"Please take a seat, and excuse me if I continue to walk up and down, with your permission," he said, putting his hands into his coat pockets, and began again to walk with light, soft steps across his large, quietly and stylishly furnished study. "Very pleased to make your acquaintance and of course very glad to do anything that Count Ivan Michaelovitch wishes," he said, blowing the fragrant blue smoke out of his mouth and removing his cigar carefully so as not to drop the ash.

"I should only like to ask that the case might come on soon, so that if the prisoner has to go to Siberia she might set off early," said Nekhludoff.

"Yes, yes, with one of the first steamers from Nijni. I know," said Wolf, with his patronising smile, always knowing in advance whatever one wanted to tell him.

"What is the prisoner's name?"

"Maslova."

Wolf went up to the table and looked at a paper that lay on a piece of cardboard among other business papers.

"Yes, yes. Maslova. All right, I will ask the others. We shall hear the case on Wednesday."

"Then may I telegraph to the advocate?"

"The advocate! What's that for? But if you like, why not?"

"The causes for appeal may be insufficient," said Nekhludoff, "but I think the case will show that the sentence was passed owing to a misunderstanding."

"Yes, yes; it may be so, but the Senate cannot decide the case on its merits," said Wolf, looking seriously at the ash of his cigar. "The Senate only considers the exactness of the application of the laws and their right interpretation."

"But this seems to me to be an exceptional case."

"I know, I know! All cases are exceptional. We shall do our duty. That's all." The ash was still holding on, but had began breaking, and was in danger of falling.

"Do you often come to Petersburg?" said Wolf, holding his cigar so that the ash should not fall. But the ash began to shake, and Wolf carefully carried it to the ashpan, into which it fell.

"What a terrible thing this is with regard to Kaminski," he said. "A splendid young man. The only son. Especially the mother's position," he went on, repeating almost word for word what every one in Petersburg was at that time saying about Kaminski. Wolf spoke a little about the Countess Katerina Ivanovna and her enthusiasm for the new religious teaching, which he neither approved nor disapproved of, but which was evidently needless to him who was so comme il faut, and then rang the bell.

Nekhludoff bowed.

"If it is convenient, come and dine on Wednesday, and I will give you a decisive answer," said Wolf, extending his hand.

It was late, and Nekhludoff returned to his aunt's.



CHAPTER XVII.

COUNTESS KATERINA IVANOVNA'S DINNER PARTY.

Countess Katerina Ivanovna's dinner hour was half-past seven, and the dinner was served in a new manner that Nekhludoff had not yet seen anywhere. After they had placed the dishes on the table the waiters left the room and the diners helped themselves. The men would not let the ladies take the trouble of moving, and, as befitted the stronger sex, they manfully took on themselves the burden of putting the food on the ladies' plates and of filling their glasses. When one course was finished, the Countess pressed the button of an electric bell fitted to the table and the waiters stepped in noiselessly and quickly carried away the dishes, changed the plates, and brought in the next course. The dinner was very refined, the wines very costly. A French chef was working in the large, light kitchens, with two white-clad assistants. There were six persons at dinner, the Count and Countess, their son (a surly officer in the Guards who sat with his elbows on the table), Nekhludoff, a French lady reader, and the Count's chief steward, who had come up from the country. Here, too, the conversation was about the duel, and opinions were given as to how the Emperor regarded the case. It was known that the Emperor was very much grieved for the mother's sake, and all were grieved for her, and as it was also known that the Emperor did not mean to be very severe to the murderer, who defended the honour of his uniform, all were also lenient to the officer who had defended the honour of his uniform. Only the Countess Katerina Ivanovna, with her free thoughtlessness, expressed her disapproval.

"They get drunk, and kill unobjectionable young men. I should not forgive them on any account," she said.

"Now, that's a thing I cannot understand," said the Count.

"I know that you never can understand what I say," the Countess began, and turning to Nekhludoff, she added:

"Everybody understands except my husband. I say I am sorry for the mother, and I do not wish him to be contented, having killed a man." Then her son, who had been silent up to then, took the murderer's part, and rudely attacked his mother, arguing that an officer could not behave in any other way, because his fellow-officers would condemn him and turn him out of the regiment. Nekhludoff listened to the conversation without joining in. Having been an officer himself, he understood, though he did not agree with, young Tcharsky's arguments, and at the same time he could not help contrasting the fate of the officer with that of a beautiful young convict whom he had seen in the prison, and who was condemned to the mines for having killed another in a fight. Both had turned murderers through drunkenness. The peasant had killed a man in a moment of irritation, and he was parted from his wife and family, had chains on his legs, and his head shaved, and was going to hard labour in Siberia, while the officer was sitting in a fine room in the guardhouse, eating a good dinner, drinking good wine, and reading books, and would be set free in a day or two to live as he had done before, having only become more interesting by the affair. Nekhludoff said what he had been thinking, and at first his aunt, Katerina Ivanovna, seemed to agree with him, but at last she became silent as the rest had done, and Nekhludoff felt that he had committed something akin to an impropriety. In the evening, soon after dinner, the large hall, with high-backed carved chairs arranged in rows as for a meeting, and an armchair next to a little table, with a bottle of water for the speaker, began to fill with people come to hear the foreigner, Kiesewetter, preach. Elegant equipages stopped at the front entrance. In the hall sat richly-dressed ladies in silks and velvets and lace, with false hair and false busts and drawn-in waists, and among them men in uniform and evening dress, and about five persons of the common class, i.e., two men-servants, a shop-keeper, a footman, and a coachman. Kiesewetter, a thick-set, grisly man, spoke English, and a thin young girl, with a pince-nez, translated it into Russian promptly and well. He was saying that our sins were so great, the punishment for them so great and so unavoidable, that it was impossible to live anticipating such punishment. "Beloved brothers and sisters, let us for a moment consider what we are doing, how we are living, how we have offended against the all-loving Lord, and how we make Christ suffer, and we cannot but understand that there is no forgiveness possible for us, no escape possible, that we are all doomed to perish. A terrible fate awaits us—-everlasting torment," he said, with tears in his trembling voice. "Oh, how can we be saved, brothers? How can we be saved from this terrible, unquenchable fire? The house is in flames; there is no escape."

He was silent for a while, and real tears flowed down his cheeks. It was for about eight years that each time when he got to this part of his speech, which he himself liked so well, he felt a choking in his throat and an irritation in his nose, and the tears came in his eyes, and these tears touched him still more. Sobs were heard in the room. The Countess Katerina Ivanovna sat with her elbows on an inlaid table, leaning her head on her hands, and her shoulders were shaking. The coachman looked with fear and surprise at the foreigner, feeling as if he was about to run him down with the pole of his carriage and the foreigner would not move out of his way. All sat in positions similar to that Katerina Ivanovna had assumed. Wolf's daughter, a thin, fashionably-dressed girl, very like her father, knelt with her face in her hands.

