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

she only lifted her eyes to him, cast a look round the room like

a hunted animal, and, dropping her head, began to cry, sobbing

aloud.

“What is the matter?” the merchant asked Nekhludoff, hearing him

utter a strange sound. This was the sound of weeping fiercely

kept back. Nekhludoff had not yet understood the significance of

his present position, and attributed the sobs he could hardly

keep back and the tears that filled his eyes to the weakness of

his nerves. He put on his pince-nez in order to hide the tears,

then got out his handkerchief and began blowing his nose.

Fear of the disgrace that would befall him if every one in the

court knew of his conduct stifled the inner working of his soul.

This fear was, during this first period, stronger than all else.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE TRIAL—THE SUMMING UP.

After the last words of the prisoners had been heard, the form in

which the questions were to be put to the jury was settled, which

also took some time. At last the questions were formulated, and

the president began the summing up.

Before putting the case to the jury, he spoke to them for some

time in a pleasant, homely manner, explaining that burglary was

burglary and theft was theft, and that stealing from a place

which was under lock and key was stealing from a place under lock

and key. While he was explaining this, he looked several times at

Nekhludoff as if wishing to impress upon him these important

facts, in hopes that, having understood it, Nekhludoff would make

his fellow-jurymen also understand it. When he considered that

the jury were sufficiently imbued with these facts, he proceeded

to enunciate another truth—namely, that a murder is an action

which has the death of a human being as its consequence, and that

poisoning could therefore also be termed murder. When, according

to his opinion, this truth had also been received by the jury, he

went on to explain that if theft and murder had been committed at

the same time, the combination of the crimes was theft with

murder.

Although he was himself anxious to finish as soon as possible,

although he knew that his Swiss friend would be waiting for him,

he had grown so used to his occupation that, having begun to

speak, he could not stop himself, and therefore he went on to

impress on the jury with much detail that if they found the

prisoners guilty, they would have the right to give a verdict of

guilty; and if they found them not guilty, to give a verdict of

not guilty; and if they found them guilty of one of the crimes

and not of the other, they might give a verdict of guilty on the

one count and of not guilty on the other. Then he explained that

though this right was given them they should use it with reason.

He was going to add that if they gave an affirmative answer to

any question that was put to them they would thereby affirm

everything included in the question, so that if they did not wish

to affirm the whole of the question they should mention the part

of the question they wished to be excepted. But, glancing at the

clock, and seeing it was already five minutes to three, he

resolved to trust to their being intelligent enough to understand

this without further comment.

“The facts of this case are the following,” began the president,

and repeated all that had already been said several times by the

advocates, the public prosecutor and the witnesses.

The president spoke, and the members on each side of him listened

with deeply-attentive expressions, but looked from time to time

at the clock, for they considered the speech too long though very

good—i.e., such as it ought to be. The public prosecutor, the

lawyers, and, in fact, everyone in the court, shared the same

impression. The president finished the summing up. Then he found

it necessary to tell the jury what they all knew, or might have

found out by reading it up—i.e., how they were to consider the

case, count the votes, in case of a tie to acquit the prisoners,

and so on.

Everything seemed to have been told; but no, the president could

not forego his right of speaking as yet. It was so pleasant to

hear the impressive tones of his own voice, and therefore he

found it necessary to say a few words more about the importance

of the rights given to the jury, how carefully they should use

the rights and how they ought not to abuse them, about their

being on their oath, that they were the conscience of society,

that the secrecy of the debating-room should be considered

sacred, etc.

From the time the president commenced his speech, Maslova watched

him without moving her eyes as if afraid of losing a single word;

so that Nekhludoff was not afraid of meeting her eyes and kept

looking at her all the time. And his mind passed through those

phases in which a face which we have not seen for many years

first strikes us with the outward changes brought about during

the time of separation, and then gradually becomes more and more

like its old self, when the changes made by time seem to

disappear, and before our spiritual eyes rises only the principal

expression of one exceptional, unique individuality. Yes, though

dressed in a prison cloak, and in spite of the developed figure,

the fulness of the bosom and lower part of the face, in spite of

a few wrinkles on the forehead and temples and the swollen eyes,

this was certainly the same Katusha who, on that Easter eve, had

so innocently looked up to him whom she loved, with her fond,

laughing eyes full of joy and life.

“What a strange coincidence that after ten years, during which I

never saw her, this case should have come up today when I am on

the jury, and that it is in the prisoners’ dock that I see her

again! And how will it end? Oh, dear, if they would only get on

quicker.”

