When he returned to the house the foreman, with a specially pleasant smile, asked him if he would not have his dinner now, expressing the fear that the feast his wife was preparing, with the help of the girl with the earrings, might be overdone.

The table was covered with a coarse, unbleached cloth and an embroidered towel was laid on it in lieu of a napkin. A vieux-saxe soup tureen with a broken handle stood on the table, full of potato soup, the stock made of the fowl that had put out and drawn in his black leg, and was now cut, or rather chopped, in pieces, which were here and there covered with hairs. After the soup more of the same fowl with the hairs was served roasted, and then curd pasties, very greasy, and with a great deal of sugar. Little appetising as all this was, Nekhludoff hardly noticed what he was eating; he was occupied with the thought which had in a moment dispersed the sadness with which he had returned from the village.

The foreman's wife kept looking in at the door, whilst the frightened maid with the earrings brought in the dishes; and the foreman smiled more and more joyfully, priding himself on his wife's culinary skill. After dinner, Nekhludoff succeeded, with some trouble, in making the foreman sit down. In order to revise his own thoughts, and to express them to some one, he explained his project of letting the land to the peasants, and asked the foreman for his opinion. The foreman, smiling as if he had thought all this himself long ago, and was very pleased to hear it, did not really understand it at all. This was not because Nekhludoff did not express himself clearly, but because according to this project it turned out that Nekhludoff was giving up his own profit for the profit of others, and the thought that every one is only concerned about his own profit, to the harm of others, was so deeply rooted in the foreman's conceptions that he imagined he did not understand something when Nekhludoff said that all the income from the land must be placed to form the communal capital of the peasants.

"Oh, I see; then you, of course, will receive the percentages from that capital," said the foreman, brightening up.

"Dear me! no. Don't you see, I am giving up the land altogether."

"But then you will not get any income," said the foreman, smiling no longer.

"Yes, I am going to give it up."

The foreman sighed heavily, and then began smiling again. Now he understood. He understood that Nekhludoff was not quite normal, and at once began to consider how he himself could profit by Nekhludoff's project of giving up the land, and tried to see this project in such a way that he might reap some advantage from it. But when he saw that this was impossible he grew sorrowful, and the project ceased to interest him, and he continued to smile only in order to please the master.

Seeing that the foreman did not understand him, Nekhludoff let him go and sat down by the window-sill, that was all cut about and inked over, and began to put his project down on paper.

The sun went down behind the limes, that were covered with fresh green, and the mosquitoes swarmed in, stinging Nekhludoff. Just as he finished his notes, he heard the lowing of cattle and the creaking of opening gates from the village, and the voices of the peasants gathering together for the meeting. He told the foreman not to call the peasants up to the office, as he meant to go into the village himself and meet the men where they would assemble. Having hurriedly drank a cup of tea offered him by the foreman, Nekhludoff went to the village.



CHAPTER VII.

THE DISINHERITED.

From the crowd assembled in front of the house of the village elder came the sound of voices; but as soon as Nekhludoff came up the talking ceased, and all the peasants took off their caps, just as those in Kousminski had done. The peasants here were of a much poorer class than those in Kousminski. The men wore shoes made of bark and homespun shirts and coats. Some had come straight from their work in their shirts and with bare feet.

Nekhludoff made an effort, and began his speech by telling the peasants of his intention to give up his land to them altogether. The peasants were silent, and the expression on their faces did not undergo any change.

"Because I hold," said Nekhludoff, "and believe that every one has a right to the use of the land."

"That's certain. That's so, exactly," said several voices.

Nekhludoff went on to say that the revenue from the land ought to be divided among all, and that he would therefore suggest that they should rent the land at a price fixed by themselves, the rent to form a communal fund for their own use. Words of approval and agreement were still to be heard, but the serious faces of the peasants grew still more serious, and the eyes that had been fixed on the gentleman dropped, as if they were unwilling to put him to shame by letting him see that every one had understood his trick, and that no one would be deceived by him.

Nekhludoff spoke clearly, and the peasants were intelligent, but they did not and could not understand him, for the same reason that the foreman had so long been unable to understand him.

They were fully convinced that it is natural for every man to consider his own interest. The experience of many generations had proved to them that the landlords always considered their own interest to the detriment of the peasants. Therefore, if a landlord called them to a meeting and made them some kind of a new offer, it could evidently only be in order to swindle them more cunningly than before.

"Well, then, what are you willing to rent the land at?" asked Nekhludoff.

"How can we fix a price? We cannot do it. The land is yours, and the power is in your hands," answered some voices from among the crowd.

"Oh, not at all. You will yourselves have the use of the money for communal purposes."

"We cannot do it; the commune is one thing, and this is another."

"Don't you understand?" said the foreman, with a smile (he had followed Nekhludoff to the meeting), "the Prince is letting the land to you for money, and is giving you the money back to form a capital for the commune."

"We understand very well," said a cross, toothless old man, without raising his eyes. "Something like a bank; we should have to pay at a fixed time. We do not wish it; it is hard enough as it is, and that would ruin us completely."

"That's no go. We prefer to go on the old way," began several dissatisfied, and even rude, voices.

The refusals grew very vehement when Nekhludoff mentioned that he would draw up an agreement which would have to be signed by him and by them.

"Why sign? We shall go on working as we have done hitherto. What is all this for? We are ignorant men."

"We can't agree, because this sort of thing is not what we have been used to. As it was, so let it continue to be. Only the seeds we should like to withdraw."

This meant that under the present arrangement the seeds had to be provided by the peasants, and they wanted the landlord to provide them.

"Then am I to understand that you refuse to accept the land?" Nekhludoff asked, addressing a middle-aged, barefooted peasant, with a tattered coat, and a bright look on his face, who was holding his worn cap with his left hand, in a peculiarly straight position, in the same way soldiers hold theirs when commanded to take them off.

"Just so," said this peasant, who had evidently not yet rid himself of the military hypnotism he had been subjected to while serving his time.

"It means that you have sufficient land," said Nekhludoff.

"No, sir, we have not," said the ex-soldier, with an artificially pleased look, carefully holding his tattered cap in front of him, as if offering it to any one who liked to make use of it.

"Well, anyhow, you'd better think over what I have said." Nekhludoff spoke with surprise, and again repeated his offer.

"We have no need to think about it; as we have said, so it will be," angrily muttered the morose, toothless old man.

"I shall remain here another day, and if you change your minds, send to let me know."

The peasants gave no answer.

So Nekhludoff did not succeed in arriving at any result from this interview.

"If I might make a remark, Prince," said the foreman, when they got home, "you will never come to any agreement with them; they are so obstinate. At a meeting these people just stick in one place, and there is no moving them. It is because they are frightened of everything. Why, these very peasants—say that white-haired one, or the dark one, who were refusing, are intelligent peasants. When one of them comes to the office and one makes him sit down to cup of tea it's like in the Palace of Wisdom—he is quite diplomatist," said the foreman, smiling; "he will consider everything rightly. At a meeting it's a different man—he keeps repeating one and the same . . ."

"Well, could not some of the more intelligent men be asked to come here?" said Nekhludoff. "I would carefully explain it to them."

"That can be done," said the smiling foreman.

"Well, then, would you mind calling them here to-morrow?"

"Oh, certainly I will," said the foreman, and smiled still more joyfully. "I shall call them to-morrow."

"Just hear him; he's not artful, not he," said a blackhaired peasant, with an unkempt beard, as he sat jolting from side to side on a well-fed mare, addressing an old man in a torn coat who rode by his side. The two men were driving a herd of the peasants' horses to graze in the night, alongside the highroad and secretly, in the landlord's forest.

"Give you the land for nothing—you need only sign—have they not done the likes of us often enough? No, my friend, none of your humbug. Nowadays we have a little sense," he added, and began shouting at a colt that had strayed.

He stopped his horse and looked round, but the colt had not remained behind; it had gone into the meadow by the roadside. "Bother that son of a Turk; he's taken to getting into the landowner's meadows," said the dark peasant with the unkempt beard, hearing the cracking of the sorrel stalks that the neighing colt was galloping over as he came running back from the scented meadow.

"Do you hear the cracking? We'll have to send the women folk to weed the meadow when there's a holiday," said the thin peasant with the torn coat, "or else we'll blunt our scythes."

"Sign," he says. The unkempt man continued giving his opinion of the landlord's speech. "'Sign,' indeed, and let him swallow you up."

"That's certain," answered the old man. And then they were silent, and the tramping of the horses' feet along the highroad was the only sound to be heard.



