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

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