The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents) (520 page)

For a long time after that he kept silent, breathing heavily, and repressing the sobs that were choking him.

"From that time I became a revolutionist. Yes," he said, when he was quieter and finished his story in a few words. He belonged to the Narodovoltzy party, and was even at the head of the disorganising group, whose object was to terrorise the government so that it should give up its power of its own accord. With this object he travelled to Petersburg, to Kiev, to Odessa and abroad, and was everywhere successful. A man in whom he had full confidence betrayed him. He was arrested, tried, kept in prison for two years, and condemned to death, but the sentence was mitigated to one of hard labour for life.

He went into consumption while in prison, and in the conditions he was now placed he had scarcely more than a few months longer to live. This he knew, but did not repent of his action, but said that if he had another life he would use it in the same way to destroy the conditions in which such things as he had seen were possible.

This man's story and his intimacy with him explained to Nekhludoff much that he had not previously understood.

CHAPTER VII

.

NEKHLUDOFF SEEKS AN INTERVIEW WITH MASLOVA.

On the day when the convoy officer had the encounter with the prisoners at the halting station about the child, Nekhludoff, who had spent the night at the village inn, woke up late, and was some time writing letters to post at the next Government town, so that he left the inn later than usual, and did not catch up with the gang on the road as he had done previously, but came to the village where the next halting station was as it was growing dusk.

Having dried himself at the inn, which was kept by an elderly woman who had an extraordinarily fat, white neck, he had his tea in a clean room decorated with a great number of icons and pictures and then hurried away to the halting station to ask the officer for an interview with Katusha. At the last six halting stations he could not get the permission for an interview from any of the officers. Though they had been changed several times, not one of them would allow Nekhludoff inside the halting stations, so that he had not seen Katusha for more than a week. This strictness was occasioned by the fact that an important prison official was expected to pass that way. Now this official had passed without looking in at the gang, after all, and Nekhludoff hoped that the officer who had taken charge of the gang in the morning would allow him an interview with the prisoners, as former officers had done.

The landlady offered Nekhludoff a trap to drive him to the halting station, situated at the farther end of the village, but Nekhludoff preferred to walk. A young labourer, a broad-shouldered young fellow of herculean dimensions, with enormous top-boots freshly blackened with strongly smelling tar, offered himself as a guide.

A dense mist obscured the sky, and it was so dark that when the young fellow was three steps in advance of him Nekhludoff could not see him unless the light of some window happened to fall on the spot, but he could hear the heavy boots wading through the deep, sticky slush. After passing the open place in front of the church and the long street, with its rows of windows shining brightly in the darkness, Nekhludoff followed his guide to the outskirts of the village, where it was pitch dark. But soon here, too, rays of light, streaming through the mist from the lamps in the front of the halting station, became discernible through the darkness. The reddish spots of light grew bigger and bigger; at last the stakes of the palisade, the moving figure of the sentinel, a post painted with white and black stripes and the sentinel's box became visible.

The sentinel called his usual "Who goes there?" as they approached, and seeing they were strangers treated them with such severity that he would not allow them to wait by the palisade; but Nekhludoff's guide was not abashed by this severity.

"Hallo, lad! why so fierce? You go and rouse your boss while we wait here?"

The sentinel gave no answer, but shouted something in at the gate and stood looking at the broad-shouldered young labourer scraping the mud off Nekhludoff's boots with a chip of wood by the light of the lamp. From behind the palisade came the hum of male and female voices. In about three minutes more something rattled, the gate opened, and a sergeant, with his cloak thrown over his shoulders, stepped out of the darkness into the lamplight.

The sergeant was not as strict as the sentinel, but he was extremely inquisitive. He insisted on knowing what Nekhludoff wanted the officer for, and who he was, evidently scenting his booty and anxious not to let it escape. Nekhludoff said he had come on special business, and would show his gratitude, and would the sergeant take a note for him to the officer. The sergeant took the note, nodded, and went away. Some time after the gate rattled again, and women carrying baskets, boxes, jugs and sacks came out, loudly chattering in their peculiar Siberian dialect as they stepped over the threshold of the gate. None of them wore peasant costumes, but were dressed town fashion, wearing jackets and fur-lined cloaks. Their skirts were tucked up high, and their heads wrapped up in shawls. They examined Nekhludoff and his guide curiously by the light of the lamp. One of them showed evident pleasure at the sight of the broad-shouldered fellow, and affectionately administered to him a dose of Siberian abuse.

"You demon, what are you doing here? The devil take you," she said, addressing him.

"I've been showing this traveller here the way," answered the young fellow. "And what have you been bringing here?"

"Dairy produce, and I am to bring more in the morning."

The guide said something in answer that made not only the women but even the sentinel laugh, and, turning to Nekhludoff, he said:

"You'll find your way alone? Won't get lost, will you?"

"I shall find it all right."

"When you have passed the church it's the second from the two-storied house. Oh, and here, take my staff," he said, handing the stick he was carrying, and which was longer than himself, to Nekhludoff; and splashing through the mud with his enormous boots, he disappeared in the darkness, together with the women.

His voice mingling with the voices of the women was still audible through the fog, when the gate again rattled, and the sergeant appeared and asked Nekhludoff to follow him to the officer.

CHAPTER VIII

.

NEKHLUDOFF AND THE OFFICER.