CHAPTER VIII.

GOD'S PEACE IN THE HEART.

When Nekhludoff returned he found that the office had been arranged as a bedroom for him. A high bedstead, with a feather bed and two large pillows, had been placed in the room. The bed was covered with a dark red doublebedded silk quilt, which was elaborately and finely quilted, and very stiff. It evidently belonged to the trousseau of the foreman's wife. The foreman offered Nekhludoff the remains of the dinner, which the latter refused, and, excusing himself for the poorness of the fare and the accommodation, he left Nekhludoff alone.

The peasants' refusal did not at all bother Nekhludoff. On the contrary, though at Kousminski his offer had been accepted and he had even been thanked for it, and here he was met with suspicion and even enmity, he felt contented and joyful.

It was close and dirty in the office. Nekhludoff went out into the yard, and was going into the garden, but he remembered: that night, the window of the maid-servant's room, the side porch, and he felt uncomfortable, and did not like to pass the spot desecrated by guilty memories. He sat down on the doorstep, and breathing in the warm air, balmy with the strong scent of fresh birch leaves, he sat for a long time looking into the dark garden and listening to the mill, the nightingales, and some other bird that whistled monotonously in the bush close by. The light disappeared from the foreman's window; in the cast, behind the barn, appeared the light of the rising moon, and sheet lightning began to light up the dilapidated house, and the blooming, over-grown garden more and more frequently. It began to thunder in the distance, and a black cloud spread over one-third of the sky. The nightingales and the other birds were silent. Above the murmur of the water from the mill came the cackling of geese, and then in the village and in the foreman's yard the first cocks began to crow earlier than usual, as they do on warm, thundery nights. There is a saying that if the cocks crow early the night will be a merry one. For Nekhludoff the night was more than merry; it was a happy, joyful night. Imagination renewed the impressions of that happy summer which he had spent here as an innocent lad, and he felt himself as he had been not only at that but at all the best moments of his life. He not only remembered but felt as he had felt when, at the age of 14, he prayed that God would show him the truth; or when as a child he had wept on his mother's lap, when parting from her, and promising to be always good, and never give her pain; he felt as he did when he and Nikolenka Irtenieff resolved always to support each other in living a good life and to try to make everybody happy.

He remembered how he had been tempted in Kousminski, so that he had begun to regret the house and the forest and the farm and the land, and he asked himself if he regretted them now, and it even seemed strange to think that he could regret them. He remembered all he had seen to-day; the woman with the children, and without her husband, who was in prison for having cut down trees in his (Nekhludoff's) forest, and the terrible Matrona, who considered, or at least talked as if she considered, that women of her position must give themselves to the gentlefolk; he remembered her relation to the babies, the way in which they were taken to the Foundlings' Hospital, and the unfortunate, smiling, wizened baby with the patchwork cap, dying of starvation. And then he suddenly remembered the prison, the shaved heads, the cells, the disgusting smells, the chains, and, by the side of it all, the madly lavish city lift of the rich, himself included.

The bright moon, now almost full, rose above the barn. Dark shadows fell across the yard, and the iron roof of the ruined house shone bright. As if unwilling to waste this light, the nightingales again began their trills.

Nekhludoff called to mind how he had begun to consider his life in the garden of Kousminski when deciding what he was going to do, and remembered how confused he had become, how he could not arrive at any decision, how many difficulties each question had presented. He asked himself these questions now, and was surprised how simple it all was. It was simple because he was not thinking now of what would be the results for himself, but only thought of what he had to do. And, strange to say, what he had to do for himself he could not decide, but what he had to do for others he knew without any doubt. He had no doubt that he must not leave Katusha, but go on helping her. He had no doubt that he must study, investigate, clear up, understand all this business concerning judgment and punishment, which he felt he saw differently to other people. What would result from it all he did not know, but he knew for certain that he must do it. And this firm assurance gave him joy.

The black cloud had spread all over the sky; the lightning flashed vividly across the yard and the old house with its tumble-down porches, the thunder growled overhead. All the birds were silent, but the leaves rustled and the wind reached the step where Nekhludoff stood and played with his hair. One drop came down, then another; then they came drumming on the dock leaves and on the iron of the roof, and all the air was filled by a bright flash, and before Nekhludoff could count three a fearful crash sounded over head and spread pealing all over the sky.

Nekhludoff went in.

"Yes, yes," he thought. "The work that our life accomplishes, the whole of this work, the meaning of it is not, nor can be, intelligible to me. What were my aunts for? Why did Nikolenka Irtenieff die? Why am I living? What was Katusha for? And my madness? Why that war? Why my subsequent lawless life? To understand it, to understand the whole of the Master's will is not in my power. But to do His will, that is written down in my conscience, is in my power; that I know for certain. And when I am fulfilling it I have sureness and peace."

The rain came down in torrents and rushed from the roof into a tub beneath; the lightning lit up the house and yard less frequently. Nekhludoff went into his room, undressed, and lay down, not without fear of the bugs, whose presence the dirty, torn wall-papers made him suspect.

"Yes, to feel one's self not the master but a servant," he thought, and rejoiced at the thought. His fears were not vain. Hardly had he put out his candle when the vermin attacked and stung him. "To give up the land and go to Siberia. Fleas, bugs, dirt! Ah, well; if it must be borne, I shall bear it." But, in spite of the best of intentions, he could not bear it, and sat down by the open window and gazed with admiration at the retreating clouds and the reappearing moon.



CHAPTER IX.

THE LAND SETTLEMENT.

It was morning before Nekhludoff could fall asleep, and therefore he woke up late. At noon seven men, chosen from among the peasants at the foreman's invitation, came into the orchard, where the foreman had arranged a table and benches by digging posts into the ground, and fixing boards on the top, under the apple trees. It took some time before the peasants could be persuaded to put on their caps and to sit down on the benches. Especially firm was the ex-soldier, who to-day had bark shoes on. He stood erect, holding his cap as they do at funerals, according to military regulation. When one of them, a respectable-looking, broad-shouldered old man, with a curly, grizzly beard like that of Michael Angelo's "Moses," and grey hair that curled round the brown, bald forehead, put on his big cap, and, wrapping his coat round him, got in behind the table and sat down, the rest followed his example. When all had taken their places Nekhludoff sat down opposite them, and leaning on the table over the paper on which he had drawn up his project, he began explaining it.

Whether it was that there were fewer present, or that he was occupied with the business in hand and not with himself, anyhow, this time Nekhludoff felt no confusion. He involuntarily addressed the broad-shouldered old man with white ringlets in his grizzly beard, expecting approbation or objections from him. But Nekhludoff's conjecture was wrong. The respectable-looking old patriarch, though he nodded his handsome head approvingly or shook it, and frowned when the others raised an objection, evidently understood with great difficulty, and only when the others repeated what Nekhludoff had said in their own words. A little, almost beardless old fellow, blind in one eye, who sat by the side of the patriarch, and had a patched nankeen coat and old boots on, and, as Nekhludoff found out later, was an oven-builder, understood much better. This man moved his brows quickly, attending to Nekhludoff's words with an effort, and at once repeated them in his own way. An old, thick-set man with a white beard and intelligent eyes understood as quickly, and took every opportunity to put in an ironical joke, clearly wishing to show off. The ex-soldier seemed also to understand matters, but got mixed, being used to senseless soldiers' talk. A tall man with a small beard, a long nose, and a bass voice, who wore clean, home-made clothes and new bark-plaited shoes, seemed to be the one most seriously interested. This man spoke only when there was need of it. The two other old men, the same toothless one who had shouted a distinct refusal at the meeting the day before to every proposal of Nekhludoff's, and a tall, white lame old man with a kind face, his thin legs tightly wrapped round with strips of linen, said little, though they listened attentively. First of all Nekhludoff explained his views in regard to personal property in land. "The land, according to my idea, can neither be bought nor sold, because if it could be, he who has got the money could buy it all, and exact anything he liked for the use of the land from those who have none."

"That's true," said the long-nosed man, in a deep bass.

"Just so," said the ex-soldier.

"A woman gathers a little grass for her cow; she's caught and imprisoned," said the white-bearded old man.

"Our own land is five versts away, and as to renting any it's impossible; the price is raised so high that it won't pay," added the cross, toothless old man. "They twist us into ropes, worse than during serfdom."

"I think as you do, and I count it a sin to possess land, so I wish to give it away," said Nekhludoff.

"Well, that's a good thing," said the old man, with curls like Angelo's "Moses," evidently thinking that Nekhludoff meant to let the land.