The orator suddenly uncovered his face, and smiled a very real-looking smile, such as actors express joy with, and began again with a sweet, gentle voice:

"Yet there is a way to be saved. Here it is—a joyful, easy way. The salvation is the blood shed for us by the only son of God, who gave himself up to torments for our sake. His sufferings, His blood, will save us. Brothers and sisters," he said, again with tears in his voice, "let us praise the Lord, who has given His only begotten son for the redemption of mankind. His holy blood . . ."

Nekhludoff felt so deeply disgusted that he rose silently, and frowning and keeping back a groan of shame, he left on tiptoe, and went to his room.



CHAPTER XVIII.

OFFICIALDOM.

Hardly had Nekhludoff finished dressing the next morning, just as he was about to go down, the footman brought him a card from the Moscow advocate. The advocate had come to St. Petersburg on business of his own, and was going to be present when Maslova's case was examined in the Senate, if that would be soon. The telegram sent by Nekhludoff crossed him on the way. Having found out from Nekhludoff when the case was going to be heard, and which senators were to be present, he smiled. "Exactly, all the three types of senators," he said. "Wolf is a Petersburg official; Skovorodnikoff is a theoretical, and Bay a practical lawyer, and therefore the most alive of them all," said the advocate. "There is most hope of him. Well, and how about the Petition Committee?"

"Oh, I'm going to Baron Vorobioff to-day. I could not get an audience with him yesterday."

"Do you know why he is Baron Vorobioff?" said the advocate, noticing the slightly ironical stress that Nekhludoff put on this foreign title, followed by so very Russian a surname.

"That was because the Emperor Paul rewarded the grandfather—I think he was one of the Court footmen—by giving him this title. He managed to please him in some way, so he made him a baron. 'It's my wish, so don't gainsay me!' And so there's a Baron Vorobioff, and very proud of the title. He is a dreadful old humbug."

"Well, I'm going to see him," said Nekhludoff.

"That's good; we can go together. I shall give you a lift."

As they were going to start, a footman met Nekhludoff in the ante-room, and handed him a note from Mariette:

Pour vous faire plaisir, f'ai agi tout a fait contre mes principes et j'ai intercede aupres de mon mari pour votre protegee. Il se trouve que cette personne pout etre relaxee immediatement. Mon mari a ecrit au commandant. Venez donc disinterestedly. Je vous attends.

M.

"Just fancy!" said Nekhludoff to the advocate. "Is this not dreadful? A woman whom they are keeping in solitary confinement for seven months turns out to be quite innocent, and only a word was needed to get her released."

"That's always so. Well, anyhow, you have succeeded in getting what you wanted."

"Yes, but this success grieves me. Just think what must be going on there. Why have they been keeping her?"

"Oh, it's best not to look too deeply into it. Well, then, I shall give you a lift, if I may," said the advocate, as they left the house, and a fine carriage that the advocate had hired drove up to the door. "It's Baron Vorobioff you are going to see?"

The advocate gave the driver his directions, and the two good horses quickly brought Nekhludoff to the house in which the Baron lived. The Baron was at home. A young official in uniform, with a long, thin neck, a much protruding Adam's apple, and an extremely light walk, and two ladies were in the first room.

"Your name, please?" the young man with the Adam's apple asked, stepping with extreme lightness and grace across from the ladies to Nekhludoff.

Nekhludoff gave his name.

"The Baron was just mentioning you," said the young man, the Baron's adjutant, and went out through an inner door. He returned, leading a weeping lady dressed in mourning. With her bony fingers the lady was trying to pull her tangled veil over her face in order to hide her tears.

"Come in, please," said the young man to Nekhludoff, lightly stepping up to the door of the study and holding it open. When Nekhludoff came in, he saw before him a thick-set man of medium height, with short hair, in a frock coat, who was sitting in an armchair opposite a large writing-table, and looking gaily in front of himself. The kindly, rosy red face, striking by its contrast with the white hair, moustaches, and beard, turned towards Nekhludoff with a friendly smile.

"Very glad to see you. Your mother and I were old acquaintances and friends. I have seen you as a boy, and later on as an officer. Sit down and tell me what I can do for you. Yes, yes," he said, shaking his cropped white head, while Nekhludoff was telling him Theodosia's story. "Go on, go on. I quite understand. It is certainly very touching. And have you handed in the petition?"

"I have got the petition ready," Nekhludoff said, getting it out of his pocket; "but I thought of speaking to you first in hopes that the case would then get special attention paid to it."

"You have done very well. I shall certainly report it myself," said the Baron, unsuccessfully trying to put an expression of pity on his merry face. "Very touching! It is clear she was but a child; the husband treated her roughly, this repelled her, but as time went on they fell in love with each other. Yes I will report the case."

"Count Ivan Michaelovitch was also going to speak about it."

Nekhludoff had hardly got these words out when the Baron's face changed.

"You had better hand in the petition into the office, after all, and I shall do what I can," he said.

At this moment the young official again entered the room, evidently showing off his elegant manner of walking.

"That lady is asking if she may say a few words more."

"Well, ask her in. Ah, mon cher, how many tears we have to see shed! If only we could dry them all. One does all that lies within one's power."

The lady entered.

"I forgot to ask you that he should not be allowed to give up the daughter, because he is ready . . ."

"But I have already told you that I should do all I can."

"Baron, for the love of God! You will save the mother?"

She seized his hand, and began kissing it.

"Everything shall be done."

When the lady went out Nekhludoff also began to take leave.

"We shall do what we can. I shall speak about it at the Ministry of Justice, and when we get their answer we shall do what we can."

Nekhludoff left the study, and went into the office again. Just as in the Senate office, he saw, in a splendid apartment, a number of very elegant officials, clean, polite, severely correct and distinguished in dress and in speech.

"How many there are of them; how very many and how well fed they all look! And what clean shirts and hands they all have, and how well all their boots are polished! Who does it for them? How comfortable they all are, as compared not only with the prisoners, but even with the peasants!" These thoughts again involuntarily came to Nekhludoff's mind.



CHAPTER XIX.

AN OLD GENERAL OF REPUTE.

The man on whom depended the easing of the fate of the Petersburg prisoners was an old General of repute—a baron of German descent, who, as it was said of him, had outlived his wits. He had received a profusion of orders, but only wore one of them, the Order of the White Cross. He had received this order, which he greatly valued, while serving in the Caucasus, because a number of Russian peasants, with their hair cropped, and dressed in uniform and armed with guns and bayonets, had killed at his command more than a thousand men who were defending their liberty, their homes, and their families. Later on he served in Poland, and there also made Russian peasants commit many different crimes, and got more orders and decorations for his uniform. Then he served somewhere else, and now that he was a weak, old man he had this position, which insured him a good house, an income and respect. He strictly observed all the regulations which were prescribed "from above," and was very zealous in the fulfilment of these regulations, to which he ascribed a special importance, considering that everything else in the world might be changed except the regulations prescribed "from above." His duty was to keep political prisoners, men and women, in solitary confinement in such a way that half of them perished in 10 years' time, some going out of their minds, some dying of consumption, some committing suicide by starving themselves to death, cutting their veins with bits of glass, hanging, or burning themselves to death.