This halting station, like all such stations along the Siberian road, was surrounded by a courtyard, fenced in with a palisade of sharp-pointed stakes, and consisted of three one-storied houses. One of them, the largest, with grated windows, was for the prisoners, another for the convoy soldiers, and the third, in which the office was, for the officers.

There were lights in the windows of all the three houses, and, like all such lights, they promised, here in a specially deceptive manner, something cosy inside the walls. Lamps were burning before the porches of the houses and about five lamps more along the walls lit up the yard.

The sergeant led Nekhludoff along a plank which lay across the yard up to the porch of the smallest of the houses.

When he had gone up the three steps of the porch he let Nekhludoff pass before him into the ante-room, in which a small lamp was burning, and which was filled with smoky fumes. By the stove a soldier in a coarse shirt with a necktie and black trousers, and with one top-boot on, stood blowing the charcoal in a somovar, using the other boot as bellows. [The long boots worn in Russia have concertina-like sides, and when held to the chimney of the somovar can be used instead of bellows to make the charcoal inside burn up.] When he saw Nekhludoff, the soldier left the somovar and helped him off with his waterproof; then went into the inner room.

"He has come, your honour."

"Well, ask him in," came an angry voice.

"Go in at the door," said the soldier, and went back to the somovar.

In the next room an officer with fair moustaches and a very red face, dressed in an Austrian jacket that closely fitted his broad chest and shoulders, sat at a covered table, on which were the remains of his dinner and two bottles; there was a strong smell of tobacco and some very strong, cheap scent in the warm room. On seeing Nekhludoff the officer rose and gazed ironically and suspiciously, as it seemed, at the newcomer.

"What is it you want?" he asked, and, not waiting for a reply, he shouted through the open door:

"Bernoff, the somovar! What are you about?"

"Coming at once."

"You'll get it 'at once' so that you'll remember it," shouted the officer, and his eyes flashed.

"I'm coming," shouted the soldier, and brought in the somovar. Nekhludoff waited while the soldier placed the somovar on the table. When the officer had followed the soldier out of the room with his cruel little eyes looking as if they were aiming where best to hit him, he made the tea, got the four-cornered decanter out of his travelling case and some Albert biscuits, and having placed all this on the cloth he again turned to Nekhludoff. "Well, how can I he of service to you?"

"I should like to be allowed to visit a prisoner," said Nekhludoff, without sitting down.

"A political one? That's forbidden by the law," said the officer.

"The woman I mean is not a political prisoner," said Nekhludoff.

"Yes. But pray take a scat," said the officer. Nekhludoff sat down.

"She is not a political one, but at my request she has been allowed by the higher authorities to join the political prisoners--"

"Oh, yes, I know," interrupted the other; "a little dark one? Well, yes, that can be managed. Won't you smoke?" He moved a box of cigarettes towards Nekhludoff, and, having carefully poured out two tumblers of tea, he passed one to Nekhludoff. "If you please," he said.

"Thank you; I should like to see--"

"The night is long. You'll have plenty of time. I shall order her to be sent out to you."

"But could I not see her where she is? Why need she be sent for?" Nekhludoff said.

"In to the political prisoners? It is against the law."

"I have been allowed to go in several times. If there is any danger of my passing anything in to them I could do it through her just as well."

"Oh, no; she would be searched," said the officer, and laughed in an unpleasant manner.

"Well, why not search me?"

"All right; we'll manage without that," said the officer, opening the decanter, and holding it out towards Nekhludoff's tumbler of tea. "May I? No? Well, just as you like. When you are living here in Siberia you are too glad to meet an educated person. Our work, as you know, is the saddest, and when one is used to better things it is very hard. The idea they have of us is that convoy officers are coarse, uneducated men, and no one seems to remember that we may have been born for a very different position."

This officer's red face, his scents, his rings, and especially his unpleasant laughter disgusted Nekhludoff very much, but to-day, as during the whole of his journey, he was in that serious, attentive state which did not allow him to behave slightingly or disdainfully towards any man, but made him feel the necessity of speaking to every one "entirely," as he expressed to himself, this relation to men. When he had heard the officer and understood his state of mind, he said in a serious manner:

"I think that in your position, too, some comfort could be found in helping the suffering people," he said.

"What are their sufferings? You don't know what these people are."

"They are not special people," said Nekhludoff; "they are just such people as others, and some of them are quite innocent."

"Of course, there are all sorts among them, and naturally one pities them. Others won't let anything off, but I try to lighten their condition where I can. It's better that I should suffer, but not they. Others keep to the law in every detail, even as far as to shoot, but I show pity. May I?--Take another," he said, and poured out another tumbler of tea for Nekhludoff.

"And who is she, this woman that you want to see?" he asked.

"It is an unfortunate woman who got into a brothel, and was there falsely accused of poisoning, and she is a very good woman," Nekhludoff answered.

The officer shook his head. "Yes, it does happen. I can tell you about a certain Ernma who lived in Kasan. She was a Hungarian by birth, but she had quite Persian eyes," he continued, unable to restrain a smile at the recollection; "there was so much chic about her that a countess--"

Nekhludoff interrupted the officer and returned to the former topic of conversation.

"I think that you could lighten the condition of the people while they are in your charge. And in acting that way I am sure you would find great joy!" said Nekhludoff, trying to pronounce as distinctly as possible, as he might if talking to a foreigner or a child.

The officer looked at Nekhludoff impatiently, waiting for him to stop so as to continue the tale about the Hungarian with Persian eyes, who evidently presented herself very vividly to his imagination and quite absorbed his attention.