"I have come here because I no longer wish to possess any land, and now we must consider the best way of dividing it."

"Just give it to the peasants, that's all," said the cross, toothless old man.

Nekhludoff was abashed for a moment, feeling a suspicion of his not being honest in these words, but he instantly recovered, and made use of the remark, in order to express what was in his mind, in reply.

"I should be glad to give it them," he said, "but to whom, and how? To which of the peasants? Why, to your commune, and not to that of Deminsk." (That was the name of a neighbouring village with very little land.) All were silent. Then the ex-soldier said, "Just so."

"Now, then, tell me how would you divide the land among the peasants if you had to do it?" said Nekhludoff.

"We should divide it up equally, so much for every man," said the oven-builder, quickly raising and lowering his brows.

"How else? Of course, so much per man," said the good natured lame man with the white strips of linen round his legs.

Every one confirmed this statement, considering it satisfactory.

"So much per man? Then are the servants attached to the house also to have a share?" Nekhludoff asked.

"Oh, no," said the ex-soldier, trying to appear bold and merry. But the tall, reasonable man would not agree with him.

"If one is to divide, all must share alike," he said, in his deep bass, after a little consideration.

"It can't be done," said Nekhludoff, who had already prepared his reply. "If all are to share alike, then those who do not work themselves—do not plough—will sell their shares to the rich. The rich will again get at the land. Those who live by working the land will multiply, and land will again be scarce. Then the rich will again get those who need land into their power."

"Just so," quickly said the ex-soldier.

"Forbid to sell the land; let only him who ploughs it have it," angrily interrupted the oven-builder.

To this Nekhludoff replied that it was impossible to know who was ploughing for himself and who for another.

The tall, reasonable man proposed that an arrangement be made so that they should all plough communally, and those who ploughed should get the produce and those who did not should get nothing.

To this communistic project Nekhludoff had also an answer ready. He said that for such an arrangement it would be necessary that all should have ploughs, and that all the horses should be alike, so that none should be left behind, and that ploughs and horses and all the implements would have to be communal property, and that in order to get that, all the people would have to agree.

"Our people could not be made to agree in a lifetime," said the cross old man.

"We should have regular fights," said the white-bearded old man with the laughing eyes. "So that the thing is not as simple as it looks," said Nekhludoff, "and this is a thing not only we but many have been considering. There is an American, Henry George. This is what he has thought out, and I agree with him."

"Why, you are the master, and you give it as you like. What's it to you? The power is yours," said the cross old man.

This confused Nekhludoff, but he was pleased to see that not he alone was dissatisfied with this interruption.

"You wait a bit, Uncle Simon; let him tell us about it," said the reasonable man, in his imposing bass.

This emboldened Nekhludoff, and he began to explain Henry George's single-tax system "The earth is no man's; it is God's," he began.

"Just so; that it is," several voices replied.

"The land is common to all. All have the same right to it, but there is good land and bad land, and every one would like to take the good land. How is one to do in order to get it justly divided? In this way: he that will use the good land must pay those who have got no land the value of the land he uses," Nekhludoff went on, answering his own question. "As it would be difficult to say who should pay whom, and money is needed for communal use, it should be arranged that he who uses the good land should pay the amount of the value of his land to the commune for its needs. Then every one would share equally. If you want to use land pay for it—more for the good, less for the bad land. If you do not wish to use land, don't pay anything, and those who use the land will pay the taxes and the communal expenses for you."

"Well, he had a head, this George," said the oven-builder, moving his brows. "He who has good land must pay more."

"If only the payment is according to our strength," said the tall man with the bass voice, evidently foreseeing how the matter would end.

"The payment should be not too high and not too low. If it is too high it will not get paid, and there will be a loss; and if it is too low it will be bought and sold. There would be a trading in land. This is what I wished to arrange among you here."

"That is just, that is right; yes, that would do," said the peasants.

"He has a head, this George," said the broad-shouldered old man with the curls. "See what he has invented."

"Well, then, how would it be if I wished to take some land?" asked the smiling foreman.

"If there is an allotment to spare, take it and work it," said Nekhludoff.

"What do you want it for? You have sufficient as it is," said the old man with the laughing eyes.

With this the conference ended.

Nekhludoff repeated his offer, and advised the men to talk it over with the rest of the commune and to return with the answer.

The peasants said they would talk it over and bring an answer, and left in a state of excitement. Their loud talk was audible as they went along the road, and up to late in the night the sound of voices came along the river from the village.

The next day the peasants did not go to work, but spent it in considering the landlord's offer. The commune was divided into two parties—one which regarded the offer as a profitable one to themselves and saw no danger in agreeing with it, and another which suspected and feared the offer it did not understand. On the third day, however, all agreed, and some were sent to Nekhludoff to accept his offer. They were influenced in their decision by the explanation some of the old men gave of the landlord's conduct, which did away with all fear of deceit. They thought the gentleman had begun to consider his soul, and was acting as he did for its salvation. The alms which Nekhludoff had given away while in Panovo made his explanation seem likely. The fact that Nekhludoff had never before been face to face with such great poverty and so bare a life as the peasants had come to in this place, and was so appalled by it, made him give away money in charity, though he knew that this was not reasonable. He could not help giving the money, of which he now had a great deal, having received a large sum for the forest he had sold the year before, and also the hand money for the implements and stock in Kousminski. As soon as it was known that the master was giving money in charity, crowds of people, chiefly women, began to come to ask him for help. He did not in the least know how to deal with them, how to decide, how much, and whom to give to. He felt that to refuse to give money, of which he had a great deal, to poor people was impossible, yet to give casually to those who asked was not wise. The last day he spent in Panovo, Nekhludoff looked over the things left in his aunts' house, and in the bottom drawer of the mahogany wardrobe, with the brass lions' heads with rings through them, he found many letters, and amongst them a photograph of a group, consisting of his aunts, Sophia Ivanovna and Mary Ivanovna, a student, and Katusha. Of all the things in the house he took only the letters and the photograph. The rest he left to the miller who, at the smiling foreman's recommendation, had bought the house and all it contained, to be taken down and carried away, at one-tenth of the real value.

Recalling the feeling of regret at the loss of his property which he had felt in Kousminski, Nekhludoff was surprised how he could have felt this regret. Now he felt nothing but unceasing joy at the deliverance, and a sensation of newness something like that which a traveller must experience when discovering new countries.



CHAPTER X.

NEKHLUDOFF RETURNS TO TOWN.

The town struck Nekhludoff in a new and peculiar light on his return. He came back in the evening, when the gas was lit, and drove from the railway station to his house, where the rooms still smelt of naphthaline. Agraphena Petrovna and Corney were both feeling tired and dissatisfied, and had even had a quarrel over those things that seemed made only to be aired and packed away. Nekhludoff's room was empty, but not in order, and the way to it was blocked up with boxes, so that his arrival evidently hindered the business which, owing to a curious kind of inertia, was going on in this house. The evident folly of these proceedings, in which he had once taken part, was so distasteful to Nekhludoff after the impressions the misery of the life of the peasants had made on him, that he decided to go to a hotel the next day, leaving Agraphena Petrovna to put away the things as she thought fit until his sister should come and finally dispose of everything in the house.

Nekhludoff left home early and chose a couple of rooms in a very modest and not particularly clean lodging-house within easy reach of the prison, and, having given orders that some of his things should be sent there, he went to see the advocate. It was cold out of doors. After some rainy and stormy weather it had turned out cold, as it often does in spring. It was so cold that Nekhludoff felt quite chilly in his light overcoat, and walked fast hoping to get warmer. His mind was filled with thoughts of the peasants, the women, children, old men, and all the poverty and weariness which he seemed to have seen for the first time, especially the smiling, old-faced infant writhing with his calfless little legs, and he could not help contrasting what was going on in the town. Passing by the butchers', fishmongers', and clothiers' shops, he was struck, as if he saw them for the first time, by the appearance of the clean, well-fed shopkeepers, like whom you could not find one peasant in the country. These men were apparently convinced that the pains they took to deceive the people who did not know much about their goods was not a useless but rather an important business. The coachmen with their broad hips and rows of buttons down their sides, and the door-keepers with gold cords on their caps, the servant-girls with their aprons and curly fringes, and especially the smart isvostchiks with the nape of their necks clean shaved, as they sat lolling back in their traps, and examined the passers-by with dissolute and contemptuous air, looked well fed. In all these people Nekhludoff could not now help seeing some of these very peasants who had been driven into the town by lack of land. Some of the peasants driven to the town had found means of profiting by the conditions of town life and had become like the gentlefolk and were pleased with their position; others were in a worse position than they had been in the country and were more to be pitied than the country people.

