Resurrection, Leo Tolstoy [top 5 books to read .txt] 📗

Nekhlúdoff 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 Katúsha Máslova?”

“Katerína? 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 Skoródno. She made a business of it. Her name was Malánia. 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 Katerína’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?” Nekhlúdoff 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 Nekhlúdoff could find out concerning his child.

Again striking his head against both doors, Nekhlúdoff 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.

Nekhlúdoff knew the smile to be one of suffering. He asked who the woman was.

“It is that very Anísia I told you about,” said the elder boy.

Nekhlúdoff turned to Anísia.

“How do you live?” he asked. “By what means do you gain your livelihood?”

“How do I live? I go begging,” said Anísia, and began to cry.

Nekhlúdoff took out his pocketbook, and gave the woman a ten-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. Nekhlúdoff gave them the sixty 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 Nekhlúdoff with a smile, and informed him that the peasants would come to the meeting in the evening. Nekhlúdoff 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 Nekhlúdoff 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. Nekhlúdoff listened.

“My strength’s at an end. What are you about, dragging the very cross25 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,”