The old General was not ignorant of this; it all happened within his knowledge; but these cases no more touched his conscience than accidents brought on by thunderstorms, floods, etc. These cases occurred as a consequence of the fulfilment of regulations prescribed "from above" by His Imperial Majesty. These regulations had to be carried out without fail, and therefore it was absolutely useless to think of the consequences of their fulfilment. The old General did not even allow himself to think of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a soldier not to think of them for fear of getting weak in the carrying out of these, according to his opinion, very important obligations. Once a week the old General made the round of the cells, one of the duties of his position, and asked the prisoners if they had any requests to make. The prisoners had all sorts of requests. He listened to them quietly, in impenetrable silence, and never fulfilled any of their requests, because they were all in disaccord with the regulations. Just as Nekhludoff drove up to the old General's house, the high notes of the bells on the belfry clock chimed "Great is the Lord," and then struck two. The sound of these chimes brought back to Nekhludoff's mind what he had read in the notes of the Decembrists [the Decembrists were a group who attempted, but failed, to put an end to absolutism in Russia at the time of the accession of Nicholas the First] about the way this sweet music repeated every hour re-echoes in the hearts of those imprisoned for life.

Meanwhile the old General was sitting in his darkened drawing-room at an inlaid table, turning a saucer on a piece of paper with the aid of a young artist, the brother of one of his subordinates. The thin, weak, moist fingers of the artist were pressed against the wrinkled and stiff-jointed fingers of the old General, and the hands joined in this manner were moving together with the saucer over a paper that had all the letters of the alphabet written on it. The saucer was answering the questions put by the General as to how souls will recognise each other after death.

When Nekhludoff sent in his card by an orderly acting as footman, the soul of Joan of Arc was speaking by the aid of the saucer. The soul of Joan of Arc had already spelt letter by letter the words: "They well knew each other," and these words had been written down. When the orderly came in the saucer had stopped first on b, then on y, and began jerking hither and thither. This jerking was caused by the General's opinion that the next letter should be b, i.e., Joan of Arc ought to say that the souls will know each other by being cleansed of all that is earthly, or something of the kind, clashing with the opinion of the artist, who thought the next letter should be l, i.e., that the souls should know each other by light emanating from their astral bodies. The General, with his bushy grey eyebrows gravely contracted, sat gazing at the hands on the saucer, and, imagining that it was moving of its own accord, kept pulling the saucer towards b. The pale-faced young artist, with his thin hair combed back behind his cars, was looking with his lifeless blue eyes into a dark corner of the drawing-room, nervously moving his lips and pulling the saucer towards l.

The General made a wry face at the interruption, but after a moment's pause he took the card, put on his pince-nez, and, uttering a groan, rose, in spite of the pain in his back, to his full height, rubbing his numb fingers.

"Ask him into the study."

"With your excellency's permission I will finish it alone," said the artist, rising. "I feel the presence."

"All right, finish alone," the General said, severely and decidedly, and stepped quickly, with big, firm and measured strides, into his study.

"Very pleased to see you," said the General to Nekhludoff, uttering the friendly words in a gruff tone, and pointing to an armchair by the side of the writing-table. "Have you been in Petersburg long?"

Nekhludoff replied that he had only lately arrived.

"Is the Princess, your mother, well?"

"My mother is dead."

"Forgive me; I am very sorry. My son told me he had met you."

The General's son was making the same kind of career for himself that the father had done, and, having passed the Military Academy, was now serving in the Inquiry Office, and was very proud of his duties there. His occupation was the management of Government spies.

"Why, I served with your father. We were friends—comrades. And you; are you also in the Service?"

"No, I am not."

The General bent his head disapprovingly.

"I have a request to make, General."

"Very pleased. In what way can I be of service to you?"

"If my request is out of place pray pardon me. But I am obliged to make it."

"What is it?"

"There is a certain Gourkevitch imprisoned in the fortress; his mother asks for an interview with him, or at least to be allowed to send him some books."

The General expressed neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction at Nekhludoff's request, but bending his head on one side he closed his eyes as if considering. In reality he was not considering anything, and was not even interested in Nekhludoff's questions, well knowing that he would answer them according to the law. He was simply resting mentally and not thinking at all.

"You see," he said at last, "this does not depend on me. There is a regulation, confirmed by His Majesty, concerning interviews; and as to books, we have a library, and they may have what is permitted."

"Yes, but he wants scientific books; he wishes to study."

"Don't you believe it," growled the General. "It's not study he wants; it is just only restlessness."

"But what is to be done? They must occupy their time somehow in their hard condition," said Nekhludoff.

"They are always complaining," said the General. "We know them."

He spoke of them in a general way, as if they were all a specially bad race of men. "They have conveniences here which can be found in few places of confinement," said the General, and he began to enumerate the comforts the prisoners enjoyed, as if the aim of the institution was to give the people imprisoned there a comfortable home.

"It is true it used to be rather rough, but now they are very well kept here," he continued. "They have three courses for dinner—and one of them meat—cutlets, or rissoles; and on Sundays they get a fourth—a sweet dish. God grant every Russian may eat as well as they do."

Like all old people, the General, having once got on to a familiar topic, enumerated the various proofs he had often given before of the prisoners being exacting and ungrateful.

"They get books on spiritual subjects and old journals. We have a library. Only they rarely read. At first they seem interested, later on the new books remain uncut, and the old ones with their leaves unturned. We tried them," said the old General, with the dim likeness of a smile. "We put bits of paper in on purpose, which remained just as they had been placed. Writing is also not forbidden," he continued. "A slate is provided, and a slate pencil, so that they can write as a pastime. They can wipe the slate and write again. But they don't write, either. Oh, they very soon get quite tranquil. At first they seem restless, but later on they even grow fat and become very quiet." Thus spoke the General, never suspecting the terrible meaning of his words.

Nekhludoff listened to the hoarse old voice, looked at the stiff limbs, the swollen eyelids under the grey brows, at the old, clean-shaved, flabby jaw, supported by the collar of the military uniform, at the white cross that this man was so proud of, chiefly because he had gained it by exceptionally cruel and extensive slaughter, and knew that it was useless to reply to the old man or to explain the meaning of his own words to him.

He made another effort, and asked about the prisoner Shoustova, for whose release, as he had been informed that morning, orders were given.

"Shoustova—Shoustova? I cannot remember all their names, there are so many of them," he said, as if reproaching them because there were so many. He rang, and ordered the secretary to be called. While waiting for the latter, he began persuading Nekhludoff to serve, saying that "honest noblemen," counting himself among the number, "were particularly needed by the Tsar and—the country," he added, evidently only to round off his sentence. "I am old, yet I am serving still, as well as my strength allows."