Such seemed the bootmakers Nekhludoff saw in the cellar, the pale, dishevelled washerwomen with their thin, bare, arms ironing at an open window, out of which streamed soapy steam; such the two house-painters with their aprons, stockingless feet, all bespattered and smeared with paint, whom Nekhludoff met—their weak, brown arms bared to above the elbows—carrying a pailful of paint, and quarrelling with each other. Their faces looked haggard and cross. The dark faces of the carters jolting along in their carts bore the same expression, and so did the faces of the tattered men and women who stood begging at the street corners. The same kind of faces were to be seen at the open, windows of the eating-houses which Nekhludoff passed. By the dirty tables on which stood tea things and bottles, and between which waiters dressed in white shirts were rushing hither and thither, sat shouting and singing red, perspiring men with stupefied faces. One sat by the window with lifted brows and pouting lips and fixed eyes as if trying to remember something.

"And why are they all gathered here?" Nekhludoff thought, breathing in together with the dust which the cold wind blew towards him the air filled with the smell of rank oil and fresh paint.

In one street he met a row of carts loaded with something made of iron, that rattled so on the uneven pavement that it made his ears and head ache. He started walking still faster in order to pass the row of carts, when he heard himself called by name. He stopped and saw an officer with sharp pointed moustaches and shining face who sat in the trap of a swell isvostchik and waved his hand in a friendly manner, his smile disclosing unusually long, white teeth.

"Nekhludoff! Can it be you?"

Nekhludoff's first feeling was one of pleasure. "Ah, Schonbock!" he exclaimed joyfully; but he knew the next moment that there was nothing to be joyful about.

This was that Schonbock who had been in the house of Nekhludoff's aunts that day, and whom Nekhludoff had quite lost out of sight, but about whom he had heard that in spite of his debts he had somehow managed to remain in the cavalry, and by some means or other still kept his place among the rich. His gay, contented appearance corroborated this report.

"What a good thing that I have caught you. There is no one in town. Ah, old fellow; you have grown old," he said, getting out of the trap and moving his shoulders about. "I only knew you by your walk. Look here, we must dine together. Is there any place where they feed one decently?"

"I don't think I can spare the time," Nekhludoff answered, thinking only of how he could best get rid of his companion without hurting him.

"And what has brought you here?" he asked.

"Business, old fellow. Guardianship business. I am a guardian now. I am managing Samanoff's affairs—the millionaire, you know. He has softening of the brain, and he's got fifty-four thousand desiatins of land," he said, with peculiar pride, as if he had himself made all these desiatins. "The affairs were terribly neglected. All the land was let to the peasants. They did not pay anything. There were more than eighty thousand roubles debts. I changed it all in one year, and have got 70 per cent. more out of it. What do you think of that?" he asked proudly.

Nekhludoff remembered having heard that this Schonbock, just because, he had spent all he had, had attained by some special influence the post of guardian to a rich old man who was squandering his property—and was now evidently living by this guardianship.

"How am I to get rid of him without offending him?" thought Nekhludoff, looking at this full, shiny face with the stiffened moustache and listening to his friendly, good-humoured chatter about where one gets fed best, and his bragging about his doings as a guardian.

"Well, then, where do we dine?"

"Really, I have no time to spare," said Nekhludoff, glancing at his watch.

"Then, look here. To-night, at the races—will you be there?"

"No, I shall not be there."

"Do come. I have none of my own now, but I back Grisha's horses. You remember; he has a fine stud. You'll come, won't you? And we'll have some supper together."

"No, I cannot have supper with you either," said Nekhludoff with a smile.

"Well, that's too bad! And where are you off to now? Shall I give you a lift?"

"I am going to see an advocate, close to here round the corner."

"Oh, yes, of course. You have got something to do with the prisons—have turned into a prisoners' mediator, I hear," said Schonbock, laughing. "The Korchagins told me. They have left town already. What does it all mean? Tell me."

"Yes, yes, it is quite true," Nekhludoff answered; "but I cannot tell you about it in the street."

"Of course; you always were a crank. But you will come to the races?"

"No. I neither can nor wish to come. Please do not be angry with me."

"Angry? Dear me, no. Where do you live?" And suddenly his face became serious, his eyes fixed, and he drew up his brows. He seemed to be trying to remember something, and Nekhludoff noticed the same dull expression as that of the man with the raised brows and pouting lips whom he had seen at the window of the eating-house.

"How cold it is! Is it not? Have you got the parcels?" said Schonbock, turning to the isvostchik.

"All right. Good-bye. I am very glad indeed to have met you," and warmly pressing Nekhludoff's hand, he jumped into the trap and waved his white-gloved hand in front of his shiny face, with his usual smile, showing his exceptionally white teeth.

"Can I have also been like that?" Nekhludoff thought, as he continued his way to the advocate's. "Yes, I wished to be like that, though I was not quite like it. And I thought of living my life in that way."



CHAPTER XI.

AN ADVOCATE'S VIEWS ON JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS.

Nekhludoff was admitted by the advocate before his turn. The advocate at once commenced to talk about the Menshoffs' case, which he had read with indignation at the inconsistency of the accusation.

"This case is perfectly revolting," he said; "it is very likely that the owner himself set fire to the building in order to get the insurance money, and the chief thing is that there is no evidence to prove the Menshoffs' guilt. There are no proofs whatever. It is all owing to the special zeal of the examining magistrate and the carelessness of the prosecutor. If they are tried here, and not in a provincial court, I guarantee that they will be acquitted, and I shall charge nothing. Now then, the next case, that of Theodosia Birukoff. The appeal to the Emperor is written. If you go to Petersburg, you'd better take it with you, and hand it in yourself, with a request of your own, or else they will only make a few inquiries, and nothing will come of it. You must try and get at some of the influential members of the Appeal Committee."

"Well, is this all?"

"No; here I have a letter . . . I see you have turned into a pipe—a spout through which all the complaints of the prison are poured," said the advocate, with a smile. "It is too much; you'll not be able to manage it."

"No, but this is a striking case," said Nekhludoff, and gave a brief outline of the case of a peasant who began to read the Gospels to the peasants in the village, and to discuss them with his friends. The priests regarded this as a crime and informed the authorities. The magistrate examined him and the public prosecutor drew up an act of indictment, and the law courts committed him for trial.

"This is really too terrible," Nekhludoff said. "Can it be true?"

"What are you surprised at?"

"Why, everything. I can understand the police-officer, who simply obeys orders, but the prosecutor drawing up an act of that kind. An educated man . . ."

"That is where the mistake lies, that we are in the habit of considering that the prosecutors and the judges in general are some kind of liberal persons. There was a time when they were such, but now it is quite different. They are just officials, only troubled about pay-day. They receive their salaries and want them increased, and there their principles end. They will accuse, judge, and sentence any one you like."

"Yes; but do laws really exist that can condemn a man to Siberia for reading the Bible with his friends?"

"Not only to be exiled to the less remote parts of Siberia, but even to the mines, if you can only prove that reading the Bible they took the liberty of explaining it to others not according to orders, and in this way condemned the explanations given by the Church. Blaming the Greek orthodox religion in the presence of the common people means, according to Statute . . . the mines."

"Impossible!"

"I assure you it is so. I always tell these gentlemen, the judges," the advocate continued, "that I cannot look at them without gratitude, because if I am not in prison, and you, and all of us, it is only owing to their kindness. To deprive us of our privileges, and send us all to the less remote parts of Siberia, would be an easy thing for them."

"Well, if it is so, and if everything depends on the Procureur and others who can, at will, either enforce the laws or not, what are the trials for?"

The advocate burst into a merry laugh. "You do put strange questions. My dear sir, that is philosophy. Well, we might have a talk about that, too. Could you come on Saturday? You will meet men of science, literary men, and artists at my house, and then we might discuss these general questions," said the advocate, pronouncing the words "general questions" with ironical pathos. "You have met my wife? Do come."

"Thank you; I will try to," said Nekhludoff, and felt that he was saying an untruth, and knew that if he tried to do anything it would be to keep away froth the advocate's literary evening, and the circle of the men of science, art, and literature.

The laugh with which the advocate met Nekhludoff's remark that trials could have no meaning if the judges might enforce the laws or not, according to their notion, and the tone with which he pronounced the words "philosophy" and "general questions" proved to Nekhludoff how very differently he and the advocate and, probably, the advocate's friends, looked at things; and he felt that in spite of the distance that now existed between himself and his former companions, Schonbock, etc., the difference between himself and the circle of the advocate and his friends was still greater.



