33

‘WELL, and how are the children?’ Nekhlyudov asked his sister, when he had regained some of his composure.

She told him that they were with their grandmother, her husband’s mother; and, relieved that the dispute with her husband was over, she went on to describe how they played at travelling, just as he used to do with his two dolls – the little negro and the one he called the French lady.

‘Do you really remember that?’ said Nekhlyudov, smiling.

‘And isn’t it odd that they should play the very same game?’

The disagreeable conversation had been brought to an end. Natalia felt more at ease, but she did not want to talk in her husband’s presence of things which held meaning only for her brother, so, in order to make the conversation general, she introduced the news from Petersburg which had just reached Moscow about Madame Kamenskaya’s grief at having lost her only son, killed in a duel.

Rogozhinsky expressed his disapproval of a system which excluded murder in a duel from the ordinary list of criminal offences.

This remark provoked a retort from Nekhlyudov, and another heated argument flared up on the same subject, in which everything was only half said, neither protagonist fully expressing what was in his mind, and each standing firm in mutual condemnation.

Rogozhinsky felt that Nekhlyudov criticized him and despised everything he did, and was anxious to prove how unfair he was in his opinion. Nekhlyudov, for his part, was, to begin with, annoyed at his brother-in-law’s interference in his plans for the estates (though in his heart of hearts he knew that his brother-in-law, his sister and their children, as his heirs, had a certain right to protest); and, further, he was indignant that this narrow-minded man should so calmly and dogmatically persist in regarding as lawful and right what Nekhlyudov now considered absolutely senseless and criminal.

‘What could a court of law have done?’ he asked.

‘It could have sentenced one of the two duellists to the mines like any ordinary murderer.’

Nekhlyudov’s hands went cold again, and he said excitedly: ‘And what would that have done?’

‘Justice would have been done.’

‘As if justice were the aim of courts of justice!’ cried Nekhlyudov.

‘What else?’

‘The maintenance of class interests. The courts, in my opinion, are only an instrument for upholding the existing order of things, in the interests of our class.’

‘Well, this really is a novel point of view,’ said Rogozhinsky, with a quiet smile. ‘A somewhat different purpose is generally ascribed to the courts.’

‘In theory, they have, but not in practice, as I have had occasion to discover. The only function of the courts is to preserve society as it is, and that is why they persecute and pass sentence on people who stand above the average and want to raise it – the so-called political offenders – and those who are below it, the so-called criminal types.’

‘I cannot agree with you. In the first place I cannot admit that all so-called political offenders are punished because they are above the average. For the most part they are the refuse of society – as depraved, though in a different way, as the criminal types whom you consider to be below the average.’

‘But I happen to know people who are immensely superior to their judges: all the sectarians are good, courageous men –’

But Rogozhinsky, unaccustomed to being interrupted, did not listen to Nekhlyudov and went on talking at the same time, which particularly irritated him.

‘Nor can I agree that the object of the law is to uphold the existing order. The law pursues its aims, either to reform –’

‘A fine way of reforming a man, to clap him in gaol!’ Nekhlyudov put in.

‘ – or to remove,’ Rogozhinsky persisted stubbornly, ‘the corrupt and bestial persons who undermine the existence of society.’

‘That’s just the trouble: it doesn’t do one or the other. Society has not the means to do that.’

‘What do you mean? I don’t understand,’ said Rogozhinsky with a forced smile.

‘I mean there are only two really sensible forms of punishment, those that were applied in the old days: corporal punishment and capital punishment, but these, as time went on and customs relaxed, fell more and more into disuse,’ said Nekhlyudov.

‘There now, this is something novel and surprising, coming from your lips.’

‘There is some sense in causing a man bodily pain in order to restrain him from committing a second time the crime he is being punished for; and there is good reason to chop off the head of a member of the community who is injurious or dangerous to it. Both these punishments have an intelligible meaning. But what is the sense of locking up a man already depraved by idleness or bad example, and keeping him in conditions of enforced idleness where he is provided for, in company with other men even more depraved? Or for some inscrutable reason transporting him at public expense – and it costs over five hundred roubles a time – from Tula to Irkutsk, or from Kursk to –’

‘Yes, but all the same, people dread those journeys at public expense, and if it were not for such journeys and the prisons, you and I would not be sitting here so peacefully as we are now.’

‘But gaols are powerless to ensure our safety, because these people are not kept there for ever but are let out again. On the contrary, in these institutions men are forced into greater and greater depravity and vice, so that the danger is increased.’

‘You mean that the penal system ought to be improved?’

‘It cannot be improved. An improved prison system would cost far more than is spent on popular education, and would lay a still heavier burden on the people.’

‘But the shortcomings of the penal system in no wise invalidate the law itself.’ Rogozhinsky resumed his speech, paying no attention to his brother-in-law.

‘There is no remedy for these shortcomings,’ said Nekhlyudov, raising his voice.

‘What then? Are we to kill them off? Or, as a certain statesman has suggested, put their eyes out?’ said Rogozhinsky, smiling triumphantly.

‘That would be cruel all right, but to the point. What is done now is cruel and not only ineffective but also so stupid that it is impossible to understand how people in their right minds can take part in so absurd and barbarous a business as the Criminal Court.’

‘I happen to take part in it,’ said Rogozhinsky, paling.

‘That is your affair. But I find it incomprehensible.’

‘It seems to me there are a good many things you find incomprehensible,’ said Rogozhinsky in a trembling voice.

‘I have seen the assistant prosecutor, in court, doing his utmost to convict an unfortunate boy who could have inspired nothing but pity in any normal man. I heard how another prosecutor cross-examined a sectarian and managed to make the reading of the Gospel a criminal offence – in fact, the whole business of the courts consists exclusively of similar senseless and cruel achievements.’

‘I should not serve in them if I thought so,’ said Rogozhinsky, rising.

Nekhlyudov noticed a peculiar glitter behind his brother-in-law’s spectacles. ‘Can it be tears?’ he thought. And indeed they were tears of injured pride. Going to the window, Rogozhinsky took out his handkerchief and, clearing his throat, began to rub his spectacles, removing them and wiping his eyes at the same time. When he returned to the sofa he lit a cigar and did not say another word. Nekhlyudov felt sorry and ashamed to have upset his brother-in-law and sister to such an extent, especially as he was going away the next day and would not see them again. He said good-bye, embarrassed, and went home.

‘All I said may very well be true – anyhow, he had no answer to it. But I ought not to have spoken as I did. How little I have changed if I can be so carried away by ill-feeling as to offend him and grieve poor Natalia,’ he thought.