The secretary, a dry, emaciated man, with restless, intelligent eyes, came in and reported that Shoustova was imprisoned in some queer, fortified place, and that he had received no orders concerning her.

"When we get the order we shall let her out the same day. We do not keep them; we do not value their visits much," said the General, with another attempt at a playful smile, which only distorted his old face.

Nekhludoff rose, trying to keep from expressing the mixed feelings of repugnance and pity which he felt towards this terrible old man. The old man on his part considered that he should not be too severe on the thoughtless and evidently misguided son of his old comrade, and should not leave him without advice.

"Good-bye, my dear fellow; do not take it amiss. It is my affection that makes me say it. Do not keep company with such people as we have at our place here. There are no innocent ones among them. All these people are most immoral. We know them," he said, in a tone that admitted no possibility of doubt. And he did not doubt, not because the thing was so, but because if it was not so, he would have to admit himself to be not a noble hero living out the last days of a good life, but a scoundrel, who sold, and still continued in his old age to sell, his conscience.

"Best of all, go and serve," he continued; "the Tsar needs honest men—and the country," he added. "Well, supposing I and the others refused to serve, as you are doing? Who would be left? Here we are, finding fault with the order of things, and yet not wishing to help the Government."

With a deep sigh Nekhludoff made a low bow, shook the large, bony hand condescendingly stretched out to him and left the room.

The General shook his head reprovingly, and rubbing his back, he again went into the drawing-room where the artist was waiting for him. He had already written down the answer given by the soul of Joan of Arc. The General put on his pince-nez and read, "Will know one another by light emanating from their astral bodies."

"Ah," said the General, with approval, and closed his eyes. "But how is one to know if the light of all is alike?" he asked, and again crossed fingers with the artist on the saucer.

The isvostchik drove Nekhludoff out of the gate.

It is dull here, sir, he said, turning to Nekhludoff. "I almost wished to drive off without waiting for you."

Nekhludoff agreed. "Yes, it is dull," and he took a deep breath, and looked up with a sense of relief at the grey clouds that were floating in the sky, and at the glistening ripples made by the boats and steamers on the Neva.



CHAPTER XX.

MASLOVA'S APPEAL.

The next day Maslova's case was to be examined at the Senate, and Nekhludoff and the advocate met at the majestic portal of the building, where several carriages were waiting. Ascending the magnificent and imposing staircase to the first floor, the advocate, who knew all the ins and outs of the place, turned to the left and entered through a door which had the date of the introduction of the Code of Laws above it.

After taking off his overcoat in the first narrow room, he found out from the attendant that the Senators had all arrived, and that the last had just come in. Fanarin, in his swallow-tail coat, a white tie above the white shirt-front, and a self-confident smile on his lips, passed into the next room. In this room there were to the right a large cupboard and a table, and to the left a winding staircase, which an elegant official in uniform was descending with a portfolio under his arm. In this room an old man with long, white hair and a patriarchal appearance attracted every one's attention. He wore a short coat and grey trousers. Two attendants stood respectfully beside him. The old man with white hair entered the cupboard and shut himself in.

Fanarin noticed a fellow-advocate dressed in the same way as himself, with a white tie and dress coat, and at once entered into an animated conversation with him.

Nekhludoff was meanwhile examining the people in the room. The public consisted of about 15 persons, of whom two were ladies—a young one with a pince-nez, and an old, grey-haired one.

A case of libel was to be heard that day, and therefore the public were more numerous than usual—chiefly persons belonging to the journalistic world.

The usher, a red-cheeked, handsome man in a fine uniform, came up to Fanarin and asked him what his business was. When he heard that it was the case of Maslova, he noted something down and walked away. Then the cupboard door opened and the old man with the patriarchal appearance stepped out, no longer in a short coat but in a gold-trimmed attire, which made him look like a bird, and with metal plates on his breast. This funny costume seemed to make the old man himself feel uncomfortable, and, walking faster than his wont, he hurried out of the door opposite the entrance.

"That is Bay, a most estimable man," Fanarin said to Nekhludoff, and then having introduced him to his colleague, he explained the case that was about to be heard, which he considered very interesting.

The hearing of the case soon commenced, and Nekhludoff, with the public, entered the left side of the Senate Chamber. They all, including Fanarin, took their places behind a grating. Only the Petersburg advocate went up to a desk in front of the grating.

The Senate Chamber was not so big as the Criminal Court; and was more simply furnished, only the table in front of the senators was covered with crimson, gold-trimmed velvet, instead of green cloth; but the attributes of all places of judgment, i.e., the mirror of justice, the icon, the emblem of hypocrisy, and the Emperor's portrait, the emblem of servility, were there.

The usher announced, in the same solemn manner: "The Court is coming." Every one rose in the same way, and the senators entered in their uniforms and sat down on highbacked chairs and leant on the table, trying to appear natural, just in the same way as the judges in the Court of Law. There were four senators present—Nikitin, who took the chair, a clean-shaved man with a narrow face and steely eyes; Wolf, with significantly compressed lips, and little white hands, with which he kept turning over the pages of the business papers; Skovorodnikoff, a heavy, fat, pockmarked man—the learned lawyer; and Bay, the patriarchal-looking man who had arrived last.

With the advocates entered the chief secretary and public prosecutor, a lean, clean-shaven young man of medium height, a very dark complexion, and sad, black eyes. Nekhludoff knew him at once, in spite of his curious uniform and the fact that he had not seen him for six years. He had been one of his best friends in Nekhludoff's student days.

"The public prosecutor Selenin?" Nekhludoff asked, turning to the advocate.

"Yes. Why?"

"I know him well. He is a fine fellow."

"And a good public prosecutor; business-like. Now he is the man you should have interested."

"He will act according to his conscience in any case," said Nekhludoff, recalling the intimate relations and friendship between himself and Selenin, and the attractive qualities of the latter—purity, honesty, and good breeding in its best sense.

"Yes, there is no time now," whispered Fanarin, who was listening to the report of the case that had commenced.

The Court of Justice was accused of having left a decision of the Court of Law unaltered.

Nekhludoff listened and tried to make out the meaning of what was going on; but, just as in the Criminal Court, his chief difficulty was that not the evidently chief point, but some side issues, were being discussed. The case was that of a newspaper which had published the account of a swindle arranged by a director of a limited liability company. It seemed that the only important question was whether the director of the company really abused his trust, and how to stop him from doing it. But the questions under consideration were whether the editor had a right to publish this article of his contributor, and what he had been guilty of in publishing it: slander or libel, and in what way slander included libel, or libel included slander, and something rather incomprehensible to ordinary people about all sorts of statutes and resolutions passed by some General Department.