CHAPTER XII.

WHY THE PEASANTS FLOCK TO TOWN.

The prison was a long way off and it was getting late, so Nekhludoff took an isvostchik. The isvostchik, a middle-aged man with an intelligent and kind face, turned round towards Nekhludoff as they were driving along one of the streets and pointed to a huge house that was being built there.

"Just see what a tremendous house they have begun to build," he said, as if he was partly responsible for the building of the house and proud of it. The house was really immense and was being built in a very original style. The strong pine beams of the scaffolding were firmly fixed together with iron bands and a plank wall separated the building from the street.

On the boards of the scaffolding workmen, all bespattered with plaster, moved hither and thither like ants. Some were laying bricks, some hewing stones, some carrying up the heavy hods and pails and bringing them down empty. A fat and finely-dressed gentleman—probably the architect—stood by the scaffolding, pointing upward and explaining something to a contractor, a peasant from the Vladimir Government, who was respectfully listening to him. Empty carts were coming out of the gate by which the architect and the contractor were standing, and loaded ones were going in. "And how sure they all are—those that do the work as well as those that make them do it—that it ought to be; that while their wives at home, who are with child, are labouring beyond their strength, and their children with the patchwork caps, doomed soon to the cold grave, smile with suffering and contort their little legs, they must be building this stupid and useless palace for some stupid and useless person—one of those who spoil and rob them," Nekhludoff thought, while looking at the house.

"Yes, it is a stupid house," he said, uttering his thought out aloud.

"Why stupid?" replied the isvostchik, in an offended tone. "Thanks to it, the people get work; it's not stupid."

"But the work is useless."

"It can't be useless, or why should it be done?" said the isvostchik. "The people get bread by it."

Nekhludoff was silent, and it would have been difficult to talk because of the clatter the wheels made.

When they came nearer the prison, and the isvostchik turned off the paved on to the macadamised road, it became easier to talk, and he again turned to Nekhludoff.

"And what a lot of these people are flocking to the town nowadays; it's awful," he said, turning round on the box and pointing to a party of peasant workmen who were coming towards them, carrying saws, axes, sheepskins, coats, and bags strapped to their shoulders.

"More than in other years?" Nekhludoff asked.

"By far. This year every place is crowded, so that it's just terrible. The employers just fling the workmen about like chaff. Not a job to be got."

"Why is that?"

"They've increased. There's no room for them."

"Well, what if they have increased? Why do not they stay in the village?"

"There's nothing for them to do in the village—no land to be had."

Nekhludoff felt as one does when touching a sore place. It feels as if the bruised part was always being hit; yet it is only because the place is sore that the touch is felt.

"Is it possible that the same thing is happening everywhere?" he thought, and began questioning the isvostchik about the quantity of land in his village, how much land the man himself had, and why he had left the country.

"We have a desiatin per man, sir," he said. "Our family have three men's shares of the land. My father and a brother are at home, and manage the land, and another brother is serving in the army. But there's nothing to manage. My brother has had thoughts of coming to Moscow, too."

"And cannot land be rented?"

"How's one to rent it nowadays? The gentry, such as they were, have squandered all theirs. Men of business have got it all into their own hands. One can't rent it from them. They farm it themselves. We have a Frenchman ruling in our place; he bought the estate from our former landlord, and won't let it—and there's an end of it."

"Who's that Frenchman?"

"Dufour is the Frenchman's name. Perhaps you've heard of him. He makes wigs for the actors in the big theatre; it is a good business, so he's prospering. He bought it from our lady, the whole of the estate, and now he has us in his power; he just rides on us as he pleases. The Lord be thanked, he is a good man himself; only his wife, a Russian, is such a brute that—God have mercy on us. She robs the people. It's awful. Well, here's the prison. Am I to drive you to the entrance? I'm afraid they'll not let us do it, though."



CHAPTER XIII.

NURSE MASLOVA.

When he rang the bell at the front entrance Nekhludoff's heart stood still with horror as he thought of the state he might find Maslova in to-day, and at the mystery that he felt to be in her and in the people that were collected in the prison. He asked the jailer who opened the door for Maslova. After making the necessary inquiry the jailer informed him that she was in the hospital. Nekhludoff went there. A kindly old man, the hospital doorkeeper, let him in at once and, after asking Nekhludoff whom he wanted, directed him to the children's ward. A young doctor saturated with carbolic acid met Nekhludoff in the passage and asked him severely what he wanted. This doctor was always making all sorts of concessions to the prisoners, and was therefore continually coming into conflict with the prison authorities and even with the head doctor. Fearing lest Nekhludoff should demand something unlawful, and wishing to show that he made no exceptions for any one, he pretended to be cross. "There are no women here; it is the children's ward," he said.

"Yes, I know; but a prisoner has been removed here to be an assistant nurse."

"Yes, there are two such here. Then whom do you want?"

"I am closely connected with one of them, named Maslova," Nekhludoff answered, "and should like to speak to her. I am going to Petersburg to hand in an appeal to the Senate about her case and should like to give her this. It is only a photo," Nekhludoff said, taking an envelope out of his pocket.

"All right, you may do that," said the doctor, relenting, and turning to an old woman with a white apron, he told her to call the prisoner—Nurse Maslova.

"Will you take a seat, or go into the waiting-room?"

"Thanks," said Nekhludoff, and profiting by the favourable change in the manner of the doctor towards him asked how they were satisfied with Maslova in the hospital.

"Oh, she is all right. She works fairly well, if you the conditions of her former life into account. But here she is."

The old nurse came in at one of the doors, followed by Maslova, who wore a blue striped dress, a white apron, a kerchief that quite covered her hair. When she saw Nekhludoff her face flushed, and she stopped as if hesitating, then frowned, and with downcast eyes went quickly towards him along the strip of carpet in the middle of the passage. When she came up to Nekhludoff she did not wish to give him her hand, and then gave it, growing redder still. Nekhludoff had not seen her since the day when she begged forgiveness for having been in a passion, and he expected to find her the same as she was then. But to-day she was quite different. There was something new in the expression of her face, reserve and shyness, and, as it seemed to him, animosity towards him. He told her what he had already said to the doctor, i.e., that he was going to Petersburg, and he handed her the envelope with the photograph which he had brought from Panovo.

"I found this in Panovo—it's an old photo; perhaps you would like it. Take it."

Lifting her dark eyebrows, she looked at him with surprise in her squinting eyes, as if asking, "What is this for?" took the photo silently and put it in the bib of her apron.

"I saw your aunt there," said Nekhludoff.

"Did you?" she said, indifferently.

"Are you all right here?" Nekhludoff asked.

"Oh, yes, it's all right," she said.

"Not too difficult?"

"Oh, no. But I am not used to it yet."

"I am glad, for your sake. Anyhow, it is better than there."

"Than where—there?" she asked, her face flushing again.

"There—in the prison," Nekhludoff hurriedly answered.

"Why better?" she asked.

"I think the people are better. Here are none such as there must be there."

"There are many good ones there," she said.

"I have been seeing about the Menshoffs, and hope they will be liberated," said Nekhludoff.

"God grant they may. Such a splendid old woman," she said, again repeating her opinion of the old woman, and slightly smiling.

"I am going to Petersburg to-day. Your case will come on soon, and I hope the sentence will be repealed."

"Whether it is repealed or not won't matter now," she said.

"Why not now?"

"So," she said, looking with a quick, questioning glance into his eyes.

Nekhludoff understood the word and the look to mean that she wished to know whether he still kept firm to his decision or had accepted her refusal.

"I do not know why it does not matter to you," he said. "It certainly does not matter as far as I am concerned whether you are acquitted or not. I am ready to do what I told you in any case," he said decidedly.

She lifted her head and her black squinting eyes remained fixed on him and beyond him, and her face beamed with joy. But the words she spoke were very different from what her eyes said.

"You should not speak like that," she said.

"I am saying it so that you should know."

"Everything has been said about that, and there is no use speaking," she said, with difficulty repressing a smile.

A sudden noise came from the hospital ward, and the sound of a child crying.

"I think they are calling me," she said, and looked round uneasily.

"Well, good-bye, then," he said. She pretended not to see his extended hand, and, without taking it, turned away and hastily walked along the strip of carpet, trying to hide the triumph she felt.

