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

Katerína Ivánovna was a strong, bright, energetic, talkative woman of sixty. She was tall and very stout, and had a decided black moustache on her lip. Nekhlúdoff was fond of her and had even as a child been infected by her energy and mirth.

“No, ma tante, that’s at an end. I only wish to help her, because she is innocently accused. I am the cause of it and the cause of her fate being what it is. I feel it my duty to do all I can for her.”

“But what is this I have heard about your intention of marrying her?”

“Yes, it was my intention, but she does not wish it.”

Katerína Ivánovna looked at her nephew with raised brows and drooping eyeballs, in silent amazement. Suddenly her face changed, and with a look of pleasure she said: “Well, she is wiser than you. Dear me, you are a fool. And you would have married her?”

“Most certainly.”

“After her having been what she was?”

“All the more, since I was the cause of it.”

“Well, you are a simpleton,” said his aunt, repressing a smile, “a terrible simpleton; but it is just because you are such a terrible simpleton that I love you.” She repeated the word, evidently liking it, as it seemed to correctly convey to her mind the idea of her nephew’s moral state. “Do you know⁠—What a lucky chance. Aline has a wonderful home⁠—the Magdalene Home. I went there once. They are terribly disgusting. After that I had to pray continually. But Aline is devoted to it, body and soul, so we shall place her there⁠—yours, I mean.”

“But she is condemned to Siberia. I have come on purpose to appeal about it. This is one of my requests to you.”

“Dear me, and where do you appeal to in this case?”

“To the Senate.”

“Ah, the Senate! Yes, my dear Cousin Leo is in the Senate, but he is in the heraldry department, and I don’t know any of the real ones. They are all some kind of Germans⁠—Gay, Fay, Day⁠—tout l’alphabet, or else all sorts of Ivánoffs, Siménoffs, Nikítines, or else Ivanénkos, Simonénkos, Nikítenkos, pour varier. Des gens de l’autre monde. Well, it is all the same. I’ll tell my husband, he knows them. He knows all sorts of people. I’ll tell him, but you will have to explain, he never understands me. Whatever I may say, he always maintains he does not understand it. C’est un parti pris, everyone understands but only not he.”

At this moment a footman with stockinged legs came in with a note on a silver platter.

“There now, from Aline herself. You’ll have a chance of hearing Kiesewetter.”

“Who is Kiesewetter?”

“Kiesewetter? Come this evening, and you will find out who he is. He speaks in such a way that the most hardened criminals sink on their knees and weep and repent.”

The Countess Katerína Ivánovna, however strange it may seem, and however little it seemed in keeping with the rest of her character, was a staunch adherent to that teaching which holds that the essence of Christianity lies in the belief in redemption. She went to meetings where this teaching, then in fashion, was being preached, and assembled the “faithful” in her own house. Though this teaching repudiated all ceremonies, icons, and sacraments, Katerína Ivánovna had icons in every room, and one on the wall above her bed, and she kept all that the Church prescribed without noticing any contradiction in that.

“There now; if your Magdalene could hear him she would be converted,” said the Countess. “Do stay at home tonight; you will hear him. He is a wonderful man.”

“It does not interest me, ma tante.”

“But I tell you that it is interesting, and you must come home. Now you may go. What else do you want of me? Videz votre sac.”

“The next is in the fortress.”

“In the fortress? I can give you a note for that to the Baron Kriegsmuth. C’est un très brave homme. Oh, but you know him; he was a comrade of your father’s. Il donne dans le spiritisme. But that does not matter, he is a good fellow. What do you want there?”

“I want to get leave for a mother to visit her son who is imprisoned there. But I was told that this did not depend on Kriegsmuth but on Tcherviánsky.”

“I do not like Tcherviánsky, but he is Mariette’s husband; we might ask her. She will do it for me. Elle est très gentille.”

“I have also to petition for a woman who is imprisoned there without knowing what for.”

“No fear; she knows well enough. They all know it very well, and it serves them right, those short-haired26 ones.”

“We do not know whether it serves them right or not. But they suffer. You are a Christian and believe in the Gospel teaching and yet you are so pitiless.”

“That has nothing to do with it. The Gospels are the Gospels, but what is disgusting remains disgusting. It would be worse if I pretended to love Nihilists, especially short-haired women Nihilists, when I cannot bear them.”

“Why can you not bear them?”

“You ask why, after the 1st of March?”27

“They did not all take part in it on the 1st of March.”

“Never mind; they should not meddle with what is no business of theirs. It’s not women’s business.”

“Yet you consider that Mariette may take part in business.”

“Mariette? Mariette is Mariette, and these are goodness knows what. Want to teach everybody.”

“Not to teach but simply to help the people.”

“One knows whom to help and whom not to help without them.”

“But the peasants are in great need. I have just returned from the country. Is it necessary, that the peasants should work to the very limits of their strength and never have sufficient to eat while we are living in the greatest luxury?” said Nekhlúdoff, involuntarily led on by his aunt’s good nature into telling her