The only thing clear to Nekhludoff was that, in spite of what Wolf had so strenuously insisted on, the day before, i.e., that the Senate could not try a case on its merits, in this case he was evidently strongly in favour of repealing the decision of the Court of Justice, and that Selenin, in spite of his characteristic reticence, stated the opposite opinion with quite unexpected warmth. The warmth, which surprised Nekhludoff, evinced by the usually self-controlled Selenin, was due to his knowledge of the director's shabbiness in money matters, and the fact, which had accidentally come to his cars, that Wolf had been to a swell dinner party at the swindler's house only a few days before.

Now that Wolf spoke on the case, guardedly enough, but with evident bias, Selenin became excited, and expressed his opinion with too much nervous irritation for an ordinary business transaction.

It was clear that Selenin's speech had offended Wolf. He grew red, moved in his chair, made silent gestures of surprise, and at last rose, with a very dignified and injured look, together with the other senators, and went out into the debating-room.

"What particular case have you come about?" the usher asked again, addressing Fanarin.

"I have already told you: Maslova's case."

"Yes, quite so. It is to be heard to-day, but—"

"But what?" the advocate asked.

"Well, you see, this case was to be examined without taking sides, so that the senators will hardly come out again after passing the resolution. But I will inform them."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll inform them; I'll inform them." And the usher again put something down on his paper.

The Senators really meant to pronounce their decision concerning the libel case, and then to finish the other business, Maslova's case among it, over their tea and cigarettes, without leaving the debating-room.



CHAPTER XXI.

THE APPEAL DISMISSED.

As soon as the Senators were seated round the table in the debating-room, Wolf began to bring forward with great animation all the motives in favour of a repeal. The chairman, an ill-natured man at best, was in a particularly bad humour that day. His thoughts were concentrated on the words he had written down in his memoranda on the occasion when not he but Viglanoff was appointed to the important post he had long coveted. It was the chairman, Nikitin's, honest conviction that his opinions of the officials of the two upper classes with which he was in connection would furnish valuable material for the historians. He had written a chapter the day before in which the officials of the upper classes got it hot for preventing him, as he expressed it, from averting the ruin towards which the present rulers of Russia were driving it, which simply meant that they had prevented his getting a better salary. And now he was considering what a new light to posterity this chapter would shed on events.

"Yes, certainly," he said, in reply to the words addressed to him by Wolf, without listening to them.

Bay was listening to Wolf with a sad face and drawing a garland on the paper that lay before him. Bay was a Liberal of the very first water. He held sacred the Liberal traditions of the sixth decade of this century, and if he ever overstepped the limits of strict neutrality it was always in the direction of Liberalism. So in this case; beside the fact that the swindling director, who was prosecuting for libel, was a bad lot, the prosecution of a journalist for libel in itself tending, as it did, to restrict the freedom of the press, inclined Bay to reject the appeal.

When Wolf concluded his arguments Bay stopped drawing his garland and began in a sad and gentle voice (he was sad because he was obliged to demonstrate such truisms) concisely, simply and convincingly to show how unfounded the accusation was, and then, bending his white head, he continued drawing his garland.

Skovorodnikoff, who sat opposite Wolf, and, with his fat fingers, kept shoving his beard and moustaches into his mouth, stopped chewing his beard as soon as Bay was silent, and said with a loud, grating voice, that, notwithstanding the fact of the director being a terrible scoundrel, he would have been for the repeal of the sentence if there were any legal reasons for it; but, as there were none, he was of Bay's opinion. He was glad to put this spoke in Wolf's wheel.

The chairman agreed with Skovorodnikoff, and the appeal was rejected.

Wolf was dissatisfied, especially because it was like being caught acting with dishonest partiality; so he pretended to be indifferent, and, unfolding the document which contained Maslova's case, he became engrossed in it. Meanwhile the Senators rang and ordered tea, and began talking about the event that, together with the duel, was occupying the Petersburgers.

It was the case of the chief of a Government department, who was accused of the crime provided for in Statute 995.

"What nastiness," said Bay, with disgust.

"Why; where is the harm of it? I can show you a Russian book containing the project of a German writer, who openly proposes that it should not be considered a crime," said Skovorodnikoff, drawing in greedily the fumes of the crumpled cigarette, which he held between his fingers close to the palm, and he laughed boisterously.

"Impossible!" said Bay.

"I shall show it you," said Skovorodnikoff, giving the full title of the book, and even its date and the name of its editor.

"I hear he has been appointed governor to some town in Siberia."

"That's fine. The archdeacon will meet him with a crucifix. They ought to appoint an archdeacon of the same sort," said Skovorodnikoff. "I could recommend them one," and he threw the end of his cigarette into his saucer, and again shoved as much of his beard and moustaches as he could into his mouth and began chewing them.

The usher came in and reported the advocate's and Nekhludoff's desire to be present at the examination of Maslova's case.

"This case," Wolf said, "is quite romantic," and he told them what he knew about Nekhludoff's relations with Maslova. When they had spoken a little about it and finished their tea and cigarettes, the Senators returned into the Senate Chamber and proclaimed their decision in the libel case, and began to hear Maslova's case.

Wolf, in his thin voice, reported Maslova's appeal very fully, but again not without some bias and an evident wish for the repeal of the sentence.

"Have you anything to add?" the chairman said, turning to Fanarin. Fanarin rose, and standing with his broad white chest expanded, proved point by point, with wonderful exactness and persuasiveness, how the Court had in six points strayed from the exact meaning of the law; and besides this he touched, though briefly, on the merits of the case, and on the crying injustice of the sentence. The tone of his speech was one of apology to the Senators, who, with their penetration and judicial wisdom, could not help seeing and understanding it all better than he could. He was obliged to speak only because the duty he had undertaken forced him to do so.

After Fanarin's speech one might have thought that there could not remain the least doubt that the Senate ought to repeal the decision of the Court. When he had finished his speech, Fanarin looked round with a smile of triumph, seeing which Nekhludoff felt certain that the case was won. But when he looked at the Senators he saw that Fanarin smiled and triumphed all alone. The Senators and the Public Prosecutor did not smile nor triumph, but looked like people wearied, and who were thinking "We have often heard the like of you; it is all in vain," and were only too glad when he stopped and ceased uselessly detaining them there. Immediately after the end of the advocate's speech the chairman turned to the Public Prosecutor. Selenin briefly and clearly expressed himself in favour of leaving the decision of the Court unaltered, as he considered all the reasons for appealing inadequate. After this the Senators went out into the debating-room. They were divided in their opinions. Wolf was in favour of altering the decision. Bay, when he had understood the case, took up the same side with fervour, vividly presenting the scene at the court to his companions as he clearly saw it himself. Nikitin, who always was on the side of severity and formality, took up the other side. All depended on Skovorodnikoff's vote, and he voted for rejecting the appeal, because Nekhludoff's determination to marry the woman on moral grounds was extremely repugnant to him.

