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

“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-haired [many advanced women wear

their hair short, like men] 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?” [The Emperor Alexander II

was killed on the first of March, old style.]

“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 Nekhludoff,

involuntarily led on by his aunt’s good nature into telling her

what he was in his thoughts.

“What do you want, then? That I should work and not eat

anything?”

“No, I do not wish you not to eat. I only wish that we should all

work and all eat.” He could not help smiling as he said it.

Again raising her brow and drooping her eyeballs his aunt look at

him curiously. “Mon cher vous finirez mal,” she said.

Just then the general, and former minister, Countess Tcharsky’s

husband, a tall, broad-shouldered man, came into the room.

“Ah, Dmitri, how d’you do?” he said, turning his freshly-shaved

cheek to Nekhludoff to be kissed. “When did you get here?” And he

silently kissed his wife on the forehead.

“Non il est impayable,” the Countess said, turning to her

husband. “He wants me to go and wash clothes and live on

potatoes. He is an awful fool, but all the same do what he is

going to ask of you. A terrible simpleton,” she added. “Have you

heard? Kamenskaya is in such despair that they fear for her

life,” she said to her husband. “You should go and call there.”

“Yes; it is dreadful,” said her husband.

“Go along, then, and talk to him. I must write some letters.”

Hardly had Nekhludoff stepped into the room next the drawing-room

than she called him back.

“Shall I write to Mariette, then?”

“Please, ma tante.”

“I shall leave a blank for what you want to say about the

short-haired one, and she will give her husband his orders, and

he’ll do it. Do not think me wicked; they are all so disgusting,

your prologues, but je ne leur veux pas de mal, bother them.

Well, go, but be sure to stay at home this evening to hear

Kiesewetter, and we shall have some prayers. And if only you do

not resist cela vous fera beaucoup de bien. I know your poor

mother and all of you were always very backward in these things.”

CHAPTER XV.

AN AVERAGE STATESMAN.

Count Ivan Michaelovitch had been a minister, and was a man of

strong convictions. The convictions of Count Ivan Michaelovitch

consisted in the belief that, just as it was natural for a bird

to feed on worms, to be clothed in feathers and down, and to fly

in the air, so it was natural for him to feed on the choicest and

most expensive food, prepared by highly-paid cooks, to wear the

most comfortable and most expensive clothing, to drive with the

best and fastest horses, and that, therefore, all these things

should be ready found for him. Besides this, Count Ivan

Michaelovitch considered that the more money he could get out of

the treasury by all sorts of means, the more orders he had,

including different diamond insignia of something or other, and

the oftener he spoke to highly-placed individuals of both sexes,

so much the better it was.

All the rest Count Ivan Michaelovitch considered insignificant

and uninteresting beside these dogmas. All the rest might be as

it was, or just the reverse. Count Ivan Michaelovitch lived and

acted according to these lights for 40 years, and at the end of

40 years reached the position of a Minister of State. The chief

qualities that enabled Count Ivan Michaelovitch to reach this

position were his capacity of understanding the meaning of

documents and laws and of drawing up, though clumsily,

intelligible State papers, and of spelling them correctly;

secondly, his very stately appearance, which enabled him, when

necessary, to seem not only extremely proud, but unapproachable

and majestic, while at other times he could be abjectly and

almost passionately servile; thirdly, the absence of any general

principles or rules, either of personal or administrative

morality, which made it possible for him either to agree or

disagree with anybody according to what was wanted at the time.

