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

parting with her husband and their child, whom her mother had

taken, was very hard to bear; but she bore it firmly and quietly,

since it was for her husband’s sake and for that cause which she

had not the slightest doubt was true, since he served it. She was

always with her husband in thoughts, and did not love and could

not love any other any more than she had done before. But

Nabatoff’s devoted and pure love touched and excited her. This

moral, firm man, her husband’s friend, tried to treat her as a

sister, but something more appeared in his behaviour to her, and

this something frightened them both, and yet gave colour to their

life of hardship.

So that in all this circle only Mary Pavlovna and Kondratieff

were quite free from love affairs.

CHAPTER XIV.

CONVERSATIONS IN PRISON.

Expecting to have a private talk with Katusha, as usual, after

tea, Nekhludoff sat by the side of Kryltzoff, conversing with

him. Among other things he told him the story of Makar’s crime

and about his request to him. Kryltzoff listened attentively,

gazing at Nekhludoff with glistening eyes.

“Yes,” said Kryltzoff suddenly, “I often think that here we are

going side by side with them, and who are they? The same for

whose sake we are going, and yet we not only do not know them,

but do not even wish to know them. And they, even worse than

that, they hate us and look upon us as enemies. This is

terrible.”

“There is nothing terrible about it,” broke in Novodvoroff. “The

masses always worship power only. The government is in power, and

they worship it and hate us. Tomorrow we shall have the power,

and they will worship us,” he said with his grating voice. At

that moment a volley of abuse and the rattle of chains sounded

from behind the wall, something was heard thumping against it and

screaming and shrieking, some one was being beaten, and some one

was calling out, “Murder! help!”

“Hear them, the beasts! What intercourse can there be between us

and such as them?” quietly remarked Novodvoroff.

“You call them beasts, and Nekhludoff was just telling me about

such an action!” irritably retorted Kryltzoff, and went on to say

how Makar was risking his life to save a fellow-villager. “That

is not the action of a beast, it is heroism.”

“Sentimentality!” Novodvoroff ejaculated ironically; “it is

difficult for us to understand the emotions of these people and

the motives on which they act. You see generosity in the act, and

it may be simply jealousy of that other criminal.”

“How is it that you never wish to see anything good in

another?” Mary Pavlovna said suddenly, flaring up.

“How can one see what does not exist!”

“How does it not exist, when a man risks dying a terrible

death?”

“I think,” said Novodvoroff, “that if we mean to do our

work, the first condition is that” (here Kondratieff put

down the book he was reading by the lamplight and began

to listen attentively to his master’s words) “we should not

give way to fancy, but look at things as they are. We should

do all in our power for the masses, and expect nothing in

return. The masses can only be the object of our activity,

but cannot be our fellow-workers as long as they remain in

that state of inertia they are in at present,” he went on, as

if delivering a lecture. “Therefore, to expect help from

them before the process of development—that process which

we are preparing them for—has taken place is an illusion.”

“What process of development?” Kryltzoff began, flushing

all over. “We say that we are against arbitrary rule

and despotism, and is this not the most awful despotism?”

“No despotism whatever,” quietly rejoined Novodvoroff. “I am

only saying that I know the path that the people must travel, and

can show them that path.”

“But how can you be sure that the path you show is the true path?

Is this not the same kind of despotism that lay at the bottom of

the Inquisition, all persecutions, and the great revolution?

They, too, knew the one true way, by means of their science.”

“Their having erred is no proof of my going to err; besides,

there is a great difference between the ravings of idealogues and

the facts based on sound, economic science.” Novodvoroff’s voice

filled the room; he alone was speaking, all the rest were silent.

“They are always disputing,” Mary Pavlovna said, when there was a

moment’s silence.

“And you yourself, what do you think about it?” Nekhludoff asked her.

“I think Kryltzoff is right when he says we should not force our

views on the people.”

“And you, Katusha?” asked Nekhludoff with a smile, waiting anxiously

for her answer, fearing she would say something awkward.

“I think the common people are wronged,” she said, and blushed

scarlet. “I think they are dreadfully wronged.”

“That’s right, Maslova, quite right,” cried Nabatoff. “They are

terribly wronged, the people, and they must not he wronged, and

therein lies the whole of our task.”

“A curious idea of the object of revolution,” Novodvoroff

remarked crossly, and began to smoke.

“I cannot talk to him,” said Kryltzoff in a whisper, and was

silent.

“And it is much better not to talk,” Nekhludoff said.

CHAPTER XV.

NOVODVOROFF.

Although Novodvoroff was highly esteemed of all the

revolutionists, though he was very learned, and considered very

wise, Nekhludoff reckoned him among those of the revolutionists

who, being below the average moral level, were very far below it.

