39

NEKHLYUDOV had two hours to wait before the passenger train left on which he was to travel. At first he thought of using the interval to go and see his sister again, but the morning’s experiences had agitated and upset him to such a degree that, sitting down on a settee in the first-class waiting-room, he suddenly felt so drowsy that he turned on his side and fell asleep with his cheek resting on the palm of his hand.

He was awakened by a waiter in a tail-coat, carrying a napkin on his arm.

‘Sir, sir, aren’t you Prince Nekhlyudov? There is a lady looking for you.’

Nekhlyudov started up and rubbed his eyes, remembering where he was and all that had happened that morning.

He saw in imagination the procession of convicts, the dead bodies, the railway carriages with barred windows and the women locked up in them, one of whom was suffering the agony of labour, without receiving any aid, while another was pathetically smiling at him through the iron bars. But the reality before his eyes was very different: a table set with decanters, vases, candelabra and plates, and agile waiters scurrying round it; at the end of the room, in front of a dresser, a bar-tender standing before an array of bottles and bowls of fruit, and the backs of passengers crowded up to the bar.

As Nekhlyudov changed his reclining position for an upright one and sat gradually collecting his thoughts he noticed everyone in the room staring with curiosity at something going on in the doorway. Looking in the same direction, he saw a procession of servants carrying a lady in a sedan chair, her head wrapped in a transparent veil. The bearer in front was a footman and seemed familiar to Nekhlyudov. The doorman behind with braid on his cap Nekhlyudov knew, too. A stylish lady’s-maid with ringlets and an apron, who was carrying a parcel, some sort of round object in a leather case, and sunshades, was walking behind the chair. After her came Prince Korchagin in a travelling-cap, with his thick lips like a dog’s, his apoplectic neck and his chest stuck well out; and next – Missy, her cousin Misha and an acquaintance of Nekhlyudov’s, the diplomat, Osten, who had a long neck, a prominent Adam’s apple, a jolly expression and a cheerful disposition. As he went along he was speaking emphatically, though jokingly, to Missy, who was smiling. The doctor, angrily puffing at a cigarette, brought up the rear.

The Korchagins were moving from their own estate near the city to an estate belonging to the princess’s sister on the Nizhni railway line.

The procession with the bearers, the maid and the doctor vanished into the ladies’ waiting-room, exciting the curiosity and respect of everyone present. But the old prince, seating himself at a table, immediately called a waiter and began ordering something to eat and drink. Missy and Osten also stayed in the refreshment-room and were just about to sit down when they saw an acquaintance in the doorway and went over to her. The lady was Natalia Ivanovna, Nekhlyudov’s sister. Natalia Ivanovna, accompanied by Agrafena Petrovna, looked all round the room as she came in, and noticed Missy and her brother almost simultaneously. She went up to Missy first, merely nodding to her brother; but, having kissed Missy, she immediately turned to him.

‘So I have found you at last,’ she said.

Nekhlyudov rose, greeted Missy, Misha and Osten, and stood for a few minutes chatting with them. Missy told him of the fire at their country house, which necessitated their moving to her aunt’s. Osten seized the opportunity to tell a runny story about a fire.

Nekhlyudov, not listening to Osten, turned to his sister.

‘How glad I am that you came,’ he said.

‘I have been here for some time,’ she replied. ‘Agrafena Petrovna is with me.’ She pointed to Agrafena Petrovna, in a bonnet and dust-coat, who with affectionate and bashful dignity was bowing to him from a distance, not wishing to intrude. ‘We have been looking for you everywhere.’

‘And I had fallen asleep here. How glad I am that you came,’ repeated Nekhlyudov. ‘I began a letter to you,’ he said.

‘Really?’ she replied, startled. ‘What about?’

Noticing that the brother and sister were about to begin a private conversation, Missy withdrew, surrounded by her cavaliers, while Nekhlyudov and his sister sat down on a velvet-covered sofa by the window, near somebody’s things – travelling-rugs and band-boxes.

‘After I left you last night I wanted to come back and say how sorry I was, but I did not know how he would take it,’ said Nekhlyudov. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to your husband like that, and it troubled me.’

‘I knew – I was sure you didn’t mean it,’ said his sister. ‘You know yourself…’

And the tears welled to her eyes and she put a finger on his hand. The sentence was obscure, but he understood her perfectly and was touched by what she was trying to express. Her words meant that apart from the love for her husband which possessed her whole being, her love for him, her brother, was important and precious to her, too, and every misunderstanding between them caused her great suffering.

‘Thank you, thank you.… Oh, the things I have seen today!’ he said, suddenly recalling the second of the dead convicts. ‘Two of the convicts were murdered.’

‘Murdered? How?’

‘Murdered. They were brought out in this heat. And two of them died of sunstroke.’

‘Impossible! What, today? Just now?’

‘Yes, just now. I saw their dead bodies.’

‘But why murdered? Who murdered them?’ said Natalia Ivanovna.

‘Whoever it was that forced them to go,’ said Nekhlyudov, irritated by the feeling that she was looking even at this through her husband’s eyes.