"What is going on in her? What is she thinking? What does she feel? Does she mean to prove me, or can she really not forgive me? Is it that she cannot or that she will not express what she feels and thinks? Has she softened or hardened?" he asked himself, and could find no answer. He only knew that she had altered and that an important change was going on in her soul, and this change united him not only to her but also to Him for whose sake that change was being wrought. And this union brought on a state of joyful animation and tenderness.

When she returned to the ward, in which there stood eight small beds, Maslova began, in obedience to the nurse's order, to arrange one of the beds; and, bending over too far with the sheet, she slipped and nearly fell down.

A little convalescent boy with a bandaged neck, who was looking at her, laughed. Maslova could no longer contain herself and burst into loud laughter, and such contagious laughter that several of the children also burst out laughing, and one of the sisters rebuked her angrily.

"What are you giggling at? Do you think you are where you used to be? Go and fetch the food." Maslova obeyed and went where she was sent; but, catching the eye of the bandaged boy who was not allowed to laugh, she again burst out laughing.

Whenever she was alone Maslova again and again pulled the photograph partly out of the envelope and looked at it admiringly; but only in the evening when she was off duty and alone in the bedroom which she shared with a nurse, did she take it quite out of the envelope and gaze long at the faded yellow photograph, caressing with, her eyes every detail of faces and clothing, the steps of the veranda, and the bushes which served as a background to his and hers and his aunts' faces, and could not cease from admiring especially herself—her pretty young face with the curly hair round the forehead. She was so absorbed that she did not hear her fellow-nurse come into the room.

"What is it that he's given you?" said the good-natured, fat nurse, stooping over the photograph.

"Who's this? You?"

"Who else?" said Maslova, looking into her companion's face with a smile.

"And who's this?"

"Himself."

"And is this his mother?"

"No, his aunt. Would you not have known me?"

"Never. The whole face is altered. Why, it must be 10 years since then."

"Not years, but a lifetime," said Maslova. And suddenly her animation went, her face grew gloomy, and a deep line appeared between her brows.

"Why so? Your way of life must have been an easy one."

"Easy, indeed," Maslova reiterated, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "It is hell."

"Why, what makes it so?"

"What makes it so! From eight till four in the morning, and every night the same!"

"Then why don't they give it up?"

"They can't give it up if they want to. But what's the use of talking?" Maslova said, jumping up and throwing the photograph into the drawer of the table. And with difficulty repressing angry tears, she ran out into the passage and slammed the door.

While looking at the group she imagined herself such as she was there and dreamt of her happiness then and of the possibility of happiness with him now. But her companion's words reminded her of what she was now and what she had been, and brought back all the horrors of that life, which she had felt but dimly, and not allowed herself to realise.

It was only now that the memory of all those terrible nights came vividly back to her, especially one during the carnival when she was expecting a student who had promised to buy her out. She remembered how she—wearing her low necked silk dress stained with wine, a red bow in her untidy hair, wearied, weak, half tipsy, having seen her visitors off, sat down during an interval in the dancing by the piano beside the bony pianiste with the blotchy face, who played the accompaniments to the violin, and began complaining of her hard fate; and how this pianiste said that she, too, was feeling how heavy her position was and would like to change it; and how Clara suddenly came up to them; and how they all three decided to change their life. They thought that the night was over, and were about to go away, when suddenly the noise of tipsy voices was heard in the ante-room. The violinist played a tune and the pianiste began hammering the first figure of a quadrille on the piano, to the tune of a most merry Russian song. A small, perspiring man, smelling of spirits, with a white tie and swallow-tail coat, which he took off after the first figure, came up to her, hiccoughing, and caught her up, while another fat man, with a beard, and also wearing a dress-coat (they had come straight from a ball) caught Clara up, and for a long time they turned, danced, screamed, drank. . . . And so it went on for another year, and another, and a third. How could she help changing? And he was the cause of it all. And, suddenly, all her former bitterness against him reawoke; she wished to scold, to reproach him. She regretted having neglected the opportunity of repeating to him once more that she knew him, and would not give in to him—would not let him make use of her spiritually as he had done physically.

And she longed for drink in order to stifle the feeling of pity to herself and the useless feeling of reproach to him. And she would have broken her word if she had been inside the prison. Here she could not get any spirits except by applying to the medical assistant, and she was afraid of him because he made up to her, and intimate relations with men were disgusting to her now. After sitting a while on a form in the passage she returned to her little room, and without paying any heed to her companion's words, she wept for a long time over her wrecked life.



CHAPTER XIV.

AN ARISTOCRATIC CIRCLE.

Nekhludoff had four matters to attend to in Petersburg. The first was the appeal to the Senate in Maslova's case; the second, to hand in Theodosia Birukoff's petition to the committee; the third, to comply with Vera Doukhova's requests—i.e., try to get her friend Shoustova released from prison, and get permission for a mother to visit her son in prison. Vera Doukhova had written to him about this, and he was going to the Gendarmerie Office to attend to these two matters, which he counted as one.

The fourth matter he meant to attend to was the case of some sectarians who had been separated from their families and exiled to the Caucasus because they read and discussed the Gospels. It was not so much to them as to himself he had promised to do all he could to clear up this affair.

Since his last visit to Maslennikoff, and especially since he had been in the country, Nekhludoff had not exactly formed a resolution but felt with his whole nature a loathing for that society in which he had lived till then, that society which so carefully hides the sufferings of millions in order to assure ease and pleasure to a small number of people, that the people belonging to this society do not and cannot see these sufferings, nor the cruelty and wickedness of their life. Nekhludoff could no longer move in this society without feeling ill at ease and reproaching himself. And yet all the ties of relationship and friendship, and his own habits, were drawing him back into this society. Besides, that which alone interested him now, his desire to help Maslova and the other sufferers, made it necessary to ask for help and service from persons belonging to that society, persons whom he not only could not respect, but who often aroused in him indignation and a feeling of contempt.

When he came to Petersburg and stopped at his aunt's—his mother's sister, the Countess Tcharsky, wife of a former minister—Nekhludoff at once found himself in the very midst of that aristocratic circle which had grown so foreign to him. This was very unpleasant, but there was no possibility of getting out of it. To put up at an hotel instead of at his aunt's house would have been to offend his aunt, and, besides, his aunt had important connections and might be extremely useful in all these matters he meant to attend to.

"What is this I hear about you? All sorts of marvels," said the Countess Katerina Ivanovna Tcharsky, as she gave him his coffee immediately after his arrival. "Vous posez pour un Howard. Helping criminals, going the round of prisons, setting things right."

"Oh, no. I never thought of it."

"Why not? It is a good thing, only there seems to be some romantic story connected with it. Let us hear all about it."

Nekhludoff told her the whole truth about his relations to Maslova.

"Yes, yes, I remember your poor mother telling me about it. That was when you were staying with those old women. I believe they wished to marry you to their ward (the Countess Katerina Ivanovna had always despised Nekhludoff's aunts on his father's side). So it's she. Elle est encore jolie?"

Katerina Ivanovna was a strong, bright, energetic, talkative woman of 60. She was tall and very stout, and had a decided black moustache on her lip. Nekhludoff was fond of her and had even as a child been infected by her energy and mirth.

"No, ma tante, that's at an end. I only wish to help her, because she is innocently accused. I am the cause of it and the cause of her fate being what it is. I feel it my duty to do all I can for her."

"But what is this I have heard about your intention of marrying her?"

"Yes, it was my intention, but she does not wish it."

Katerina Ivanovna looked at her nephew with raised brows and drooping eyeballs, in silent amazement. Suddenly her face changed, and with a look of pleasure she said: "Well, she is wiser than you. Dear me, you are a fool. And you would have married her?"

"Most certainly."

"After her having been what she was?"

"All the more, since I was the cause of it."

"Well, you are a simpleton," said his aunt, repressing a smile, "a terrible simpleton; but it is just because you are such a terrible simpleton that I love you." She repeated the word, evidently liking it, as it seemed to correctly convey to her mind the idea of her nephew's moral state. "Do you know—What a lucky chance. Aline has a wonderful home—the Magdalene Home. I went there once. They are terribly disgusting. After that I had to pray continually. But Aline is devoted to it, body and soul, so we shall place her there—yours, I mean."

"But she is condemned to Siberia. I have come on purpose to appeal about it. This is one of my requests to you."

"Dear me, and where do you appeal to in this case?"

"To the Senate."