His inner life was of a nature directly opposite to that of

Simonson’s. Simonson was one of those people (of an essentially

masculine type) whose actions follow the dictates of their

reason, and are determined by it. Novodvoroff belonged, on the

contrary, to the class of people of a feminine type, whose reason

is directed partly towards the attainment of aims set by their

feelings, partly to the justification of acts suggested by their

feelings. The whole of Novodvoroff’s revolutionary activity,

though he could explain it very eloquently and very convincingly,

appeared to Nekhludoff to be founded on nothing but ambition and

the desire for supremacy. At first his capacity for assimilating

the thoughts of others, and of expressing them correctly, had

given him a position of supremacy among pupils and teachers in

the gymnasium and the university, where qualities such as his are

highly prized, and he was satisfied. When he had finished his

studies and received his diploma he suddenly altered his views,

and from a modern liberal he turned into a rabid Narodovoletz, in

order (so Kryltzoff, who did not like him, said) to gain

supremacy in another sphere.

As he was devoid of those moral and aesthetic qualities which

call forth doubts and hesitation, he very soon acquired a

position in the revolutionary world which satisfied him—that of

the leader of a party. Having once chosen a direction, he never

doubted or hesitated, and was therefore certain that he never

made a mistake. Everything seemed quite simple, clear and

certain. And the narrowness and one-sidedness of his views did

make everything seem simple and clear. One only had to be

logical, as he said. His self-assurance was so great that it

either repelled people or made them submit to him. As he carried

on his work among very young people, his boundless self-assurance

led them to believe him very profound and wise; the majority did

submit to him, and he had a great success in revolutionary

circles. His activity was directed to the preparation of a rising

in which he was to usurp the power and call together a council. A

programme, composed by him, should he proposed before the

council, and he felt sure that this programme of his solved every

problem, and that it would he impossible not to carry it out.

His comrades respected but did not love him. He did not love any

one, looked upon all men of note as upon rivals, and would have

willingly treated them as old male monkeys treat young ones if he

could have done it. He would have torn all mental power, every

capacity, from other men, so that they should not interfere with

the display of his talents. He behaved well only to those who

bowed before him. Now, on the journey he behaved well to

Kondratieff, who was influenced by his propaganda; to Vera

Doukhova and pretty little Grabetz, who were both in love with

him. Although in principle he was in favour of the woman’s

movement, yet in the depth of his soul he considered all women

stupid and insignificant except those whom he was sentimentally

in love with (as he was now in love with Grabetz), and such women

he considered to be exceptions, whose merits he alone was capable

of discerning.

The question of the relations of the sexes he also looked upon as

thoroughly solved by accepting free union. He had one nominal and

one real wife, from both of whom he was separated, having come to

the conclusion that there was no real love between them, and now

he thought of entering on a free union with Grabetz. He despised

Nekhludoff for “playing the fool,” as Novodvoroff termed it, with

Maslova, but especially for the freedom Nekhludoff took of

considering the defects of the existing system and the methods of

correcting those defects in a manner which was not only not

exactly the same as Novodvoroff’s, but was Nekhludoff’s own—a

prince’s, that is, a fool’s manner. Nekhludoff felt this relation

of Novodvoroff’s towards him, and knew to his sorrow that in

spite of the state of good will in which he found himself on this

journey he could not help paying this man in his own coin, and

could not stifle the strong antipathy he felt for him.

CHAPTER XVI.

SIMONSON SPEAKS TO NEKHLUDOFF.

The voices of officials sounded from the next room. All the

prisoners were silent, and a sergeant, followed by two convoy

soldiers, entered. The time of the inspection had come. The

sergeant counted every one, and when Nekhludoff’s turn came he

addressed him with kindly familiarity.

“You must not stay any longer, Prince, after the inspection; you

must go now.”

Nekhludoff knew what this meant, went up to the sergeant and

shoved a three-rouble note into his hand.

“Ah, well, what is one to do with you; stay a bit longer, if you

like.” The sergeant was about to go when another sergeant,

followed by a convict, a spare man with a thin beard and a bruise

under his eye, came in.

“It’s about the girl I have come,” said the convict.

“Here’s daddy come,” came the ringing accents of a child’s voice,

and a flaxen head appeared from behind Rintzeva, who, with

Katusha’s and Mary Pavlovna’s help, was making a new garment for

the child out of one of Rintzeva’s own petticoats.

“Yes, daughter, it’s me,” Bousovkin, the prisoner, said softly.

“She is quite comfortable here,” said Mary Pavlovna, looking with

pity at Bousovkin’s bruised face. “Leave her with us.”

“The ladies are making me new clothes,” said the girl, pointing

to Rintzeva’s sewing—“nice red ones,” she went on, prattling.

“Do you wish to sleep with us?” asked Rintzeva, caressing the

child.

“Yes, I wish. And daddy, too.”

“No, daddy can’t. Well, leave her then,” she said, turning to the

father.

“Yes, you may leave her,” said the first sergeant, and went out

with the other.

As soon as they were out of the room Nabatoff went up to

Bousovkin, slapped him on