Skovorodnikoff was a materialist, a Darwinian, and counted every manifestation of abstract morality, or, worse still, religion, not only as a despicable folly, but as a personal affront to himself. All this bother about a prostitute, and the presence of a celebrated advocate and Nekhludoff in the Senate were in the highest degree repugnant to him. So he shoved his beard into his mouth and made faces, and very skilfully pretended to know nothing of this case, excepting that the reasons for an appeal were insufficient, and that he, therefore, agreed with the chairman to leave the decision of the Court unaltered.

So the sentence remained unrepealed.



CHAPTER XXII.

AN OLD FRIEND.

"Terrible," said Nekhludoff, as he went out into the waiting-room with the advocate, who was arranging the papers in his portfolio. "In a matter which is perfectly clear they attach all the importance to the form and reject the appeal. Terrible!"

"The case was spoiled in the Criminal Court," said the advocate.

"And Selenin, too, was in favour of the rejection. Terrible! terrible!" Nekhludoff repeated. "What is to be done now?"

"We will appeal to His Majesty, and you can hand in the petition yourself while you are here. I will write it for you."

At this moment little Wolf, with his stars and uniform, came out into the waiting-room and approached Nekhludoff. "It could not be helped, dear Prince. The reasons for an appeal were not sufficient," he said, shrugging his narrow shoulders and closing his eyes, and then he went his way.

After Wolf, Selenin came out too, having heard from the Senators that his old friend Nekhludoff was there.

"Well, I never expected to see you here," he said, coming up to Nekhludoff, and smiling only with his lips while his eyes remained sad. "I did not know you were in Petersburg."

"And I did not know you were Public Prosecutor-in-Chief."

"How is it you are in the Senate?" asked Selenin. "I had heard, by the way, that you were in Petersburg. But what are you doing here?"

"Here? I am here because I hoped to find justice and save a woman innocently condemned."

"What woman?"

"The one whose case has just been decided."

"Oh! Maslova's case," said Selenin, suddenly remembering it. "The appeal had no grounds whatever."

"It is not the appeal; it's the woman who is innocent, and is being punished."

Selenin sighed. "That may well be, but——"

"Not may be, but is."

"How do you know?"

"Because I was on the jury. I know how we made the mistake."

Selenin became thoughtful. "You should have made a statement at the time," he said.

"I did make the statement."

"It should have been put down in an official report. If this had been added to the petition for the appeal—"

"Yes, but still, as it is, the verdict is evidently absurd."

"The Senate has no right to say so. If the Senate took upon itself to repeal the decision of the law courts according to its own views as to the justice of the decisions in themselves, the verdict of the jury would lose all its meaning, not to mention that the Senate would have no basis to go upon, and would run the risk of infringing justice rather than upholding it," said Selenin, calling to mind the case that had just been heard.

"All I know is that this woman is quite innocent, and that the last hope of saving her from an unmerited punishment is gone. The grossest injustice has been confirmed by the highest court."

"It has not been confirmed. The Senate did not and cannot enter into the merits of the case in itself," said Selenin. Always busy and rarely going out into society, he had evidently heard nothing of Nekhludoff's romance. Nekhludoff noticed it, and made up his mind that it was best to say nothing about his special relations with Maslova.

"You are probably staying with your aunt," Selenin remarked, apparently wishing to change the subject. "She told me you were here yesterday, and she invited me to meet you in the evening, when some foreign preacher was to lecture," and Selenin again smiled only with his lips.

"Yes, I was there, but left in disgust," said Nekhludoff angrily, vexed that Selenin had changed the subject.

"Why with disgust? After all, it is a manifestation of religious feeling, though one-sided and sectarian," said Selenin.

"Why, it's only some kind of whimsical folly."

"Oh, dear, no. The curious thing is that we know the teaching of our church so little that we see some new kind of revelation in what are, after all, our own fundamental dogmas," said Selenin, as if hurrying to let his old friend know his new views.

Nekhludoff looked at Selenin scrutinisingly and with surprise, and Selenin dropped his eyes, in which appeared an expression not only of sadness but also of ill-will.

"Do you, then, believe in the dogmas of the church?" Nekhludoff asked.

"Of course I do," replied Selenin, gazing straight into Nekhludoff's eyes with a lifeless look.

Nekhludoff sighed. "It is strange," he said.

"However, we shall have a talk some other time," said Selenin. "I am coming," he added, in answer to the usher, who had respectfully approached him. "Yes, we must meet again," he went on with a sigh. "But will it be possible for me to find you? You will always find me in at seven o'clock. My address is Nadejdinskaya," and he gave the number. "Ah, time does not stand still," and he turned to go, smiling only with his lips.

"I will come if I can," said Nekhludoff, feeling that a man once near and dear to him had, by this brief conversation, suddenly become strange, distant, and incomprehensible, if not hostile to him.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR.

When Nekhludoff knew Selenin as a student, he was a good son, a true friend, and for his years an educated man of the world, with much tact; elegant, handsome, and at the same time truthful and honest. He learned well, without much exertion and with no pedantry, receiving gold medals for his essays. He considered the service of mankind, not only in words but in acts, to be the aim of his young life. He saw no other way of being useful to humanity than by serving the State. Therefore, as soon as he had completed his studies, he systematically examined all the activities to which he might devote his life, and decided to enter the Second Department of the Chancellerie, where the laws are drawn up, and he did so. But, in spite of the most scrupulous and exact discharge of the duties demanded of him, this service gave no satisfaction to his desire of being useful, nor could he awake in himself the consciousness that he was doing "the right thing."

This dissatisfaction was so much increased by the friction with his very small-minded and vain fellow officials that he left the Chancellerie and entered the Senate. It was better there, but the same dissatisfaction still pursued him; he felt it to be very different from what he had expected, and from what ought to be.

And now that he was in the Senate his relatives obtained for him the post of Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and he had to go in a carriage, dressed in an embroidered uniform and a white linen apron, to thank all sorts of people for having placed him in the position of a lackey. However much he tried he could find no reasonable explanation for the existence of this post, and felt, more than in the Senate, that it was not "the right thing," and yet he could not refuse it for fear of hurting those who felt sure they were giving him much pleasure by this appointment, and because it flattered the lowest part of his nature. It pleased him to see himself in a mirror in his gold-embroidered uniform, and to accept the deference paid him by some people because of his position.

Something of the same kind happened when he married. A very brilliant match, from a worldly point of view, was arranged for him, and he married chiefly because by refusing he would have had to hurt the young lady who wished to be married to him, and those who arranged the marriage, and also because a marriage with a nice young girl of noble birth flattered his vanity and gave him pleasure. But this marriage very soon proved to be even less "the right thing" than the Government service and his position at Court.

After the birth of her first child the wife decided to have no more, and began leading that luxurious worldly life in which he now had to participate whether he liked or not.

She was not particularly handsome, and was faithful to him, and she seemed, in spite of all the efforts it cost her, to derive nothing but weariness from the life she led, yet she perseveringly continued to live it, though it was poisoning her husband's life. And all his efforts to alter this life was shattered, as against a stone wall, by her conviction, which all her friends and relatives supported, that all was as it should be.

