Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📕

“May she sign it here?” asked Nekhlúdoff, turning to the inspector.

“It’s all right, it’s all right! Sit down. Here’s a pen; you can write?” said the inspector.

“I could at one time,” she said; and, after arranging her skirt and the sleeves of her jacket, she sat down at the table, smiled awkwardly, took the pen with her small, energetic hand, and glanced at Nekhlúdoff with a laugh.

Nekhlúdoff told her what to write and pointed out the place where to sign.

Sighing deeply as she dipped her pen into the ink, and carefully shaking some drops off the pen, she wrote her name.

“Is it all?” she asked, looking from Nekhlúdoff to the inspector, and putting the pen now on the inkstand, now on the papers.

“I have a few words to tell you,” Nekhlúdoff said, taking the pen from her.

“All right; tell me,” she said. And suddenly, as if remembering something, or feeling sleepy, she grew serious.

The inspector rose and left the room, and Nekhlúdoff remained with her.

The jailer who had brought Máslova in sat on a windowsill at some distance from them.

The decisive moment had come for Nekhlúdoff. He had been incessantly blaming himself for not having told her the principal thing at the first interview, and was now determined to tell her that he would marry her. She was sitting at the further side of the table. Nekhlúdoff sat down opposite her. It was light in the room, and Nekhlúdoff for the first time saw her face quite near. He distinctly saw the crowsfeet round her eyes, the wrinkles round her mouth, and the swollen eyelids. He felt more sorry than before. Leaning over the table so as not to be heard by the jailer⁠—a man of Jewish type with grizzly whiskers, who sat by the window⁠—Nekhlúdoff said⁠—

“Should this petition come to nothing we shall appeal to the Emperor. All that is possible shall be done.”

“There, now, if we had had a proper advocate from the first,” she interrupted. “My defendant was quite a silly. He did nothing but pay me compliments,” she said, and laughed. “If it had then been known that I was acquainted with you, it would have been another matter. They think everyone’s a thief.”

“How strange she is today,” Nekhlúdoff thought, and was just going to say what he had on his mind when she began again⁠—

“There’s something I want to say. We have here an old woman; such a fine one, d’you know, she just surprises everyone; she is imprisoned for nothing, and her son, too, and everybody knows they are innocent, though they are accused of having set fire to a house. D’you know, hearing I was acquainted with you, she says: ‘Tell him to ask to see my son; he’ll tell him all about it.’ ” Thus spoke Máslova, turning her head from side to side, and glancing at Nekhlúdoff. “Their name’s Menshóff. Well, will you do it? Such a fine old thing, you know; you can see at once she’s innocent. You’ll do it, there’s a dear,” and she smiled, glanced up at him, and then cast down her eyes.

“All right. I’ll find out about them,” Nekhlúdoff said, more and more astonished by her free-and-easy manner. “But I was going to speak to you about myself. Do you remember what I told you last time?”

“You said a lot last time. What was it you told me?” she said, continuing to smile and to turn her head from side to side.

“I said I had come to ask you to forgive me,” he began.

“What’s the use of that? Forgive, forgive, where’s the good of⁠—”

“To atone for my sin, not by mere words, but in deed. I have made up my mind to marry you.”

An expression of fear suddenly came over her face. Her squinting eyes remained fixed on him, and yet seemed not to be looking at him.

“What’s that for?” she said, with an angry frown.

“I feel that it is my duty before God to do it.”

“What God have you found now? You are not saying what you ought to. God, indeed! What God? You ought to have remembered God then,” she said, and stopped with her mouth open. It was only now that Nekhlúdoff noticed that her breath smelled of spirits, and that he understood the cause of her excitement.

“Try and be calm,” he said.

“Why should I be calm?” she began, quickly, flushing scarlet. “I am a convict, and you are a gentleman and a prince. There’s no need for you to soil yourself by touching me. You go to your princesses; my price is a ten-rouble note.”

“However cruelly you may speak, you cannot express what I myself am feeling,” he said, trembling all over; “you cannot imagine to what extent I feel myself guilty towards you.”

“Feel yourself guilty?” she said, angrily mimicking him. “You did not feel so then, but threw me a hundred roubles. That’s your price.”

“I know, I know; but what is to be done now?” said Nekhlúdoff. “I have decided not to leave you, and what I have said I shall do.”

“And I say you shan’t,” she said, and laughed aloud.

“Katúsha,” he said, touching her hand.

“You go away. I am a convict and you a prince, and you’ve no business here,” she cried, pulling away her hand, her whole appearance transformed by her wrath. “You’ve got pleasure out of me in this life, and want to save yourself through me in the life to come. You are disgusting to me⁠—your spectacles and the whole of your dirty fat mug. Go, go!” she screamed, starting to her feet.

The jailer came up to them.

“What are you kicking up this row for?’ That won’t⁠—”

“Let her alone, please,” said Nekhlúdoff.

“She must not forget herself,” said the jailer. “Please wait a little,” said Nekhlúdoff, and the jailer returned to the window.

Máslova sat down again, dropping her eyes and firmly clasping her small hands.

Nekhlúdoff stooped over her, not knowing what to do.

“You do not believe me?” he