Still he would not give in to the feelings of repentance which

began to arise within him. He tried to consider it all as a

coincidence, which would pass without infringing his manner of

life. He felt himself in the position of a puppy, when its

master, taking it by the scruff of its neck, rubs its nose in the

mess it has made. The puppy whines, draws back and wants to get

away as far as possible from the effects of its misdeed, but the

pitiless master does not let go.

And so, Nekhludoff, feeling all the repulsiveness of what he had

done, felt also the powerful hand of the Master, but he did not

feel the whole significance of his action yet and would not

recognise the Master’s hand. He did not wish to believe that it

was the effect of his deed that lay before him, but the pitiless

hand of the Master held him and he felt he could not get away. He

was still keeping up his courage and sat on his chair in the

first row in his usual self-possessed pose, one leg carelessly

thrown over the other, and playing with his pince-nez. Yet all

the while, in the depths of his soul, he felt the cruelty,

cowardice and baseness, not only of this particular action of his

but of his whole self-willed, depraved, cruel, idle life; and

that dreadful veil which had in some unaccountable manner hidden

from him this sin of his and the whole of his subsequent life was

beginning to shake, and he caught glimpses of what was covered by

that veil.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE TRIAL—THE VERDICT.

At last the president finished his speech, and lifting the list

of questions with a graceful movement of his arm he handed it to

the foreman, who came up to take it. The jury, glad to be able to

get into the debating-court, got up one after the other and left

the room, looking as if a bit ashamed of themselves and again not

knowing what to do with their hands. As soon as the door was

closed behind them a gendarme came up to it, pulled his sword out

of the scabbard, and, holding it up against his shoulder, stood

at the door. The judges got up and went away. The prisoners were

also led out. When the jury came into the debating-room the first

thing they did was to take out their cigarettes, as before, and

begin smoking. The sense of the unnaturalness and falseness of

their position, which all of them had experienced while sitting

in their places in the court, passed when they entered the

debating-room and started smoking, and they settled down with a

feeling of relief and at once began an animated conversation.

“‘Tisn’t the girl’s fault. She’s got mixed up in it,” said the

kindly merchant. “We must recommend her to mercy.”

“That’s just what we are going to consider,” said the foreman.

“We must not give way to our personal impressions.”

“The president’s summing up was good,” remarked the colonel.

“Good? Why, it nearly sent me to sleep!”

“The chief point is that the servants could have known nothing

about the money if Maslova had not been in accord with them,”

said the clerk of Jewish extraction.

“Well, do you think that it was she who stole the money?” asked

one of the jury.

“I will never believe it,” cried the kindly merchant; “it was all

that red-eyed hag’s doing.”

“They are a nice lot, all of them,” said the colonel.

“But she says she never went into the room.”

“Oh, believe her by all means.”

“I should not believe that jade, not for the world.”

“Whether you believe her or not does not settle the question,”

said the clerk.

“The girl had the key,” said the colonel.

“What if she had?” retorted the merchant.

“And the ring?”

“But didn’t she say all about it?” again cried the merchant. “The

fellow had a temper of his own, and had had a drop too much

besides, and gave the girl a licking; what could be simpler?

Well, then he’s sorry—quite naturally. ‘There, never mind,’ says

he; ‘take this.’ Why, I heard them say he was six foot five high;

I should think he must have weighed about 20 stones.”

“That’s not the point,” said Peter Gerasimovitch. “The question

is, whether she was the instigator and inciter in this affair, or

the servants?”

“It was not possible for the servants to do it alone; she had the

key.”

This kind of random talk went on for a considerable time. At last

the foreman said: “I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but had we not

better take our places at the table and discuss the matter?

Come, please.” And he took the chair.

The questions were expressed in the following manner.

1. Is the peasant of the village Borki, Krapivinskia district,

Simeon Petrov Kartinkin, 33 years of age, guilty of having, in

agreement with other persons, given the merchant Smelkoff, on the

17th January, 188-, in the town of N–—, with intent to deprive

him of life, for the purpose of robbing him, poisoned brandy,

which caused Smelkoff’s death, and of having stolen from him

about 2,500 roubles in money and a diamond ring?

2. Is the meschanka Euphemia Ivanovna Botchkova, 43 years of age,

guilty of the crimes described above?

3. Is the meschanka Katerina Michaelovna Maslova, 27 years of

age,