashamed of something.

CHAPTER III. OLD ASSOCIATIONS.
From Kousminski Nekhludoff went to the estate he had inherited from
his aunts, the same where he first met Katusha. He meant to arrange about
the land there in the way he had done in Kousminski. Besides this, he
wished to find out all he could about Katusha and her baby, and when and
how it had died. He got to Panovo early one morning, and the first thing
that struck him when he drove up was the look of decay and dilapidation
that all the buildings bore, especially the house itself. The iron roofs, which
had once been painted green, looked red with rust, and a few sheets of iron
were bent back, probably by a storm. Some of the planks which covered the
house from outside were torn away in several places; these were easier to
get by breaking the rusty nails that held them. Both porches, but especially
the side porch he remembered so well, were rotten and broken; only the
banister remained. Some of the windows were boarded up, and the building
in which the foreman lived, the kitchen, the stables—all were grey and
decaying. Only the garden had not decayed, but had grown, and was in full
bloom; from over the fence the cherry, apple, and plum trees looked like
white clouds. The lilac bushes that formed the hedge were in full bloom, as
they had been when, 14 years ago, Nekhludoff had played gorelki with the
15-year-old Katusha, and had fallen and got his hand stung by the nettles
behind one of those lilac bushes. The larch that his aunt Sophia had planted
near the house, which then was only a short stick, had grown into a tree, the
trunk of which would have made a beam, and its branches were covered
with soft yellow green needles as with down. The river, now within its
banks, rushed noisily over the mill dam. The meadow the other side of the
river was dotted over by the peasants’ mixed herds. The foreman, a student,
who had left the seminary without finishing the course, met Nekhludoff in
the yard, with a smile on his face, and, still smiling, asked him to come into
the office, and, as if promising something exceptionally good by this smile,
he went behind a partition. For a moment some whispering was heard
behind the partition. The isvostchik who had driven Nekhludoff from the
station, drove away after receiving a tip, and all was silent. Then a
barefooted girl passed the window; she had on an embroidered peasant

blouse, and long earrings in her ears; then a man walked past, clattering
with his nailed boots on the trodden path.
Nekhludoff sat down by the little casement, and looked out into the
garden and listened. A soft, fresh spring breeze, smelling of newly-dug
earth, streamed in through the window, playing with the hair on his damp
forehead and the papers that lay on the window-sill, which was all cut about
with a knife.
“Tra-pa-trop, tra-pa-trop,” comes a sound from the river, as the women
who were washing clothes there slapped them in regular measure with their
wooden bats, and the sound spread over the glittering surface of the mill
pond while the rhythmical sound of the falling water came from the mill,
and a frightened fly suddenly flew loudly buzzing past his ear.
And all at once Nekhludoff remembered how, long ago, when he was
young and innocent, he had heard the women’s wooden bats slapping the
wet clothes above the rhythmical sound from the mill, and in the same way
the spring breeze had blown about the hair on his wet forehead and the
papers on the window-sill, which was all cut about with a knife, and just in
the same way a fly had buzzed loudly past his car.
It was not exactly that he remembered himself as a lad of 15, but he
seemed to feel himself the same as he was then, with the same freshness
and purity, and full of the same grand possibilities for the future, and at the
same time, as it happens in a dream, he knew that all this could be no more,
and he felt terribly sad. “At what time would you like something to eat?”
asked the foreman, with a smile.
“When you like; I am not hungry. I shall go for a walk through the
village.”
“Would you not like to come into the house? Everything is in order there.
Have the goodness to look in. If the outside—-”
“Not now; later on. Tell me, please, have you got a woman here called
Matrona Kharina?” (This was Katusha’s aunt, the village midwife.)
“Oh, yes; in the village she keeps a secret pot-house. I know she does,
and I accuse her of it and scold her; but as to taking her up, it would be a
pity. An old woman, you know; she has grandchildren,” said the foreman,
continuing to smile in the same manner, partly wishing to be pleasant to the

master, and partly because he was convinced that Nekhludoff understood all
these matters just as well as he did himself.
“Where does she live? I shall go across and see her.”
“At the end of the village; the further side, the third from the end. To the
left there is a brick cottage, and her hut is beyond that. But I’d better see
you there,” the foreman said with a graceful smile.
“No, thanks, I shall find it; and you be so good as to call a meeting of the
peasants, and tell them that I want to speak to them about the land,” said
Nekhludoff, with the intention of coming to the same agreement with the
peasants here as he had done in Kousminski, and, if possible, that same
evening.

