59

ONE of the commonest and most generally accepted delusions is that every man can be qualified in some particular way – said to be kind, wicked, stupid, energetic, apathetic and so on. People are not like that. We may say of a man that he is more often kind than cruel, more often wise than stupid, more often energetic than apathetic or vice versa; but it could never be true to say of one man that he is kind or wise, and of another that he is wicked or stupid. Yet we are always classifying mankind in this way. And it is wrong. Human beings are like rivers: the water is one and the same in all of them but every river is narrow in some places, flows swifter in others; here it is broad, there still, or clear, or cold, or muddy or warm. It is the same with men. Every man bears within him the germs of every human quality, and now manifests one, now another, and frequently is quite unlike himself, while still remaining the same man. In some people the volte-face is particularly abrupt. And to this category belonged Nekhlyudov. His shifts of mood were due both to physical and spiritual causes. And just such a change took place in him now.

The feeling of solemnity and joyful regeneration which he had experienced after the trial, and after his first meeting with Katusha, had vanished completely, to be replaced – after their last interview – by dread, and even disgust of her. He was determined not to leave her, not to abandon his decision to marry her if she wished; but it seemed grievously hard.

The day after his visit to Maslennikov he went to the prison to see her again.

The superintendent consented to the interview, but not in the office, and not in the lawyers’ room, but in the women’s visiting-hall. For all his kind heart, the superintendent was more reserved with Nekhlyudov than previously: apparently his talks with Maslennikov had resulted in an order for greater reticence towards this visitor.

‘You may see her,’ said the superintendent, ‘only please do as I asked you with regard to money…As to her transfer to the hospital, that his excellency wrote about, it could be done, and the medical officer would agree. Only she herself does not want to go. She says she doesn’t care to “empty slops for that scabby lot’. You don’t know these people, prince,’ he added.

Nekhlyudov made no reply, and asked to see her. The superintendent called a warder, and Nekhlyudov followed him into the women’s visiting-hall, empty save for Maslova. She came out from behind the netting, quiet and timid. She went up close to Nekhlyudov and said, looking past him:

‘Forgive me, Dmitri Ivanovich, I said wicked things to you the day before yesterday.’

‘It is not for me to forgive you,’ Nekhlyudov began.

‘But all the same, you must leave me alone,’ she continued, and in the dreadfully squinting eyes she turned on him Nekhlyudov read the old strained and spiteful expression.

‘Why should I leave you?’

‘Just because –’

‘Because why?’

She glanced at him again with, as he thought, the same malicious look.

‘Well, that’s how it is,’ she said. ‘You leave me alone – I’m telling you the truth. I can’t. You must give up the idea,’ she said with trembling lips, and was silent for a moment. ‘It’s true. I’d rather hang myself.’

Nekhlyudov felt hatred for himself, and resentment for an unforgiven injury, in her refusal, but there was something else, too – something good and significant. Uttered quite calmly, this corroboration of her previous rejection immediately did away with all Nekhlyudov’s doubts and uncertainty and restored him to his former solemn and exalted mood of tender emotion.

‘Katusha, I said it before, and I say it again,’ he articulated very earnestly. ‘I ask you to be my wife. But if you don’t want to marry me, and for as long as you do not want to, I shall stay with you, and be where you are, and go wherever they take you.’

‘That’s your affair, I’ve nothing more to say,’ she said, and her lips began to tremble again.

He, too, was silent, unable to speak.

‘I am going to the country, and afterwards to Petersburg,’ he said when he had regained his composure. ‘I shall do all I can about your – about our – case, and, God willing, get the sentence revoked,’

‘And if it isn’t, never mind. If I don’t deserve it for this, I do for other things,’ she said, and he saw what an effort she had to make to keep back her tears.

‘Well, did you see Menshov?’ she asked suddenly, to hide her emotion. ‘It’s true, isn’t it, that they are innocent?’

‘Yes, I think it is.’

She is such a wonderful old woman,’ she said.

He repeated to her what Menshov had told him, and asked whether she needed anything for herself. She replied that she did not want anything.

Again they were silent.

‘About the hospital,’ she said suddenly, glancing at him with squinting eyes. ‘I will go if you like, and I won’t touch any more drink either…’

Nekhlyudov looked silently into her eyes. They were smiling.

‘That’s very good,’ was all he could answer, and then he said good-bye to her.

‘Yes, yes, she is an entirely different person,’ Nekhlyudov thought, experiencing after all his former doubts a feeling he had never known before – the certainty that love is invincible.

*

When Maslova returned to her stinking cell after this interview she took off her cloak and sat down in her place on the plank-bedstead, with her hands folded in her lap. The only other prisoners in the cell were the consumptive girl from Vladimir with her baby, Menshov’s old mother and the signal-woman with the two children. The subdeacon’s daughter had been pronounced insane the day before and removed to the hospital. And all the other women were away, washing clothes. The old woman was asleep on her bunk; the children were in the corridor, the door into which was open. The girl from Vladimir with the baby in her arms and the signal-woman with the stocking she was knitting with swift fingers came up to Maslova.

‘Well, did you see ’im?’ they asked.

Maslova sat silent on the high bunk, swinging her legs which did not reach to the floor.

‘Mopin’ ain’t no use,’ said the signal-woman. ‘You gotter keep yer end up, that’s the main thing. Come on now,

Katusha, cheer up!’ she went on, her fingers moving like lightning.

Maslova did not answer.

‘Our folks are all out washing their clothes,’ said the Vladimir woman. ‘You can’t think what almsgiving there is today. A tidy bit been brought in, they say.’

‘Finashka!’ the signal-woman cried through the door. ‘Where’s the little imp got to?’

And she stuck a knitting needle through the ball and the stocking, and went out into the corridor.

Just then the sound of footsteps and women’s voices was heard from the corridor, and the other occupants of the cell entered, wearing prison shoes but no stockings, each of them carrying a bread roll – some of them even had two. Fedosya at once went up to Maslova.

‘What’s the matter? Anything wrong?’ she asked, her clear blue eyes looking affectionately at her friend. ‘These are for our tea,’ she added, putting the fancy loaves on the shelf.

‘Changed ’is mind about marrying you, ‘as ’e?’ said Korablyova.

‘No, he hasn’t, but I don’t want to,’ said Maslova. ‘And I told him so.’

‘More fool you!’ said Korablyova in her deep bass.

‘If you can’t live together, what’s the use of marrying?’ said Fedosya.

‘There’s your ’usban’ – ’e’s goin’ along with you, ain’t ’e?’ said the signal-woman.

‘Yes, but we’re already married,’ said Fedosya. ‘But what’s the point of ’im tying ’imself up if ’e can’t live with ’er afterwards?’

‘What for? Don’t be a fool! If’e marries ’er she’ll be rollin’ in money.’

‘He says: “No matter where they take you, I’ll follow,” ‘ said Maslova. ‘But I don’t care whether he does or not. I’m not going to ask him to. He’s going to Petersburg now, to see about my case. All the ministers there are relations of his,’ she continued. ‘But I’ve no use for him all the same.’

‘Of course not!’ Korablyova agreed suddenly, rummaging in her bag and evidently thinking about something else. ‘Let’s ’ave a drop, shall we?’

‘You have a drop,’ replied Maslova. ‘I won’t.’