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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.