‘Merciful heavens! ‘said Agrafena Petrovna, who had come up to them.

‘We haven’t the slightest idea of the things that are done to these unfortunate beings, and yet we ought to know’ said Nekhlyudov, glancing at old Prince Korchagin, who with a napkin under his chin was sitting at a table with a bottle before him, and at that moment looked round at Nekhlyudov.

‘Nekhlyudov!’ he cried. ‘Won’t you join me in something before you start? There’s nothing better before a journey!’

Nekhlyudov declined and turned away.

‘But what can you do about it?’ continued Natalia Ivanovna.

‘I shall do what I can. I don’t know what, but I feel that I must do something, and what I can do I shall.’

‘Yes, yes, I understand that. But how about them?’ she said, smiling and glancing at the Korchagins. ‘Is it all over between you and… ?’

‘Absolutely, and I think without any regrets on either side.’

‘A pity. I am sorry. I like her. However, supposing it is so, why do you want to bind yourself?’ she added shyly. ‘Why are you going?’

‘Because I must,’ he replied gravely and drily, by way of putting an end to the conversation.

But he at once felt ashamed of his coldness to his sister. ‘Why not tell her all I am thinking, and let Agrafena Petrovna hear it, too?’ he said to himself, with a glance at the old servant. Her presence urged him still more to speak of his decision to his sister again.

‘You mean my resolve to marry Katusha? Well, you see, I made up my mind to do so, but she has definitely and firmly refused,’ he said, and his voice shook as it always did when he spoke of this. ‘She will not accept my sacrifice, but chooses to make the sacrifice herself – which in her situation means giving up a very great deal – and I cannot allow it if it is only a momentary impulse. So I am following her, to be where she is, to help her and make things as easy for her as I can.’

Natalia Ivanovna said nothing. Agrafena Petrovna looked at her questioningly and shook her head. At that moment the procession reappeared from the ladies’ waiting-room. The same handsome footman, Philip, and the doorkeeper were carrying the princess Korchagina. She stopped the bearers, beckoned Nekhlyudov to her side, extending her white jewelled hand with a plaintive languishing air, fearful lest he grasp it too firmly.

‘Épouvantable!’¹ she said, referring to the heat. ‘I cannot endure it. Ce climat me tue.’² And after a few remarks about the horrors of the Russian climate she invited Nekhlyudov to visit them, and gave the men a signal to go on.

‘Be sure and come,’ she added, turning her long face towards Nekhlyudov as they were bearing her away.

Nekhlyudov went out on to the platform. The procession with the princess turned to the right towards the first-class cars. Nekhlyudov with the porter who was carrying his things, and Tarass with his sack, turned to the left.

‘This is my companion’ said Nekhlyudov to his sister, indicating Tarass, whose story he had told her earlier.

‘Surely you are not travelling third-class?’ asked Natalia Ivanovna when Nekhlyudov stopped before a third-class carriage which the porter with the things, and Tarass, had got into.

‘Yes, I prefer to be with Tarass,’ he said. ‘Now – one thing more: I have not yet given the Kuzminskoye land to the peasants, so in the event of my death it will come to your children.’

‘Dmitri, don’t,’ said Natalia Ivanovna.

‘But even if I should give it away, I must tell you that everything else will be theirs, since it is unlikely that I shall marry, and if I should, there won’t be any children… so that…’

‘Dmitri, please, don’t say that,’ said Natalia Ivanovna, but Nekhlyudov could see that she was glad to hear what he said.

At the front of the train only a little knot of people stood outside a first-class carriage, all still staring into the compartment into which Princess Korchagina had been carried. Most of the passengers were already in their seats. Latecomers, hurrying, clattered along the wooden boards of the station platform; the guards slammed the doors, calling for the passengers to be seated and those who were seeing them off to come away.

Nekhlyudov entered the sunbaked, hot, smelly carriage, but at once went out on to the small platform at the back.

Natalia Ivanovna, in her fashionable bonnet and wrap, stood with Agrafena Petrovna outside the carriage and appeared to be trying to find something to say, but with no success. She could not even say ‘Écrivez’,¹ because she and her brother had always made fun of the injunction so fre-quendy repeated to people starting on a journey. The brief talk about money matters had at once shattered the tender brotherly and sisterly feeling which had been on the point of taking hold of them; and now they felt estranged. So that Natalia Ivanovna was glad when the train started and she could only say, nodding her head with a sad and affectionate look, ‘Good-bye, Dmitri, good-bye! ‘But no sooner had the carriage gone by than she began thinking out the best way of reporting to her husband the conversation with her brother, and her face became anxious and grave.

Nekhlyudov, too, though he had only the kindest feelings for his sister and never concealed anything from her, now felt depressed and uncomfortable with her and was thankful to escape. He felt that the Natalia who had once been so dear to him no longer existed, leaving only the slave of her husband, that unpleasant, dark, hairy, alien man. He saw this clearly because her face lit up with special animation only when he began speaking of something which interested her husband –that is, when he spoke about giving away the land to the peasants and about the inheritance. And this made him very sad.