The child, a little girl with bare legs and long golden curls, was a being perfectly foreign to him, chiefly because she was trained quite otherwise than he wished her to be. There sprung up between the husband and wife the usual misunderstanding, without even the wish to understand each other, and then a silent warfare, hidden from outsiders and tempered by decorum. All this made his life at home a burden, and became even less "the right thing" than his service and his post.

But it was above all his attitude towards religion which was not "the right thing." Like every one of his set and his time, by the growth of his reason he broke without the least effort the nets of the religious superstitions in which he was brought up, and did not himself exactly know when it was that he freed himself of them. Being earnest and upright, he did not, during his youth and intimacy with Nekhludoff as a student, conceal his rejection of the State religion. But as years went on and he rose in the service, and especially at the time of the reaction towards conservatism in society, his spiritual freedom stood in his way.

At home, when his father died, he had to be present at the masses said for his soul, and his mother wished him to go to confession or to communion, and it was in a way expected, by public opinion, but above all, Government service demanded that he should be present at all sorts of services, consecrations, thanksgivings, and the like. Hardly a day passed without some outward religious form having to be observed.

When present at these services he had to pretend that he believed in something which he did not believe in, and being truthful he could not do this. The alternative was, having made up his mind that all these outward signs were deceitful, to alter his life in such a way that he would not have to be present at such ceremonials. But to do what seemed so simple would have cost a great deal. Besides encountering the perpetual hostility of all those who were near to him, he would have to give up the service and his position, and sacrifice his hopes of being useful to humanity by his service, now and in the future. To make such a sacrifice one would have to be firmly convinced of being right.

And he was firmly convinced he was right, as no educated man of our time can help being convinced who knows a little history and how the religions, and especially Church Christianity, originated.

But under the stress of his daily life he, a truthful man, allowed a little falsehood to creep in. He said that in order to do justice to an unreasonable thing one had to study the unreasonable thing. It was a little falsehood, but it sunk him into the big falsehood in which he was now caught.

Before putting to himself the question whether the orthodoxy in which he was born and bred, and which every one expected him to accept, and without which he could not continue his useful occupation, contained the truth, he had already decided the answer. And to clear up the question he did not read Voltaire, Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer, or Comte, but the philosophical works of Hegel and the religious works of Vinet and Khomyakoff, and naturally found in them what he wanted, i.e., something like peace of mind and a vindication of that religious teaching in which he was educated, which his reason had long ceased to accept, but without which his whole life was filled with unpleasantness which could all be removed by accepting the teaching.

And so he adopted all the usual sophistries which go to prove that a single human reason cannot know the truth, that the truth is only revealed to an association of men, and can only be known by revelation, that revelation is kept by the church, etc. And so he managed to be present at prayers, masses for the dead, to confess, make signs of the cross in front of icons, with a quiet mind, without being conscious of the lie, and to continue in the service which gave him the feeling of being useful and some comfort in his joyless family life. Although he believed this, he felt with his entire being that this religion of his, more than all else, was not "the right thing," and that is why his eyes always looked sad.

And seeing Nekhludoff, whom he had known before all these lies had rooted themselves within him, reminded him of what he then was. It was especially after he had hurried to hint at his religious views that he had most strongly felt all this "not the right thing," and had become painfully sad. Nekhludoff felt it also after the first joy of meeting his old friend had passed, and therefore, though they promised each other to meet, they did not take any steps towards an interview, and did not again see each other during this stay of Nekhludoff's in Petersburg.



CHAPTER XXIV.

MARIETTE TEMPTS NEKHLUDOFF.

When they left the Senate, Nekhludoff and the advocate walked on together, the advocate having given the driver of his carriage orders to follow them. The advocate told Nekhludoff the story of the chief of a Government department, about whom the Senators had been talking: how the thing was found out, and how the man, who according to law should have been sent to the mines, had been appointed Governor of a town in Siberia. Then he related with particular pleasure how several high-placed persons stole a lot of money collected for the erection of the still unfinished monument which they had passed that morning; also, how the mistress of So-and-so got a lot of money at the Stock Exchange, and how So-and-so agreed with So-and-so to sell him his wife. The advocate began another story about a swindle, and all sorts of crimes committed by persons in high places, who, instead of being in prison, sat on presidential chairs in all sorts of Government institutions. These tales, of which the advocate seemed to have an unending supply, gave him much pleasure, showing as they did, with perfect clearness, that his means of getting money were quite just and innocent compared to the means which the highest officials in Petersburg made use of. The advocate was therefore surprised when Nekhludoff took an isvostchik before hearing the end of the story, said good-bye, and left him. Nekhludoff felt very sad. It was chiefly the rejection of the appeal by the Senate, confirming the senseless torments that the innocent Maslova was enduring, that saddened him, and also the fact that this rejection made it still harder for him to unite his fate with hers. The stories about existing evils, which the advocate recounted with such relish, heightened his sadness, and so did the cold, unkind look that the once sweet-natured, frank, noble Selenin had given him, and which kept recurring to his mind.

On his return the doorkeeper handed him a note, and said, rather scornfully, that some kind of woman had written it in the hall. It was a note from Shoustova's mother. She wrote that she had come to thank her daughter's benefactor and saviour, and to implore him to come to see them on the Vasilievsky, 5th Line, house No. —. This was very necessary because of Vera Doukhova. He need not be afraid that they would weary him with expressions of gratitude. They would not speak their gratitude, but be simply glad to see him. Would he not come next morning, if he could?

There was another note from Bogotyreff, a former fellow-officer, aide-de-camp to the Emperor, whom Nekhludoff had asked to hand personally to the Emperor his petition on behalf of the sectarians. Bogotyreff wrote, in his large, firm hand, that he would put the petition into the Emperor's own hands, as he had promised; but that it had occurred to him that it might be better for Nekhludoff first to go and see the person on whom the matter depended.

After the impressions received during the last few days, Nekhludoff felt perfectly hopeless of getting anything done. The plans he had formed in Moscow seemed now something like the dreams of youth, which are inevitably followed by disillusion when life comes to be faced. Still, being now in Petersburg, he considered it his duty to do all he had intended, and he resolved next day, after consulting Bogotyreff, to act on his advice and see the person on whom the case of the sectarians depended.

He got out the sectarians' petition from his portfolio, and began reading it over, when there was a knock at his door, and a footman came in with a message from the Countess Katerina Ivanovna, who asked him to come up and have a cup of tea with her.

Nekhludoff said he would come at once, and having put the papers back into the portfolio, he went up to his aunt's. He looked out of a window on his way, and saw Mariette's pair of bays standing in front of the house, and he suddenly brightened and felt inclined to smile.

