Resurrection by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (portable ebook reader txt) 📕

Such were Nekhludoff’s confused thoughts at this period of his

existence, and he felt all the time the delight of being free of

the moral barriers he had formerly set himself. And the state he

lived in was that of a chronic mania of selfishness. He was in

this state when, after three years’ absence, he came again to

visit his aunts.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SECOND MEETING WITH MASLOVA.

Nekhludoff went to visit his aunts because their estate lay near

the road he had to travel in order to join his regiment, which

had gone forward, because they had very warmly asked him to come,

and especially because he wanted to see Katusha. Perhaps in his

heart he had already formed those evil designs against Katusha

which his now uncontrolled animal self suggested to him, but he

did not acknowledge this as his intention, but only wished to go

back to the spot where he had been so happy, to see his rather

funny, but dear, kind-hearted old aunts, who always, without his

noticing it, surrounded him with an atmosphere of love and

admiration, and to see sweet Katusha, of whom he had retained so

pleasant a memory.

He arrived at the end of March, on Good Friday, after the thaw

had set in. It was pouring with rain so that he had not a dry

thread on him and was feeling very cold, but yet vigorous and

full of spirits, as always at that time. “Is she still with

them?” he thought, as he drove into the familiar, old-fashioned

courtyard, surrounded by a low brick wall, and now filled with

snow off the roofs.

He expected she would come out when she heard the sledge bells

but she did not. Two barefooted women with pails and tucked-up

skirts, who had evidently been scrubbing the floors, came out of

the side door. She was not at the front door either, and only

Tikhon, the manservant, with his apron on, evidently also busy

cleaning, came out into the front porch. His aunt Sophia Ivanovna

alone met him in the anteroom; she had a silk dress on and a cap

on her head. Both aunts had been to church and had received

communion.

“Well, this is nice of you to come,” said Sophia Ivanovna,

kissing him. “Mary is not well, got tired in church; we have been

to communion.”

“I congratulate you, Aunt Sophia,” [it is usual in Russia to

congratulate those who have received communion] said Nekhludoff,

kissing Sophia Ivanovna’s hand. “Oh, I beg your pardon, I have

made you wet.”

“Go to your room—why you are soaking wet. Dear me, you have got

moustaches! … Katusha! Katusha! Get him some coffee; be

quick.”

“Directly,” came the sound of a well-known, pleasant voice from

the passage, and Nekhludoff’s heart cried out “She’s here!” and

it was as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds.

Nekhludoff, followed by Tikhon, went gaily to his old room to

change his things. He felt inclined to ask Tikhon about Katusha;

how she was, what she was doing, was she not going to be married?

But Tikhon was so respectful and at the same time so severe,

insisted so firmly on pouring the water out of the jug for him,

that Nekhludoff could not make up his mind to ask him about

Katusha, but only inquired about Tikhon’s grandsons, about the

old so-called “brother’s” horse, and about the dog Polkan. All

were alive except Polkan, who had gone mad the summer before.

When he had taken off all his wet things and just begun to dress

again, Nekhludoff heard quick, familiar footsteps and a knock at

the door. Nekhludoff knew the steps and also the knock. No one

but she walked and knocked like that.

Having thrown his wet greatcoat over his shoulders, he opened the

door.

“Come in.” It was she, Katusha, the same, only sweeter than

before. The slightly squinting naive black eyes looked up in the

same old way. Now as then, she had on a white apron. She brought

him from his aunts a piece of scented soap, with the wrapper just

taken off, and two towels—one a long Russian embroidered one,

the other a bath towel. The unused soap with the stamped

inscription, the towels, and her own self, all were equally

clean, fresh, undefiled and pleasant. The irrepressible smile of

joy at the sight of him made the sweet, firm lips pucker up as of

old.

“How do you do, Dmitri Ivanovitch?” she uttered with difficulty,

her face suffused with a rosy blush.

“Good-morning! How do you do?” he said, also blushing. “Alive and

well?”

“Yes, the Lord be thanked. And here is your favorite pink soap and

towels from your aunts,” she said, putting the soap on the table

and hanging the towels over the back of a chair.

“There is everything here,” said Tikhon, defending the visitor’s

independence, and pointing to Nekhludoff’s open dressing case

filled with brushes, perfume, fixatoire, a great many bottles

with silver lids and all sorts of toilet appliances.

“Thank my aunts, please. Oh, how glad I am to be here,” said

Nekhludoff, his heart filling with light and tenderness as of

old.

She only smiled in answer to these words, and went out. The

aunts, who had always loved Nekhludoff, welcomed him this time

more warmly than ever. Dmitri was going to the war, where he

might be wounded or killed, and this touched the old aunts.

Nekhludoff had arranged to stay only a day and night with his

aunts, but when he had seen Katusha he agreed to stay over Easter

with them and telegraphed to his friend Schonbock, whom he was to

have joined in Odessa, that he should come and meet him at his

aunts’ instead.

