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

of the head a firm, well-shaped car was visible.

One could see what possibilities of a higher life had been

destroyed in this man. The fine bones of his hands and shackled

feet, the strong muscles of all his well-proportioned limbs,

showed what a beautiful, strong, agile human animal this had

been. As an animal merely he had been a far more perfect one of

his kind than the bay stallion, about the laming of which the

fireman was so angry.

Yet he had been done to death, and no one was sorry for him as a

man, nor was any one sorry that so fine a working animal had

perished. The only feeling evinced was that of annoyance because

of the bother caused by the necessity of getting this body,

threatening putrefaction, out of the way. The doctor and his

assistant entered the hospital, accompanied by the inspector of

the police station. The doctor was a thick-set man, dressed in

pongee silk coat and trousers of the same material, closely

fitting his muscular thighs. The inspector was a little fat

fellow, with a red face, round as a ball, which he made still

broader by a habit he had of filling his cheeks with air, and

slowly letting it out again. The doctor sat down on the bed by

the side of the dead man, and touched the hands in the same way

as his assistant had done, put his ear to the heart, rose, and

pulled his trousers straight. “Could not be more dead,” he said.

The inspector filled his mouth with air and slowly blew it out

again.

“Which prison is he from?” he asked the convoy soldier.

The soldier told him, and reminded him of the chains on the dead

man’s feet.

“I’ll have them taken off; we have got a smith about, the Lord be

thanked,” said the inspector, and blew up his cheeks again; he

went towards the door, slowly letting out the air.

“Why has this happened?” Nekhludoff asked the doctor.

The doctor looked at him through his spectacles.

“Why has what happened? Why they die of sunstroke, you mean? This

is why: They sit all through the winter without exercise and

without light, and suddenly they are taken out into the sunshine,

and on a day like this, and they march in a crowd so that they

get no air, and sunstroke is the result.”

“Then why are they sent out?”

“Oh, as to that, go and ask those who send them. But may I ask

who are you?”

“I am a stranger.”

“Ah, well, good-afternoon; I have no time.” The doctor was vexed;

he gave his trousers a downward pull, and went towards the beds

of the sick.

“Well, how are you getting on?” he asked the pale man with the

crooked mouth and bandaged neck.

Meanwhile the madman sat on a bed, and having finished his

cigarette, kept spitting in the direction of the doctor.

Nekhludoff went down into the yard and out of the gate past the

firemen’s horses and the hens and the sentinel in his brass

helmet, and got into the trap, the driver of which had again

fallen asleep.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE CONVICT TRAIN.

When Nekhludoff came to the station, the prisoners were all

seated in railway carriages with grated windows. Several persons,

come to see them off, stood on the platform, but were not allowed

to come up to the carriages.

The convoy was much troubled that day. On the way from the prison

to the station, besides the two Nekhludoff had seen, three other

prisoners had fallen and died of sunstroke. One was taken to the

nearest police station like the first two, and the other two died

at the railway station. [In Moscow, in the beginning of the eighth

decade of this century, five convicts died of sunstroke in one

day on their way from the Boutyrki prison to the Nijni railway

station.] The convoy men were not troubled because five men who

might have been alive died while in their charge. This did not

trouble them, but they were concerned lest anything that the law

required in such cases should be omitted. To convey the bodies to

the places appointed, to deliver up their papers, to take them

off the lists of those to be conveyed to Nijni—all this was very

troublesome, especially on so hot a day.

It was this that occupied the convoy men, and before it could all

be accomplished Nekhludoff and the others who asked for leave to

go up to the carriages were not allowed to do so. Nekhludoff,

however, was soon allowed to go up, because he tipped the convoy

sergeant. The sergeant let Nekhludoff pass, but asked him to be

quick and get his talk over before any of the authorities

noticed. There were 15 carriages in all, and except one carriage

for the officials, they were full of prisoners. As Nekhludoff

passed the carriages he listened to what was going on in them. In

all the carriages was heard the clanging of chains, the sound of

bustle, mixed with loud and senseless language, but not a word

was being said about their dead fellow-prisoners. The talk was

all about sacks, drinking water, and the choice of seats.

Looking into one of the carriages, Nekhludoff saw convoy soldiers

taking the manacles off the hands of the prisoners. The prisoners

held out their arms, and one of the soldiers unlocked the

manacles with a key and took them off; the other collected them.

After he had passed all the other carriages, Nekhludoff came up

to the women’s carriages. From the second of these he heard a

woman’s groans: “Oh, oh, oh! O God! Oh, oh! O God!”

