25

IN spite of the white mantle which now lay over everything – porch, roof and walls – the gloomy prison building with the sentry, and the lantern hanging over the gate, and the long rows of lighted windows made an even more dismal impression than it had in the morning.

The imposing superintendent came out to the gate and, after reading by the light of the lantern the pass that had been given to Nekhlyudov and the Englishman, shrugged his powerful shoulders in surprise; but in obedience to the order he invited the visitors to follow him. He led them first across the courtyard to a door on the right, then up a staircase into the office. Offering them seats, he asked what he could do for them, and when he heard that Nekhlyudov would like to see Maslova at once he sent a warder to fetch her, and got ready to answer the questions which the Englishman, with Nekhlyudov acting as interpreter, immediately began to put to him.

‘How many persons is the prison built to hold?’ asked the Englishman. ‘How many are here now? How many of them are men, how many women and how many children? How many are sentenced to the mines? How many to exile? How many are following the prisoners of their own free will? How many are sick?’

Nekhlyudov translated the questions and the replies, without entering into their meaning, so agitated was he at the thought of the impending interview. (His agitation was totally unexpected.) In the middle of a sentence which he was translating to the Englishman, he heard approaching steps, and the office door opened. As had happened many times before, a gaoler came in followed by Katusha, in a prison jacket with a kerchief on her head – and at the sight of her his heart felt heavy as lead.

‘I want to live. I want a family, children of my own. I want to live like other men,’ flashed through his mind as she walked into the room with rapid steps and downcast eyes.

He rose and advanced to meet her, and her face appeared hard and disagreeable. It was the expression he remembered when she reproached him. She flushed and turned pale, her fingers nervously twisting the edge of her jacket, and she alternately looked into his face and lowered her eyes.

‘You know that a mitigation of your sentence has been granted?’

‘Yes, the gaoler told me.’

‘So when the document arrives you will be able to come away and settle where you like. We will think it over –’

She interrupted him hurriedly.

‘There’s nothing to think over. I shall follow Simonson wherever he goes.’

In spite of her excitement she raised her eyes to Nekhlyudov’s and spoke quickly and distinctly, as though she had prepared what she would say in advance.

‘I see,’ said Nekhlyudov.

‘Why not, Dmitri Ivanovich, if he wants me to live with him’ – she stopped, abashed, and corrected herself – ‘wants me to be with him, what more could I wish for? I must consider myself lucky. What else is diere for me?…’

‘It’s one of two things,’ thought Nekhlyudov. ‘Either she loves Simonson and has no use for the sacrifice I imagined I was making; or she still loves me and is refusing me for my own sake, and is burning her bridges by uniting her lot with Simonson.’ And he felt mortified, and knew that he was blushing.

‘Of course, if you love him –’ he said.

‘What does it matter whether I do or don’t love him? I have given up all that, and besides Simonson is quite different.’

‘Yes, of course,’ began Nekhlyudov. ‘He is a fine man, and I think –’

She interrupted him again, as though she feared that he might say too much, or that she would not have a chance to say everything.

‘You must forgive me, Dmitri Ivanovich, if I am not doing what you want,’ she said, looking into his eyes with her mysterious squinting glance. ‘But this is how it had to be. And you have your own life to live.’

She was only telling him what he himself had just been saying to himself, but now he was no longer thinking this – he was thinking and feeling something quite different. It was not just that he felt mortified: he was regretting all that he would lose when he lost her.

‘I did not expect this,’ he said.

‘Why should you live here and be wretched? You have suffered enough,’ she said, with a strange smile.

‘I have not suffered: I have been happy, and I should like to go on looking after you if I could.’

‘We’ – as she said ‘we’ she glanced up at Nekhlyudov – ‘we do not need anything. You have done so much for me as it is. If it hadn’t been for you –’ She was about to say something, but her voice quivered.

‘I am the last person you should thank,’ said Nekhlyudov.

‘What’s the use of trying to weigh up what we owe one another? God will make up our accounts,’ she said, and her black eyes glistened with the tears that welled up into them.

‘What a good woman you are!’ he said.

‘Me, a good woman?’ she said through her tears, and a pitiful smile lit up her face.

‘Are you ready?’¹ the Englishman interrupted them.

‘Directly,’¹ replied Nekhlyudov, and asked her about Kryltsov.

She pulled herself together and quietly told him what she knew: Kryltsov had become very weak on the road, and been sent straight to the infirmary. Marya Pavlovna was very anxious about him and had asked to be taken on as a nurse, but permission had not been granted.

‘Had I better go now?’ she asked, noticing that the Englishman was waiting.

‘I will not say good-bye, I shall see you again,’ said Nekhlyudov.

‘Forgive me,’ she whispered, almost in audibly. Their eyes met, and by her peculiar squinting look, her pathetic smile and the tone of her voice when she said, not ‘Good-bye’ but ‘Forgive me,’ Nekhlyudov understood that his second supposition as to the cause of her decision was the real one: she loved him and thought that by uniting herself to him she would be spoiling his life, but that by staying with Simonson she was setting Nekhlyudov free, and while rejoicing that she had done what she meant to do she found it painful to part from him.

She pressed his hand, turned quickly and left the room.

Nekhlyudov was now ready to go, but glancing at the Englishman he saw that he was writing something down in his notebook. Not wishing to disturb him, he sat down on a wooden seat by the wall and was suddenly overcome by a great weariness. It was not the weariness one feels after a sleepless night, a journey or some strong emotion – he felt terribly tired of living. He leaned back against the back of the bench, closed his eyes and instantly fell into a deep slumber.

‘Well, would you like to see the cells now?’ the superintendent asked.

Nekhlyudov awoke and wondered where he was. The Englishman had finished his notes and wished to see the cells. Tired and listless, Nekhlyudov followed them.