CHAPTER IV. THE PEASANTS’ LOT.
When Nekhludoff came out of the gate he met the girl with the long
earrings on the well-trodden path that lay across the pasture ground,
overgrown with dock and plantain leaves. She had a long, brightly-coloured
apron on, and was quickly swinging her left arm in front of herself as she
stepped briskly with her fat, bare feet. With her right arm she was pressing a
fowl to her stomach. The fowl, with red comb shaking, seemed perfectly
calm; he only rolled up his eyes and stretched out and drew in one black
leg, clawing the girl’s apron. When the girl came nearer to “the master,” she
began moving more slowly, and her run changed into a walk. When she
came up to him she stopped, and, after a backward jerk with her head,
bowed to him; and only when he had passed did she recommence to run
homeward with the cock. As he went down towards the well, he met an old
woman, who had a coarse dirty blouse on, carrying two pails full of water,
that hung on a yoke across her bent back. The old woman carefully put
down the pails and bowed, with the same backward jerk of her head.
After passing the well Nekhludoff entered the village. It was a bright, hot
day, and oppressive, though only ten o’clock. At intervals the sun was
hidden by the gathering clouds. An unpleasant, sharp smell of manure filled
the air in the street. It came from carts going up the hillside, but chiefly
from the disturbed manure heaps in the yards of the huts, by the open gates
of which Nekhludoff had to pass. The peasants, barefooted, their shirts and
trousers soiled with manure, turned to look at the tall, stout gentleman with
the glossy silk ribbon on his grey hat who was walking up the village street,
touching the ground every other step with a shiny, bright-knobbed walking-
stick. The peasants returning from the fields at a trot and jotting in their
empty carts, took off their hats, and, in their surprise, followed with their
eyes the extraordinary man who was walking up their street. The women
came out of the gates or stood in the porches of their huts, pointing him out
to each other and gazing at him as he passed.
When Nekhludoff was passing the fourth gate, he was stopped by a cart
that was coming out, its wheels creaking, loaded high with manure, which
was pressed down, and was covered with a mat to sit on. A six-year-old boy,

excited by the prospect of a drive, followed the cart. A young peasant, with
shoes plaited out of bark on his feet, led the horse out of the yard. A long-
legged colt jumped out of the gate; but, seeing Nekhludoff, pressed close to
the cart, and scraping its legs against the wheels, jumped forward, past its
excited, gently-neighing mother, as she was dragging the heavy load
through the gateway. The next horse was led out by a barefooted old man,
with protruding shoulder-blades, in a dirty shirt and striped trousers.
When the horses got out on to the hard road, strewn over with bits of dry,
grey manure, the old man returned to the gate, and bowed to Nekhludoff.
“You are our ladies’ nephew, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am their nephew.”
“You’ve kindly come to look us up, eh?” said the garrulous old man.
“Yes, I have. Well, how are you getting on?”
“How do we get on? We get on very badly,” the old man drawled, as if it
gave him pleasure.
“Why so badly?” Nekhludoff asked, stepping inside the gate.
“What is our life but the very worst life?” said the old man, following
Nekhludoff into that part of the yard which was roofed over.
Nekhludoff stopped under the roof.
“I have got 12 of them there,” continued the old man, pointing to two
women on the remainder of the manure heap, who stood perspiring with
forks in their hands, the kerchiefs tumbling off their heads, with their skirts
tucked up, showing the calves of their dirty, bare legs. “Not a month passes
but I have to buy six poods [a pood is 36 English pounds] of corn, and
where’s the money to come from?”
“Have you not got enough corn of your own?”
“My own?” repeated the old man, with a smile of contempt; “why I have
only got land for three, and last year we had not enough to last till
Christmas.”
“What do you do then?”
“What do we do? Why, I hire out as a labourer; and then I borrowed
some money from your honour. We spent it all before Lent, and the tax is
not paid yet.”
“And how much is the tax?”