"Ah, the Senate! Yes, my dear Cousin Leo is in the Senate, but he is in the heraldry department, and I don't know any of the real ones. They are all some kind of Germans—Gay, Fay, Day—tout l'alphabet, or else all sorts of Ivanoffs, Simenoffs, Nikitines, or else Ivanenkos, Simonenkos, Nikitenkos, pour varier. Des gens de l'autre monde. Well, it is all the same. I'll tell my husband, he knows them. He knows all sorts of people. I'll tell him, but you will have to explain, he never understands me. Whatever I may say, he always maintains he does not understand it. C'est un parti pris, every one understands but only not he."

At this moment a footman with stockinged legs came in with a note on a silver platter.

"There now, from Aline herself. You'll have a chance of hearing Kiesewetter."

"Who is Kiesewetter?"

"Kiesewetter? Come this evening, and you will find out who he is. He speaks in such a way that the most hardened criminals sink on their knees and weep and repent."

The Countess Katerina Ivanovna, however strange it may seem, and however little it seemed in keeping with the rest of her character, was a staunch adherent to that teaching which holds that the essence of Christianity lies in the belief in redemption. She went to meetings where this teaching, then in fashion, was being preached, and assembled the "faithful" in her own house. Though this teaching repudiated all ceremonies, icons, and sacraments, Katerina Ivanovna had icons in every room, and one on the wall above her bed, and she kept all that the Church prescribed without noticing any contradiction in that.

"There now; if your Magdalene could hear him she would be converted," said the Countess. "Do stay at home to-night; you will hear him. He is a wonderful man."

"It does not interest me, ma tante."

"But I tell you that it is interesting, and you must come home. Now you may go. What else do you want of me? Videz votre sac."

"The next is in the fortress."

"In the fortress? I can give you a note for that to the Baron Kriegsmuth. Cest un tres brave homme. Oh, but you know him; he was a comrade of your father's. Il donne dans le spiritisme. But that does not matter, he is a good fellow. What do you want there?"

"I want to get leave for a mother to visit her son who is imprisoned there. But I was told that this did not depend on Kriegsmuth but on Tcherviansky."

"I do not like Tcherviansky, but he is Mariette's husband; we might ask her. She will do it for me. Elle est tres gentille."

"I have also to petition for a woman who is imprisoned there without knowing what for."

"No fear; she knows well enough. They all know it very well, and it serves them right, those short-haired [many advanced women wear their hair short, like men] ones."

"We do not know whether it serves them right or not. But they suffer. You are a Christian and believe in the Gospel teaching and yet you are so pitiless."

"That has nothing to do with it. The Gospels are the Gospels, but what is disgusting remains disgusting. It would be worse if I pretended to love Nihilists, especially short-haired women Nihilists, when I cannot bear them."

"Why can you not bear them?"

"You ask why, after the 1st of March?" [The Emperor Alexander II was killed on the first of March, old style.]

"They did not all take part in it on the 1st of March."

"Never mind; they should not meddle with what is no business of theirs. It's not women's business."

"Yet you consider that Mariette may take part in business."

"Mariette? Mariette is Mariette, and these are goodness knows what. Want to teach everybody."

"Not to teach but simply to help the people."

"One knows whom to help and whom not to help without them."

"But the peasants are in great need. I have just returned from the country. Is it necessary, that the peasants should work to the very limits of their strength and never have sufficient to eat while we are living in the greatest luxury?" said Nekhludoff, involuntarily led on by his aunt's good nature into telling her what he was in his thoughts.

"What do you want, then? That I should work and not eat anything?"

"No, I do not wish you not to eat. I only wish that we should all work and all eat." He could not help smiling as he said it.

Again raising her brow and drooping her eyeballs his aunt looked at him curiously. "Mon cher vous finirez mal," she said.

Just then the general, and former minister, Countess Tcharsky's husband, a tall, broad-shouldered man, came into the room.

"Ah, Dmitri, how d'you do?" he said, turning his freshly-shaved cheek to Nekhludoff to be kissed. "When did you get here?" And he silently kissed his wife on the forehead.

"Non il est impayable," the Countess said, turning to her husband. "He wants me to go and wash clothes and live on potatoes. He is an awful fool, but all the same do what he is going to ask of you. A terrible simpleton," she added. "Have you heard? Kamenskaya is in such despair that they fear for her life," she said to her husband. "You should go and call there."

"Yes; it is dreadful," said her husband.

"Go along, then, and talk to him. I must write some letters."

Hardly had Nekhludoff stepped into the room next the drawing-room than she called him back.

"Shall I write to Mariette, then?"

"Please, ma tante."

"I shall leave a blank for what you want to say about the short-haired one, and she will give her husband his orders, and he'll do it. Do not think me wicked; they are all so disgusting, your prologues, but je ne leur veux pas de mal, bother them. Well, go, but be sure to stay at home this evening to hear Kiesewetter, and we shall have some prayers. And if only you do not resist cela vous fera beaucoup de bien. I know your poor mother and all of you were always very backward in these things."



CHAPTER XV.

AN AVERAGE STATESMAN.

Count Ivan Michaelovitch had been a minister, and was a man of strong convictions. The convictions of Count Ivan Michaelovitch consisted in the belief that, just as it was natural for a bird to feed on worms, to be clothed in feathers and down, and to fly in the air, so it was natural for him to feed on the choicest and most expensive food, prepared by highly-paid cooks, to wear the most comfortable and most expensive clothing, to drive with the best and fastest horses, and that, therefore, all these things should be ready found for him. Besides this, Count Ivan Michaelovitch considered that the more money he could get out of the treasury by all sorts of means, the more orders he had, including different diamond insignia of something or other, and the oftener he spoke to highly-placed individuals of both sexes, so much the better it was.

All the rest Count Ivan Michaelovitch considered insignificant and uninteresting beside these dogmas. All the rest might be as it was, or just the reverse. Count Ivan Michaelovitch lived and acted according to these lights for 40 years, and at the end of 40 years reached the position of a Minister of State. The chief qualities that enabled Count Ivan Michaelovitch to reach this position were his capacity of understanding the meaning of documents and laws and of drawing up, though clumsily, intelligible State papers, and of spelling them correctly; secondly, his very stately appearance, which enabled him, when necessary, to seem not only extremely proud, but unapproachable and majestic, while at other times he could be abjectly and almost passionately servile; thirdly, the absence of any general principles or rules, either of personal or administrative morality, which made it possible for him either to agree or disagree with anybody according to what was wanted at the time. When acting thus his only endeavour was to sustain the appearance of good breeding and not to seem too plainly inconsistent. As for his actions being moral or not, in themselves, or whether they were going to result in the highest welfare or greatest evil for the whole of the Russian Empire, or even the entire world, that was quite indifferent to him. When he became minister, not only those dependent on him (and there were great many of them) and people connected with him, but many strangers and even he himself were convinced that he was a very clever statesman. But after some time had elapsed and he had done nothing and had nothing to show, and when in accordance with the law of the struggle for existence others, like himself, who had learnt to write and understand documents, stately and unprincipled officials, had displaced him, he turned out to be not only far from clever but very limited and badly educated. Though self-assured, his views hardly reaching the level of those in the leading articles of the Conservative papers, it became apparent that there was nothing in him to distinguish him from those other badly-educated and self-assured officials who had pushed him out, and he himself saw it. But this did not shake his conviction that he had to receive a great deal of money out of the Treasury every year, and new decorations for his dress clothes. This conviction was so firm that no one had the pluck to refuse these things to him, and he received yearly, partly in form of a pension, partly as a salary for being a member in a Government institution and chairman of all sorts of committees and councils, several tens of thousands of roubles, besides the right—highly prized by him—of sewing all sorts of new cords to his shoulders and trousers, and ribbons to wear under and enamel stars to fix on to his dress coat. In consequence of this Count Ivan Michaelovitch had very high connections.

Count Ivan Michaelovitch listened to Nekhludoff as he was wont to listen to the reports of the permanent secretary of his department, and, having heard him, said he would give him two notes, one to the Senator Wolff, of the Appeal Department. "All sorts of things are reported of him, but dans tous les cas c'est un homme tres comme ii faut," he said. "He is indebted to me, and will do all that is possible." The other note Count Ivan Michaelovitch gave Nekhludoff was to an influential member of the Petition Committee. The story of Theodosia Birukoff as told by Nekhludoff interested him very much. When Nekhludoff said that he thought of writing to the Empress, the Count replied that it certainly was a very touching story, and might, if occasion presented itself, he told her, but he could not promise. Let the petition be handed in in due form.

Should there be an opportunity, and if a petit comite were called on Thursday, he thought he would tell her the story. As soon as Nekhludoff had received these two notes, and a note to Mariette from his aunt, he at once set off to these different places.

