Resurrection, Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy [books to read this summer .txt] 📗

Countess pressed

the button of an electric bell fitted to the table and the

waiters stepped in noiselessly and quickly carried away the

dishes, changed the plates, and brought in the next course. The

dinner was very refined, the wines very costly. A French chef was

working in the large, light kitchens, with two white-clad

assistants. There were six persons at dinner, the Count and

Countess, their son (a surly officer in the Guards who sat with

his elbows on the table), Nekhludoff, a French lady reader, and

the Count’s chief steward, who had come up from the country.

Here, too, the conversation was about the duel, and opinions were

given as to how the Emperor regarded the case. It was known that

the Emperor was very much grieved for the mother’s sake, and all

were grieved for her, and as it was also known that the Emperor

did not mean to be very severe to the murderer, who defended the

honour of his uniform, all were also lenient to the officer who

had defended the honour of his uniform. Only the Countess

Katerina Ivanovna, with her free thoughtlessness, expresses her

disapproval.

 

“They get drunk, and kill unobjectionable young men. I should not

forgive them on any account,” she said.

 

“Now, that’s a thing I cannot understand,” said the Count.

 

“I know that you never can understand what I say,” the Countess

began, and turning to Nekhludoff, she added:

 

“Everybody understands except my husband. I say I am sorry for

the mother, and I do not wish him to be contented, having killed

a man.” Then her son, who had been silent up to then, took the

murderer’s part, and rudely attacked his mother, arguing that an

officer could not behave in any other way, because his

fellow-officers would condemn him and turn him out of the

regiment. Nekhludoff listened to the conversation without joining

in. Having been an officer himself, he understood, though he did

not agree with, young Tcharsky’s arguments, and at the same time

he could not help contrasting the fate of the officer with that

of a beautiful young convict whom he had seen in the prison, and

who was condemned to the mines for having killed another in a

fight. Both had turned murderers through drunkenness. The peasant

had killed a man in a moment of irritation, and he was parted

from his wife and family, had chains on his legs, and his head

shaved, and was going to hard labour in Siberia, while the

officer was sitting in a fine room in the guardhouse, eating a

good dinner, drinking good wine, and reading books, and would be

set free in a day or two to live as he had done before, having

only become more interesting by the affair. Nekhludoff said what

he had been thinking, and at first his aunt, Katerina Ivanovna,

seemed to agree with him, but at last she became silent as the

rest had done, and Nekhludoff felt that he had committed

something akin to an impropriety. In the evening, soon after

dinner, the large hall, with highbacked carved chairs arranged

in rows as for a meeting, and an armchair next to a little table,

with a bottle of water for the speaker, began to fill with people

come to hear the foreigner, Kiesewetter, preach. Elegant

equipages stopped at the front entrance. In the hall sat

richly-dressed ladies in silks and velvets and lace, with false

hair and false busts and drawn-in waists, and among them men in

uniform and evening dress, and about five persons of the common

class, i.e., two men-servants, a shopkeeper, a footman, and a

coachman. Kiesewetter, a thick-set, grisly man, spoke English,

and a thin young girl, with a pince-nez, translated it into

Russian promptly and well. He was saying that our sins were so

great, the punishment for them so great and so unavoidable, that

it was impossible to live anticipating such punishment. “Beloved

brothers and sisters, let us for a moment consider what we are

doing, how we are living, how we have offended against the

all-loving Lord, and how we make Christ suffer, and we cannot but

understand that there is no forgiveness possible for us, no

escape possible, that we are all doomed to perish. A terrible

fate awaits us–everlasting torment,” he said, with tears in his

trembling voice. “Oh, how can we be saved, brothers? How can we

be saved from this terrible, unquenchable fire? The house is in

flames; there is no escape.”

 

He was silent for a while, and real tears flowed down his cheeks.

It was for about eight years that each time when he got to this

part of his speech, which he himself liked so well, he felt a

choking in his throat and an irritation in his nose, and the

tears came in his eyes, and these tears touched him still more.

Sobs were heard in the room. The Countess Katerina Ivanovna sat

with her elbows on an inlaid table, leaning her head on her

hands, and her shoulders were shaking. The coachman looked with

fear and surprise at the foreigner, feeling as if he was about to

run him down with the pole of his carriage and the foreigner

would not move out of his way. All sat in positions similar to

that Katerina Ivanovna had assumed. Wolf’s daughter, a thin,

fashionably-dressed girl, very like her father, knelt with her

face in her hands.

 

The orator suddenly uncovered his face, and smiled a very

real-looking smile, such as actors express joy with, and began

again with a sweet, gentle voice:

 

“Yet there is a way to be saved. Here it is—a joyful, easy way.

The salvation is the blood shed for us by the only son of God,

who gave himself up to torments for our sake. His sufferings, His

blood, will save us. Brothers and sisters,” he said, again with

tears in his voice, “let us praise the Lord, who has given His

only begotten son for the redemption of mankind. His holy blood

…”

 

Nekhludoff felt so deeply disgusted that he rose silently, and

frowning and keeping back a groan of shame, he left on tiptoe,

and went to his room.