“Why, it’s 17 roubles for my household. Oh, Lord, such a life! One
hardly knows one’s self how one manages to live it.”
“May I go into your hut?” asked Nekhludoff, stepping across the yard
over the yellow-brown layers of manure that had been raked up by the
forks, and were giving off a strong smell.
“Why not? Come in,” said the old man, and stepping quickly with his
bare feet over the manure, the liquid oozing between his toes, he passed
Nekhludoff and opened the door of the hut.
The women arranged the kerchiefs on their heads and let down their
skirts, and stood looking with surprise at the clean gentleman with gold
studs to his sleeves who was entering their house. Two little girls, with
nothing on but coarse chemises, rushed out of the hut. Nekhludoff took off
his hat, and, stooping to get through the low door, entered, through a
passage into the dirty, narrow hut, that smelt of sour food, and where much
space was taken up by two weaving looms. In the hut an old woman was
standing by the stove, with the sleeves rolled up over her thin, sinewy
brown arms.
“Here is our master come to see us,” said the old man.
“I’m sure he’s very welcome,” said the old woman, kindly.
“I would like to see how you live.”
“Well, you see how we live. The hut is coming down, and might kill one
any day; but my old man he says it’s good enough, and so we live like
kings,” said the brisk old woman, nervously jerking her head. “I’m getting
the dinner; going to feed the workers.”
“And what are you going to have for dinner?”
“Our food is very good. First course, bread and kvas; [kvas is a kind of
sour, non-intoxicant beer made of rye] second course, kvas and bread,” said
the old woman, showing her teeth, which were half worn away.
“No,” seriously; “let me see what you are going to eat.”
“To eat?” said the old man, laughing. “Ours is not a very cunning meal.
You just show him, wife.”
“Want to see our peasant food? Well, you are an inquisitive gentleman,
now I come to look at you. He wants to know everything. Did I not tell you

bread and kvas and then we’ll have soup. A woman brought us some fish,
and that’s what the soup is made of, and after that, potatoes.”
“Nothing more?”
“What more do you want? We’ll also have a little milk,” said the old
woman, looking towards the door. The door stood open, and the passage
outside was full of people—boys, girls, women with babies—thronged
together to look at the strange gentleman who wanted to see the peasants’
food. The old woman seemed to pride herself on the way she behaved with
a gentleman.
“Yes, it’s a miserable life, ours; that goes without saying, sir,” said the
old man. “What are you doing there?” he shouted to those in the passage.
“Well, good-bye,” said Nekhludoff, feeling ashamed and uneasy, though
unable to account for the feeling.
“Thank you kindly for having looked us up,” said the old man.
The people in the passage pressed closer together to let Nekhludoff pass,
and he went out and continued his way up the street.
Two barefooted boys followed him out of the passage the elder in a shirt
that had once been white, the other in a worn and faded pink one.
Nekhludoff looked back at them.
“And where are you going now?” asked the boy with the white shirt.
Nekhludoff answered: “To Matrona Kharina. Do you know her?” The boy
with the pink shirt began laughing at something; but the elder asked,
seriously:
“What Matrona is that? Is she old?”
“Yes, she is old.”
“Oh—oh,” he drawled; “that one; she’s at the other end of the village;
we’ll show you. Yes, Fedka, we’ll go with him. Shall we?”
“Yes, but the horses?”
“They’ll be all right, I dare say.”
Fedka agreed, and all three went up the street.