First he went to Mariette's. He had known her as a half-grown girl, the daughter of an aristocratic but not wealthy family, and had heard how she had married a man who was making a career, whom Nekhludoff had heard badly spoken of; and, as usual, he felt it hard to ask a favour of a man he did not esteem. In these cases he always felt an inner dissension and dissatisfaction, and wavered whether to ask the favour or not, and always resolved to ask. Besides feeling himself in a false position among those to whose set he no longer regarded himself as belonging, who yet regarded him as belonging to them, he felt himself getting into the old accustomed rut, and in spite of himself fell into the thoughtless and immoral tone that reigned in that circle. He felt that from the first, with his aunt, he involuntarily fell into a bantering tone while talking about serious matters.

Petersburg in general affected him with its usual physically invigorating and mentally dulling effect.

Everything so clean, so comfortably well-arranged and the people so lenient in moral matters, that life seemed very easy.

A fine, clean, and polite isvostchik drove him past fine, clean, polite policemen, along the fine, clean, watered streets, past fine, clean houses to the house in which Mariette lived. At the front door stood a pair of English horses, with English harness, and an English-looking coachman on the box, with the lower part of his face shaved, proudly holding a whip. The doorkeeper, dressed in a wonderfully clean livery, opened the door into the hall, where in still cleaner livery with gold cords stood the footman with his splendid whiskers well combed out, and the orderly on duty in a brand-new uniform. "The general does not receive, and the generaless does not receive either. She is just going to drive out."

Nekhludoff took out Katerina Ivanovna's letter, and going up to a table on which lay a visitors' book, began to write that he was sorry not to have been able to see any one; when the footman went up the staircase the doorkeeper went out and shouted to the coachman, and the orderly stood up rigid with his arms at his sides following with his eyes a little, slight lady, who was coming down the stairs with rapid steps not in keeping with all the grandeur.

Mariette had a large hat on, with feathers, a black dress and cape, and new black gloves. Her face was covered by a veil.

When she saw Nekhludoff she lifted the veil off a very pretty face with bright eyes that looked inquiringly at him.

"Ah, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff," she said, with a soft, pleasant voice. "I should have known—"

"What! you even remember my name?"

"I should think so. Why, I and my sisters have even been in love with you," she said, in French. "But, dear me, how you have altered. Oh, what a pity I have to go out. But let us go up again," she said and stopped hesitatingly. Then she looked at the clock. "No, I can't. I am going to Kamenskaya's to attend a mass for the dead. She is terribly afflicted."

"Who is this Kamenskaya?"

"Have you not heard? Her son was killed in a duel. He fought Posen. He was the only son. Terrible I The mother is very much afflicted."

"Yes. I have heard of it."

"No, I had better go, and you must come again, to-night or to-morrow," she said, and went to the door with quick, light steps.

"I cannot come to-night," he said, going out after her; "but I have a request to make you," and he looked at the pair of bays that were drawing up to the front door.

"What is this?"

"This is a letter from aunt to you," said Nekhludoff, handing her a narrow envelope, with a large crest. "You'll find all about it in there."

"I know Countess Katerina Ivanovna thinks I have some influence with my husband in business matters. She is mistaken. I can do nothing and do not like to interfere. But, of course, for you I am willing to be false to my principle. What is this business about?" she said, searching in vain for her pocket with her little black gloved hand.

"There is a girl imprisoned in the fortress, and she is ill and innocent."

"What is her name?"

"Lydia Shoustova. It's in the note."

"All right; I'll see what I can do," she said, and lightly jumped into her little, softly upholstered, open carriage, its brightly-varnished splash-guards glistening in the sunshine, and opened her parasol. The footman got on the box and gave the coachman a sign. The carriage moved, but at that moment she touched the coachman with her parasol and the slim-legged beauties, the bay mares, stopped, bending their beautiful necks and stepping from foot to foot.

"But you must come, only, please, without interested motives," and she looked at him with a smile, the force of which she well knew, and, as if the performance over and she were drawing the curtain, she dropped the veil over her face again. "All right," and she again touched the coachman.

Nekhludoff raised his hat, and the well-bred bays, slightly snorting, set off, their shoes clattering on the pavement, and the carriage rolled quickly and smoothly on its new rubber tyres, giving a jump only now and then over some unevenness of the road.



CHAPTER XVI.

AN UP-TO-DATE SENATOR.

When Nekhludoff remembered the smiles that had passed between him and Mariette, he shook his head.

"You have hardly time to turn round before you are again drawn into this life," he thought, feeling that discord and those doubts which the necessity to curry favour from people he did not esteem caused.

After considering where to go first, so as not to have to retrace his steps, Nekhludoff set off for the Senate. There he was shown into the office where he found a great many very polite and very clean officials in the midst of a magnificent apartment. Maslova's petition was received and handed on to that Wolf, to whom Nekhludoff had a letter from his uncle, to be examined and reported on.

"There will be a meeting of the Senate this week," the official said to Nekhludoff, "but Maslova's case will hardly come before that meeting."

"It might come before the meeting on Wednesday, by special request," one of the officials remarked.

During the time Nekhludoff waited in the office, while some information was being taken, he heard that the conversation in the Senate was all about the duel, and he heard a detailed account of how a young man, Kaminski, had been killed. It was here he first heard all the facts of the case which was exciting the interest of all Petersburg. The story was this: Some officers were eating oysters and, as usual, drinking very much, when one of them said something ill-natured about the regiment to which Kaminski belonged, and Kaminski called him a liar. The other hit Kaminski. The next day they fought. Kaminski was wounded in the stomach and died two hours later. The murderer and the seconds were arrested, but it was said that though they were arrested and in the guardhouse they would be set free in a fortnight.

From the Senate Nekhludoff drove to see an influential member of the petition Committee, Baron Vorobioff, who lived in a splendid house belonging to the Crown. The doorkeeper told Nekhludoff in a severe tone that the Baron could not be seen except on his reception days; that he was with His Majesty the Emperor to-day, and the next day he would again have to deliver a report. Nekhludoff left his uncle's letter with the doorkeeper and went on to see the Senator Wolf. Wolf had just had his lunch, and was as usual helping digestion by smoking a cigar and pacing up and down the room, when Nekhludoff came in. Vladimir Vasilievitch Wolf was certainly un homme tres comme il faut, and prized this quality very highly, and from that elevation he looked down at everybody else. He could not but esteem this quality of his very highly, because it was thanks to it alone that he had made a brilliant career, the very career he desired, i.e., by marriage he obtained a fortune which brought him in 18,000 roubles a year, and by his own exertions the post of a senator. He considered himself not only un homme tres comme il faut, but also a man of knightly honour. By honour he understood not accepting secret bribes from private persons. But he did not consider it dishonest to beg money for payment of fares and all sorts of travelling expenses from the Crown, and to do anything the Government might require of him in return. To ruin hundreds of innocent people, to cause them to be imprisoned, to be exiled because of their love for their people and the religion of their fathers, as he had done in one of the governments of Poland when he was governor there. He did not consider it dishonourable, but even thought it a noble, manly and patriotic action. Nor did he consider it dishonest to rob his wife and sister-in-law, as he had done, but thought it a wise way of arranging his family life. His family consisted of his commonplace wife, his sister-in-law, whose fortune he had appropriated by selling her estate and putting the money to his account, and his meek, frightened, plain daughter, who lived a lonely, weary life, from which she had lately begun to look for relaxation in evangelicism, attending meetings at Aline's, and the Countess Katerina Ivanovna. Wolf's son, who had grown a beard at the age of 15, and had at that age begun to drink and lead a depraved life, which he continued to do till the age of 20, when he was turned out by his father because he never finished his studies, moved in a low set and made debts which committed the father. The father had once paid a debt of 250 roubles for his son, then another of 600 roubles, but warned the son that he did it for the last time, and that if the son did not reform he would be turned out of the house and all further intercourse between him and his family would he put a stop to. The son did not reform, but made a debt of a thousand roubles, and took the liberty of telling his father that life at home was a torment anyhow. Then Wolf declared to his son that he might go where he pleased—that he was no son of his any longer. Since then Wolf pretended he had no son, and no one at home dared speak to him about his son, and Vladimir Vasilievitch Wolf was firmly convinced that he had arranged his family life in the best way. Wolf stopped pacing up and down his study, and greeted Nekhludoff with a friendly though slightly ironical smile. This was his way of showing how comme il faut he was, and how superior to the majority of men. He read the note which Nekhludoff handed to him.