As soon as he had seen Katusha Nekhludoff’s old feelings toward

her awoke again. Now, just as then, he could not see her white

apron without getting excited; he could not listen to her steps,

her voice, her laugh, without a feeling of joy; he could not look

at her eyes, black as sloes, without a feeling of tenderness,

especially when she smiled; and, above all, he could not notice

without agitation how she blushed when they met. He felt he was

in love, but not as before, when this love was a kind of mystery

to him and he would not own, even to himself, that he loved, and

when he was persuaded that one could love only once; now he knew

he was in love and was glad of it, and knew dimly what this love

consisted of and what it might lead to, though he sought to

conceal it even from himself. In Nekhludoff, as in every man,

there were two beings: one the spiritual, seeking only that kind

of happiness for him self which should tend towards the happiness

of all; the other, the animal man, seeking only his own

happiness, and ready to sacrifice to it the happiness of the rest

of the world. At this period of his mania of self-love brought on

by life in Petersburg and in the army, this animal man ruled

supreme and completely crushed the spiritual man in him.

But when he saw Katusha and experienced the same feelings as he

had had three years before, the spiritual man in him raised its

head once more and began to assert its rights. And up to Easter,

during two whole days, an unconscious, ceaseless inner struggle

went on in him.

He knew in the depths of his soul that he ought to go away, that

there was no real reason for staying on with his aunts, knew that

no good could come of it; and yet it was so pleasant, so

delightful, that he did not honestly acknowledge the facts to

himself and stayed on. On Easter eve, the priest and the deacon

who came to the house to say mass had had (so they said) the

greatest difficulty in getting over the three miles that lay

between the church and the old ladies’ house, coming across the

puddles and the bare earth in a sledge.

Nekhludoff attended the mass with his aunts and the servants, and

kept looking at Katusha, who was near the door and brought in the

censers for the priests. Then having given the priests and his

aunts the Easter kiss, though it was not midnight and therefore

not Easter yet, he was already going to bed when he heard the old

servant Matrona Pavlovna preparing to go to the church to get the

koulitch and paski [Easter cakes] blest after the midnight

service. “I shall go too,” he thought.

The road to the church was impassable either in a sledge or on

wheels, so Nekhludoff, who behaved in his aunts’ house just as he

did at home, ordered the old horse, “the brother’s horse,” to be

saddled, and instead of going to bed he put on his gay uniform, a

pair of tight-fitting riding breeches and his overcoat, and got

on the old overfed and heavy horse, which neighed continually

all the way as he rode in the dark through the puddles and snow

to the church.

CHAPTER XV.

THE EARLY MASS.

For Nekhludoff this early mass remained for ever after one of the

brightest and most vivid memories of his life. When he rode out

of the darkness, broken only here and there by patches of white

snow, into the churchyard illuminated by a row of lamps around

the church, the service had already begun.

The peasants, recognising Mary Ivanovna’s nephew, led his horse,

which was pricking up its cars at the sight of the lights, to a

dry place where he could get off, put it up for him, and showed

him into the church, which was full of people. On the right stood

the peasants; the old men in homespun coats, and clean white

linen bands [long strips of linen are worn by the peasants instead

of stockings] wrapped round their legs, the young men in new

cloth coats, bright-coloured belts round their waists, and

top-boots.

On the left stood the women, with red silk kerchiefs on their

heads, black velveteen sleeveless jackets, bright red

shirt-sleeves, gay-coloured green, blue, and red skirts, and

thick leather boots. The old women, dressed more quietly, stood

behind them, with white kerchiefs, homespun coats, old-fashioned

skirts of dark homespun material, and shoes on their feet.

Gaily-dressed children, their hair well oiled, went in and out

among them.

The men, making the sign of the cross, bowed down and raised

their heads again, shaking back their hair.

The women, especially the old ones, fixed their eyes on an icon

surrounded with candies and made the sign of the cross, firmly

pressing their folded fingers to the kerchief on their foreheads,

to their shoulders, and their stomachs, and, whispering

something, stooped or knelt down. The children, imitating the

grown-up people, prayed earnestly when they knew that they were

being observed. The gilt case containing the icon glittered,

illuminated on all sides by tall candles ornamented with golden

spirals. The candelabra was filled with tapers, and from the

choir sounded most merry tunes sung by amateur choristers, with

bellowing bass and shrill boys’ voices among them.

Nekhludoff passed up to the front. In the middle of the church

stood the aristocracy of the place: a landed proprietor, with his

wife and son (the latter dressed in a sailor’s suit), the police

officer, the telegraph clerk, a tradesman in top-boots, and the

village elder, with a medal on his breast; and to the right of

the ambo, just behind the landed proprietor’s wife, stood Matrona

Pavlovna in a lilac dress and fringed shawl and