CHAPTER V. MASLOVA’S AUNT.
Nekhludoff felt more at ease with the boys than with the grown-up
people, and he began talking to them as they went along. The little one with
the pink shirt stopped laughing, and spoke as sensibly and as exactly as the
elder one.
“Can you tell me who are the poorest people you have got here?” asked
Nekhludoff.
“The poorest? Michael is poor, Simon Makhroff, and Martha, she is very
poor.”
“And Anisia, she is still poorer; she’s not even got a cow. They go
begging,” said little Fedka.
“She’s not got a cow, but they are only three persons, and Martha’s
family are five,” objected the elder boy.
“But the other’s a widow,” the pink boy said, standing up for Anisia.
“You say Anisia is a widow, and Martha is no better than a widow,” said
the elder boy; “she’s also no husband.”
“And where is her husband?” Nekhludoff asked.
“Feeding vermin in prison,” said the elder boy, using this expression,
common among the peasants.
“A year ago he cut down two birch trees in the land-lord’s forest,” the
little pink boy hurried to say, “so he was locked up; now he’s sitting the
sixth month there, and the wife goes begging. There are three children and a
sick grandmother,” he went on with his detailed account.
“And where does she live?” Nekhludoff asked.
“In this very house,” answered the boy, pointing to a hut, in front of
which, on the footpath along which Nekhludoff was walking, a tiny, flaxen-
headed infant stood balancing himself with difficulty on his rickety legs.
“Vaska! Where’s the little scamp got to?” shouted a woman, with a dirty
grey blouse, and a frightened look, as she ran out of the house, and, rushing
forward, seized the baby before Nekhludoff came up to it, and carried it in,
just as if she were afraid that Nekhludoff would hurt her child.

This was the woman whose husband was imprisoned for Nekhludoff’s
birch trees.
“Well, and this Matrona, is she also poor?” Nekhludoff asked, as they
came up to Matrona’s house.
“She poor? No. Why, she sells spirits,” the thin, pink little boy answered
decidedly.
When they reached the house Nekhludoff left the boys outside and went
through the passage into the hut. The hut was 14 feet long. The bed that
stood behind the big stove was not long enough for a tall person to stretch
out on. “And on this very bed,” Nekhludoff thought, “Katusha bore her
baby and lay ill afterwards.” The greater part of the hut was taken up by a
loom, on which the old woman and her eldest granddaughter were
arranging the warp when Nekhludoff came in, striking his forehead against
the low doorway. Two other grandchildren came rushing in after
Nekhludoff, and stopped, holding on to the lintels of the door.
“Whom do you want?” asked the old woman, crossly. She was in a bad
temper because she could not manage to get the warp right, and, besides,
carrying on an illicit trade in spirits, she was always afraid when any
stranger came in.
“I am—the owner of the neighbouring estates, and should like to speak to
you.”
“Dear me; why, it’s you, my honey; and I, fool, thought it was just some
passer-by. Dear me, you—it’s you, my precious,” said the old woman, with
simulated tenderness in her voice.
“I should like to speak to you alone,” said Nekhludoff, with a glance
towards the door, where the children were standing, and behind them a
woman holding a wasted, pale baby, with a sickly smile on its face, who
had a little cap made of different bits of stuff on its head.
“What are you staring at? I’ll give it you. Just hand me my crutch,” the
old woman shouted to those at the door.
“Shut the door, will you!” The children went away, and the woman
closed the door.
“And I was thinking, who’s that? And it’s ‘the master’ himself. My jewel,
my treasure. Just think,” said the old woman, “where he has deigned to
come. Sit down here, your honour,” she said, wiping the seat with her

