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

and greeted Nekhlúdoff with a friendly though slightly ironical smile. This was his way of showing how comme il faut he was, and how superior to the majority of men. He read the note which Nekhlúdoff handed to him.

“Please take a seat, and excuse me if I continue to walk up and down, with your permission,” he said, putting his hands into his coat pockets, and began again to walk with light, soft steps across his large, quietly and stylishly furnished study. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance and of course very glad to do anything that Count Iván Micháelovitch wishes,” he said, blowing the fragrant blue smoke out of his mouth and removing his cigar carefully so as not to drop the ash.

“I should only like to ask that the case might come on soon, so that if the prisoner has to go to Siberia she might set off early,” said Nekhlúdoff.

“Yes, yes, with one of the first steamers from Níjni. I know,” said Wolff, with his patronising smile, always knowing in advance whatever one wanted to tell him.

“What is the prisoner’s name?”

“Máslova.”

Wolff went up to the table and looked at a paper that lay on a piece of cardboard among other business papers.

“Yes, yes. Máslova. All right, I will ask the others. We shall hear the case on Wednesday.”

“Then may I telegraph to the advocate?”

“The advocate! What’s that for? But if you like, why not?”

“The causes for appeal may be insufficient,” said Nekhlúdoff, “but I think the case will show that the sentence was passed owing to a misunderstanding.”

“Yes, yes; it may be so, but the Senate cannot decide the case on its merits,” said Wolff, looking seriously at the ash of his cigar. “The Senate only considers the exactness of the application of the laws and their right interpretation.”

“But this seems to me to be an exceptional case.”

“I know, I know! All cases are exceptional. We shall do our duty. That’s all.” The ash was still holding on, but had began breaking, and was in danger of falling.

“Do you often come to Petersburg?” said Wolff, holding his cigar so that the ash should not fall. But the ash began to shake, and Wolff carefully carried it to the ashpan, into which it fell.

“What a terrible thing this is with regard to Kámenski,” he said. “A splendid young man. The only son. Especially the mother’s position,” he went on, repeating almost word for word what everyone in Petersburg was at that time saying about Kámenski. Wolff spoke a little about the Countess Katerína Ivánovna and her enthusiasm for the new religious teaching, which he neither approved nor disapproved of, but which was evidently needless to him who was so comme il faut, and then rang the bell.

Nekhlúdoff bowed.

“If it is convenient, come and dine on Wednesday, and I will give you a decisive answer,” said Wolff, extending his hand.

It was late, and Nekhlúdoff returned to his aunt’s.

XVII

Countess Katerína Ivánovna’s dinner hour was half-past seven, and the dinner was served in a new manner that Nekhlúdoff had not yet seen anywhere. After they had placed the dishes on the table the waiters left the room and the diners helped themselves. The men would not let the ladies take the trouble of moving, and, as befitted the stronger sex, they manfully took on themselves the burden of putting the food on the ladies’ plates and of filling their glasses. When one course was finished, the 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), Nekhlúdoff, 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 Katerína Ivánovna, with her free thoughtlessness, expressed 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 Nekhlúdoff, 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. Nekhlúdoff listened to the conversation without joining in. Having been an officer himself, he understood, though he did not agree with, young Tchársky’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