When acting thus his only endeavour was to sustain the appearance

of good breeding and not to seem too plainly inconsistent. As for

his actions being moral or not, in themselves, or whether they

were going to result in the highest welfare or greatest evil for

the whole of the Russian Empire, or even the entire world, that

was quite indifferent to him. When he became minister, not only

those dependent on him (and there were great many of them) and

people connected with him, but many strangers and even he himself

were convinced that he was a very clever statesman. But after

some time had elapsed and he had done nothing and had nothing to

show, and when in accordance with the law of the struggle for

existence others, like himself, who had learnt to write and

understand documents, stately and unprincipled officials, had

displaced him, he turned out to be not only far from clever but

very limited and badly educated. Though self-assured, his views

hardly reaching the level of those in the leading articles of the

Conservative papers, it became apparent that there was nothing in

him to distinguish him from those other badly-educated and

self-assured officials who had pushed him out, and he himself saw

it. But this did not shake his conviction that he had to receive

a great deal of money out of the Treasury every year, and new

decorations for his dress clothes. This conviction was so firm

that no one had the pluck to refuse these things to him, and he

received yearly, partly in form of a pension, partly as a salary

for being a member in a Government institution and chairman of

all sorts of committees and councils, several tens of thousands

of roubles, besides the right—highly prized by him—of sewing

all sorts of new cords to his shoulders and trousers, and ribbons

to wear under and enamel stars to fix on to his dress coat. In

consequence of this Count Ivan Michaelovitch had very high

connections.

Count Ivan Michaelovitch listened to Nekhludoff as he was wont to

listen to the reports of the permanent secretary of his

department, and, having heard him, said he would give him two

notes, one to the Senator Wolff, of the Appeal Department. “All

sorts of things are reported of him, but dans tous les cas c’est

un homme tres comme ii faut,” he said. “He is indebted to me, and

will do all that is possible.” The other note Count Ivan

Michaelovitch gave Nekhludoff was to an influential member of the

Petition Committee. The story of Theodosia Birukoff as told by

Nekhludoff interested him very much. When Nekhludoff said that he

thought of writing to the Empress, the Count replied that it

certainly was a very touching story, and might, if occasion

presented itself, be told her, but he could not promise. Let the

petition be handed in in due form.

Should there be an opportunity, and if a petit comite were called

on Thursday, he thought he would tell her the story. As soon as

Nekhludoff had received these two notes, and a note to Mariette

from his aunt, he at once set off to these different places.

First he went to Mariette’s. He had known her as a half-grown

girl, the daughter of an aristocratic but not wealthy family, and

had heard how she had married a man who was making a career, whom

Nekhludoff had heard badly spoken of; and, as usual, he felt it

hard to ask a favour of a man he did not esteem. In these cases

he always felt an inner dissension and dissatisfaction, and

wavered whether to ask the favour or not, and always resolved to

ask. Besides feeling himself in a false position among those to

whose set he no longer regarded himself as belonging, who yet

regarded him as belonging to them, he felt himself getting into

the old accustomed rut, and in spite of himself fell into the

thoughtless and immoral tone that reigned in that circle. He felt

that from the first, with his aunt, he involuntarily fell into a

bantering tone while talking about serious matters.

Petersburg in general affected him with its usual physically

invigorating and mentally dulling effect.

Everything so clean, so comfortably well-arranged and the people

so lenient in moral matters, that life seemed very easy.

A fine, clean, and polite isvostchik drove him past fine, clean,

polite policemen, along the fine, clean, watered streets, past

fine, clean houses to the house in which Mariette lived. At the

front door stood a pair of English horses, with English harness,

and an English-looking coachman on the box, with the lower part

of his face shaved, proudly holding a whip. The doorkeeper,

dressed in a wonderfully clean livery, opened the door into the

hall, where in still cleaner livery with gold cords stood the

footman with his splendid whiskers well combed out, and the

orderly on duty in a brand-new uniform. “The general does not

receive, and the generaless does not receive either. She is just

going to drive out.”

Nekhludoff took out Katerina Ivanovna’s letter, and going up to a

table on which lay a visitors’ book, began to write that he was

sorry not to have been able to see any one; when the footman went

up the staircase the doorkeeper went out and shouted to the

coachman, and the orderly stood up rigid with his arms at his

sides following with his eyes a little, slight lady, who was

coming down the stairs with rapid steps not in keeping with all

the grandeur.

Mariette had a large hat on, with feathers, a black dress and

cape, and new black gloves. Her face was covered by a veil.

When she saw Nekhludoff she lifted the veil off a very pretty

face with bright eyes that looked inquiringly at him.

“Ah, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff,” she said, with a soft,

pleasant voice. “I should have known—”

“What! you even remember my name?”

“I should think so. Why, I and my sisters have even been in love

with you,” she said, in French. “But, dear me, how you have

altered. Oh, what a pity I have