apron. “And I was thinking what devil is it coming in, and it’s your honour,
‘the master’ himself, the good gentleman, our benefactor. Forgive me, old
fool that I am; I’m getting blind.”
Nekhludoff sat down, and the old woman stood in front of him, leaning
her cheek on her right hand, while the left held up the sharp elbow of her
right arm.
“Dear me, you have grown old, your honour; and you used to be as fresh
as a daisy. And now! Cares also, I expect?”
“This is what I have come about: Do you remember Katusha Maslova?”
“Katerina? I should think so. Why, she is my niece. How could I help
remembering; and the tears I have shed because of her. Why, I know all
about it. Eh, sir, who has not sinned before God? who has not offended
against the Tsar? We know what youth is. You used to be drinking tea and
coffee, so the devil got hold of you. He is strong at times. What’s to be
done? Now, if you had chucked her; but no, just see how you rewarded her,
gave her a hundred roubles. And she? What has she done? Had she but
listened to me she might have lived all right. I must say the truth, though
she is my niece: that girl’s no good. What a good place I found her! She
would not submit, but abused her master. Is it for the likes of us to scold
gentlefolk? Well, she was sent away. And then at the forester’s. She might
have lived there; but no, she would not.”
“I want to know about the child. She was confined at your house, was she
not? Where’s the child?”
“As to the child, I considered that well at the time. She was so bad I
never thought she would get up again. Well, so I christened the baby quite
properly, and we sent it to the Foundlings’. Why should one let an innocent
soul languish when the mother is dying? Others do like this: they just leave
the baby, don’t feed it, and it wastes away. But, thinks I, no; I’d rather take
some trouble, and send it to the Foundlings’. There was money enough, so I
sent it off.”
“Did you not get its registration number from the Foundlings’ Hospital?”
“Yes, there was a number, but the baby died,” she said. “It died as soon
as she brought it there.”
“Who is she?”

“That same woman who used to live in Skorodno. She made a business
of it. Her name was Malania. She’s dead now. She was a wise woman. What
do you think she used to do? They’d bring her a baby, and she’d keep it and
feed it; and she’d feed it until she had enough of them to take to the
Foundlings’. When she had three or four, she’d take them all at once. She
had such a clever arrangement, a sort of big cradle—a double one she could
put them in one way or the other. It had a handle. So she’d put four of them
in, feet to feet and the heads apart, so that they should not knock against
each other. And so she took four at once. She’d put some pap in a rag into
their mouths to keep ‘em silent, the pets.”
“Well, go on.”
“Well, she took Katerina’s baby in the same way, after keeping it a
fortnight, I believe. It was in her house it began to sicken.”
“And was it a fine baby?” Nekhludoff asked.
“Such a baby, that if you wanted a finer you could not find one. Your
very image,” the old woman added, with a wink.
“Why did it sicken? Was the food bad?”
“Eh, what food? Only just a pretence of food. Naturally, when it’s not
one’s own child. Only enough to get it there alive. She said she just
managed to get it to Moscow, and there it died. She brought a certificate—
all in order. She was such a wise woman.”
That was all Nekhludoff could find out concerning his child.

CHAPTER VI. REFLECTIONS OF A
LANDLORD.
Again striking his head against both doors, Nekhludoff went out into the
street, where the pink and the white boys were waiting for him. A few
newcomers were standing with them. Among the women, of whom several
had babies in their arms, was the thin woman with the baby who had the
patchwork cap on its head. She held lightly in her arms the bloodless infant,
who kept strangely smiling all over its wizened little face, and continually
moving its crooked thumbs.
Nekhludoff knew the smile to be one of suffering. He asked who the
woman was.
“It is that very Anisia I told you about,” said the elder boy.
Nekhludoff turned to Anisia.
“How do you live?” he asked. “By what means do you gain your
livelihood?”
“How do I live? I go begging,” said Anisia, and began to cry.
Nekhludoff took out his pocket-book, and gave the woman a 10-rouble
note. He had not had time to take two steps before another woman with a
baby caught him up, then an old woman, then another young one. All of
them spoke of their poverty, and asked for help. Nekhludoff gave them the
60 roubles—all in small notes—which he had with him, and, terribly sad at
heart, turned home, i.e., to the foreman’s house.
The foreman met Nekhludoff with a smile, and informed him that the
peasants would come to the meeting in the evening. Nekhludoff thanked
him, and went straight into the garden to stroll along the paths strewn over
with the petals of apple-blossom and overgrown with weeds, and to think
over all he had seen.
At first all was quiet, but soon Nekhludoff heard from behind the
foreman’s house two angry women’s voices interrupting each other, and
now and then the voice of the ever-smiling foreman. Nekhludoff listened.