 

CHAPTER XVIII.

 

OFFICIALDOM.

 

Hardly had Nekhludoff finished dressing the next morning, just as

he was about to go down, the footman brought him a card from the

Moscow advocate. The advocate had come to St. Petersburg on

business of his own, and was going to be present when Maslova’s

case was examined in the Senate, if that would be soon. The

telegram sent by Nekhludoff crossed him on the way. Having found

out from Nekhludoff when the case was going to be heard, and

which senators were to be present, he smiled. “Exactly, all the

three types of senators,” he said. “Wolf is a Petersburg

official; Skovorodnikoff is a theoretical, and Bay a practical

lawyer, and therefore the most alive of them all,” said the

advocate. “There is most hope of him. Well, and how about the

Petition Committee?”

 

“Oh, I’m going to Baron Vorobioff to-day. I could not get an

audience with him yesterday.”

 

“Do you know why he is Baron Vorobioff?” said the advocate,

noticing the slightly ironical stress that Nekhludoff put on this

foreign title, followed by so very Russian a surname.

 

“That was because the Emperor Paul rewarded the grandfather—I

think he was one of the Court footmen—by giving him this title.

He managed to please him in some way, so he made him a baron.

‘It’s my wish, so don’t gainsay me!’ And so there’s a Baron

Vorobioff, and very proud of the title. He is a dreadful old

humbug.”

 

“Well, I’m going to see him,” said Nekhludoff.

 

“That’s good; we can go together. I shall give you a lift.”

 

As they were going to start, a footman met Nekhludoff in the

anteroom, and handed him a note from Mariette:

 

_Pour vous faire plaisir, f’ai agi tout a fait contre mes

principes et j’ai intercede aupres de mon mari pour votre

protegee. Il se trouve que cette personne pout etre relaxee

immediatement. Mon mari a ecrit au commandant. Venez donc

disinterestedly. Je vous attends._

 

M.

 

“Just fancy!” said Nekhludoff to the advocate. “Is this not

dreadful? A woman whom they are keeping in solitary confinement

for seven months turns out to be quite innocent, and only a word

was needed to get her released.”

 

“That’s always so. Well, anyhow, you have succeeded in getting

what you wanted.”

 

“Yes, but this success grieves me. Just think what must be going

on there. Why have they been keeping her?”

 

“Oh, it’s best not to look too deeply into it. Well, then, I

shall give you a lift, if I may,” said the advocate, as they left

the house, and a fine carriage that the advocate had hired drove

up to the door. “It’s Baron Vorobioff you are going to see?”

 

The advocate gave the driver his directions, and the two good

horses quickly brought Nekhludoff to the house in which the Baron

lived. The Baron was at home. A young official in uniform, with a

long, thin neck, a much protruding Adam’s apple, and an extremely

light walk, and two ladies were in the first room.

 

“Your name, please?” the young man with the Adam’s apple asked,

stepping with extreme lightness and grace across from the ladies

to Nekhludoff.

 

Nekhludoff gave his name.

 

“The Baron was just mentioning you,” said the young man, the

Baron’s adjutant, and went out through an inner door. He

returned, leading a weeping lady dressed in mourning. With her

bony fingers the lady was trying to pull her tangled veil over

her face in order to hide her tears.

 

“Come in, please,” said the young man to Nekhludoff, lightly

stepping up to the door of the study and holding it open. When

Nekhludoff came in, he saw before him a thick-set man of medium

height, with short hair, in a frock coat, who was sitting in an

armchair opposite a large writing-table, and looking gaily in

front of himself. The kindly, rosy red face, striking by its

contrast with the white hair, moustaches, and beard, turned

towards Nekhludoff with a friendly smile.

 

“Very glad to see you. Your mother and I were old acquaintances

and friends. I have seen you as a boy, and later on as an

officer. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you. Yes, yes,”

he said, shaking his cropped white head, while Nekhludoff was

telling him Theodosia’s story. “Go on, go on. I quite understand.

It is certainly very touching. And have you handed in the

petition?”

 

“I have got the petition ready,” Nekhludoff said, getting it out

of his pocket; “but I thought of speaking to you first in hopes

that the case would then get special attention paid to it.”

 

“You have done very well. I shall certainly report it myself,”

said the Baron, unsuccessfully trying to put an expression of

pity on his merry face. “Very touching! It is clear she was but a

child; the husband treated her roughly, this repelled her, but as

time went on they fell in love with each other. Yes I will report

the case.”

 

“Count Ivan Michaelovitch was also going to speak about it.”

 

Nekhludoff had hardly got these words out when the Baron’s face

changed.

 

“You had better hand in the petition into the office, after all,

and I shall do what I can,” he said.

 

At this moment the young official again entered the room,

evidently showing off his elegant manner of walking.

 

“That lady is asking if she may say a few words more.”

 

“Well, ask her in. Ah, mon cher,