Nekhludoff passed this carriage and went up to a window of the

third carriage, which a soldier pointed out to him. When he

approached his face to the window, he felt the hot air, filled

with the smell of perspiration, coming out of it, and heard

distinctly the shrill sound of women’s voices. All the seats were

filled with red, perspiring, loudly-talking women, dressed in

prison cloaks and white jackets. Nekhludoff’s face at the window

attracted their attention. Those nearest ceased talking and drew

closer. Maslova, in her white jacket and her head uncovered, sat

by the opposite window. The white-skinned, smiling Theodosia sat

a little nearer. When she recognised Nekhludoff, she nudged

Maslova and pointed to the window. Maslova rose hurriedly, threw

her kerchief over her black hair, and with a smile on her hot,

red face came up to the window and took hold of one of the bars.

“Well, it is hot,” she said, with a glad smile.

“Did you get the things?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Is there anything more you want?” asked Nekhludoff, while the

air came out of the hot carriage as out of an oven.

“I want nothing, thank you.”

“If we could get a drink?” said Theodosia.

“Yes, if we could get a drink,” repeated Maslova.

“Why, have you not got any water?”

“They put some in, but it is all gone.”

“Directly, I will ask one of the convoy men. Now we shall not see

each other till we get to Nijni.”

“Why? Are you going?” said Maslova, as if she did not know it,

and looked joyfully at Nekhludoff.

“I am going by the next train.”

Maslova said nothing, but only sighed deeply.

“Is it true, sir, that 12 convicts have been done to death?” said

a severe-looking old prisoner with a deep voice like a man’s.

It was Korableva.

“I did not hear of 12; I have seen two,” said Nekhludoff.

“They say there were 12 they killed. And will nothing be done to

them? Only think! The fiends!”

“And have none of the women fallen ill?” Nekhludoff asked.

“Women are stronger,” said another of the prisoners—a short

little woman, and laughed; “only there’s one that has taken it

into her head to be delivered. There she goes,” she said,

pointing to the next carriage, whence proceeded the groans.

“You ask if we want anything,” said Maslova, trying to keep the

smile of joy from her lips; “could not this woman be left behind.

suffering as she is? There, now, if you would tell the

authorities.”

“Yes, I will.”

“And one thing more; could she not see her husband, Taras?” she

added, pointing with her eyes to the smiling Theodosia.

“He is going with you, is he not?”

“Sir, you must not talk,” said a convoy sergeant, not the one who

had let Nekhludoff come up. Nekhludoff left the carriage and went

in search of an official to whom he might speak for the woman in

travail and about Taras, but could not find him, nor get an

answer from any of the convoy for a long time. They were all in a

bustle; some were leading a prisoner somewhere or other, others

running to get themselves provisions, some were placing their

things in the carriages or attending on a lady who was going to

accompany the convoy officer, and they answered Nekhludoff’s

questions unwillingly. Nekhludoff found the convoy officer only

after the second bell had been rung. The officer with his short

arm was wiping the moustaches that covered his mouth and

shrugging his shoulders, reproving the corporal for something or

other.

“What is it you want?” he asked Nekhludoff.

“You’ve got a woman there who is being confined, so I thought

best—”

“Well, let her be confined; we shall see later on,” and briskly

swinging his short arms, he ran up to his carriage. At the moment

the guard passed with a whistle in his hand, and from the people

on the platform and from the women’s carriages there arose a

sound of weeping and words of prayer.

Nekhludoff stood on the platform by the side of Taras, and looked

how, one after the other, the carriages glided past him, with the

shaved heads of the men at the grated windows. Then the first of

the women’s carriages came up, with women’s heads at the windows,

some covered with kerchiefs and some uncovered, then the second,

whence proceeded the same groans, then the carriage where Maslova

was. She stood with the others at the window, and looked at

Nekhludoff with a pathetic smile.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

BROTHER AND SISTER.

There were still two hours before the passenger train by which

Nekhludoff was going would start. He had thought of using this

interval to see his sister again; but after the impressions of

the morning he felt much excited and so done up that, sitting

down on a sofa in the first-class refreshment-room, he suddenly

grew so drowsy that he turned over on to his side, and, laying

his face on his hand, fell asleep at once. A waiter in a dress

coat with a napkin in his hand woke him.

“Sir, sir, are you not Prince Nekhludoff? There’s a lady looking

for you.”

Nekhludoff started up and recollected where he was and all that

had happened in the morning.

He saw in his imagination the procession of prisoners, the dead

bodies, the railway carriages with barred windows, and the women

locked up in them, one of whom was groaning in travail with no

one to help her, and another who was pathetically smiling at him

through the bars.

The reality before his eyes was very different, i.e., a table

with vases, candlesticks and crockery, and agile waiters moving

round the table, and in the background a cupboard and