“My strength’s at an end. What are you about, dragging the very cross
[those baptized in the Russo-Greek Church always wear a cross round their
necks] off my neck,” said an angry woman’s voice.
“But she only got in for a moment,” said another voice. “Give it her back,
I tell you. Why do you torment the beast, and the children, too, who want
their milk?”
“Pay, then, or work it off,” said the foreman’s voice.
Nekhludoff left the garden and entered the porch, near which stood two
dishevelled women—one of them pregnant and evidently near her time. On
one of the steps of the porch, with his hands in the pockets of his holland
coat, stood the foreman. When they saw the master, the women were silent,
and began arranging the kerchiefs on their heads, and the foreman took his
hands out of his pockets and began to smile.
This is what had happened. From the foreman’s words, it seemed that the
peasants were in the habit of letting their calves and even their cows into
the meadow belonging to the estate. Two cows belonging to the families of
these two women were found in the meadow, and driven into the yard. The
foreman demanded from the women 30 copecks for each cow or two days’
work. The women, however, maintained that the cows had got into the
meadow of their own accord; that they had no money, and asked that the
cows, which had stood in the blazing sun since morning without food,
piteously lowing, should be returned to them, even if it had to be on the
understanding that the price should be worked off later on.
“How often have I not begged of you,” said the smiling foreman, looking
back at Nekhludoff as if calling upon him to be a witness, “if you drive your
cattle home at noon, that you should have an eye on them?”
“I only ran to my little one for a bit, and they got away.”
“Don’t run away when you have undertaken to watch the cows.”
“And who’s to feed the little one? You’d not give him the breast, I
suppose?” said the other woman. “Now, if they had really damaged the
meadow, one would not take it so much to heart; but they only strayed in a
moment.”
“All the meadows are damaged,” the foreman said, turning to
Nekhludoff. “If I exact no penalty there will be no hay.”

“There, now, don’t go sinning like that; my cows have never been caught
there before,” shouted the pregnant woman.
“Now that one has been caught, pay up or work it off.”
“All right, I’ll work it off; only let me have the cow now, don’t torture
her with hunger,” she cried, angrily. “As it is, I have no rest day or night.
Mother-in-law is ill, husband taken to drink; I’m all alone to do all the
work, and my strength’s at an end. I wish you’d choke, you and your
working it off.”
Nekhludoff asked the foreman to let the women take the cows, and went
back into the garden to go on thinking out his problem, but there was
nothing more to think about.
Everything seemed so clear to him now that he could not stop wondering
how it was that everybody did not see it, and that he himself had for such a
long while not seen what was so clearly evident. The people were dying
out, and had got used to the dying-out process, and had formed habits of life
adapted to this process: there was the great mortality among the children,
the over-working of the women, the under-feeding, especially of the aged.
And so gradually had the people come to this condition that they did not
realise the full horrors of it, and did not complain. Therefore, we consider
their condition natural and as it should be. Now it seemed as clear as
daylight that the chief cause of the people’s great want was one that they
themselves knew and always pointed out, i.e., that the land which alone
could feed them had been taken from them by the landlords.
And how evident it was that the children and the aged died because they
had no milk, and they had no milk because there was no pasture land, and
no land to grow corn or make hay on. It was quite evident that all the
misery of the people or, at least by far the greater part of it, was caused by
the fact that the land which should feed them was not in their hands, but in
the hands of those who, profiting by their rights to the land, live by the
work of these people. The land so much needed by men was tilled by these
people, who were on the verge of starvation, so that the corn might be sold
abroad and the owners of the land might buy themselves hats and canes,
and carriages and bronzes, etc. He understood this as clearly as he
understood that horses when they have eaten all the grass in the inclosure
where they are kept will have to grow thin and starve unless they are put
where they can get food off other land.