Mariette, with a hat on her head, not in black but with a light dress of many shades, sat with a cup in her hand beside the Countess's easy chair, prattling about something while her beautiful, laughing eyes glistened. She had said something funny—something indecently funny—just as Nekhludoff entered the room. He knew it by the way she laughed, and by the way the good-natured Countess Katerina Ivanovna's fat body was shaking with laughter; while Mariette, her smiling mouth slightly drawn to one side, her head a little bent, a peculiarly mischievous expression in her merry, energetic face, sat silently looking at her companion. From a few words which he overheard, Nekhludoff guessed that they were talking of the second piece of Petersburg news, the episode of the Siberian Governor, and that it was in reference to this subject that Mariette had said something so funny that the Countess could not control herself for a long time.

"You will kill me," she said, coughing.

After saying "How d'you do?" Nekhludoff sat down. He was about to censure Mariette in his mind for her levity when, noticing the serious and even slightly dissatisfied look in his eyes, she suddenly, to please him, changed not only the expression of her face, but also the attitude of her mind; for she felt the wish to please him as soon as she looked at him. She suddenly turned serious, dissatisfied with her life, as if seeking and striving after something; it was not that she pretended, but she really reproduced in herself the very same state of mind that he was in, although it would have been impossible for her to express in words what was the state of Nekhludoff's mind at that moment.

She asked him how he had accomplished his tasks. He told her about his failure in the Senate and his meeting Selenin.

"Oh, what a pure soul! He is, indeed, a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. A pure soul!" said both ladies, using the epithet commonly applied to Selenin in Petersburg society.

"What is his wife like?" Nekhludoff asked.

"His wife? Well, I do not wish to judge, but she does not understand him."

"Is it possible that he, too, was for rejecting the appeal?" Mariette asked with real sympathy. "It is dreadful. How sorry I am for her," she added with a sigh.

He frowned, and in order to change the subject began to speak about Shoustova, who had been imprisoned in the fortress and was now set free through the influence of Mariette's husband. He thanked her for her trouble, and was going on to say how dreadful he thought it, that this woman and the whole of her family had suffered merely, because no one had reminded the authorities about them, but Mariette interrupted him and expressed her own indignation.

"Say nothing about it to me," she said. "When my husband told me she could be set free, it was this that struck me, 'What was she kept in prison for if she is innocent?'" She went on expressing what Nekhludoff was about to say.

"It is revolting—revolting."

Countess Katerina Ivanovna noticed that Mariette was coquetting with her nephew, and this amused her. "What do you think?" she said, when they were silent. "Supposing you come to Aline's to-morrow night. Kiesewetter will be there. And you, too," she said, turning to Mariette. "Il vous a remarque," she went on to her nephew. "He told me that what you say (I repeated it all to him) is a very good sign, and that you will certainly come to Christ. You must come absolutely. Tell him to, Mariette, and come yourself."

"Countess, in the first place, I have no right whatever to give any kind of advice to the Prince," said Mariette, and gave Nekhludoff a look that somehow established a full comprehension between them of their attitude in relation to the Countess's words and evangelicalism in general. "Secondly, I do not much care, you know."

"Yes, I know you always do things the wrong way round, and according to your own ideas."

"My own ideas? I have faith like the most simple peasant woman," said Mariette with a smile. "And, thirdly, I am going to the French Theatre to-morrow night."

"Ah! And have you seen that—What's her name?" asked Countess Katerina Ivanovna. Mariette gave the name of a celebrated French actress.

"You must go, most decidedly; she is wonderful."

"Whom am I to see first, ma tante—the actress or the preacher?" Nekhludoff said with a smile.

"Please don't catch at my words."

"I should think the preacher first and then the actress, or else the desire for the sermon might vanish altogether," said Nekhludoff.

"No; better begin with the French Theatre, and do penance afterwards."

"Now, then, you are not to hold me up for ridicule. The preacher is the preacher and the theatre is the theatre. One need not weep in order to be saved. One must have faith, and then one is sure to be gay."

"You, ma tante, preach better than any preacher."

"Do you know what?" said Mariette. "Come into my box to-morrow."

"I am afraid I shall not be able to."

The footman interrupted the conversation by announcing a visitor. It was the secretary of a philanthropic society of which the Countess was president.

"Oh, that is the dullest of men. I think I shall receive him out there, and return to you later on. Mariette, give him his tea," said the Countess, and left the room, with her quick, wriggling walk.

Mariette took the glove off her firm, rather flat hand, the fourth finger of which was covered with rings.

"Want any?" she said, taking hold of the silver teapot, under which a spirit lamp was burning, and extending her little finger curiously. Her face looked sad and serious.

"It is always terribly painful to me to notice that people whose opinion I value confound me with the position I am placed in." She seemed ready to cry as she said these last words. And though these words had no meaning, or at any rate a very indefinite meaning, they seemed to be of exceptional depth, meaning, or goodness to Nekhludoff, so much was he attracted by the look of the bright eyes which accompanied the words of this young, beautiful, and well-dressed woman.

Nekhludoff looked at her in silence, and could not take his eyes from her face.

"You think I do not understand you and all that goes on in you. Why, everybody knows what you are doing. C'est le secret de polichinelle. And I am delighted with your work, and think highly of you."

"Really, there is nothing to be delighted with; and I have done so little as Yet."

"No matter. I understand your feelings, and I understand her. All right, all right. I will say nothing more about it," she said, noticing displeasure on his face. "But I also understand that after seeing all the suffering and the horror in the prisons," Mariette went on, her only desire that of attracting him, and guessing with her woman's instinct what was dear and important to him, "you wish to help the sufferers, those who are made to suffer so terribly by other men, and their cruelty and indifference. I understand the willingness to give one's life, and could give mine in such a cause, but we each have our own fate."

"Are you, then, dissatisfied with your fate?"

"I?" she asked, as if struck with surprise that such a question could be put to her. "I have to be satisfied, and am satisfied. But there is a worm that wakes up—"

"And he must not be allowed to fall asleep again. It is a voice that must be obeyed," Nekhludoff said, falling into the trap.

Many a time later on Nekhludoff remembered with shame his talk with her. He remembered her words, which were not so much lies as imitations of his own, and her face, which seemed looking at him with sympathetic attention when he told her about the terrors of the prison and of his impressions in the country.

When the Countess returned they were talking not merely like old, but like exclusive friends who alone understood one another. They were talking about the injustice of power, of the sufferings of the unfortunate, the poverty of the people, yet in reality in the midst of the sound of their talk their eyes, gazing at each other, kept asking, "Can you love me?" and answering, "I can," and the sex-feeling, taking the most unexpected and brightest forms, drew them to each other. As she was going away she told him that she would always be willing to serve him in any way she could, and asked him to come and see her, if only for a moment, in the theatre next day, as she had a very important thing to tell him about.

"Yes, and when shall I see you again?" she added, with a sigh, carefully drawing the glove over her jewelled hand.

"Say you will come."

Nekhludoff promised.

That night, when Nekhludoff was alone in his room, and lay down after putting out his candle, he could not sleep. He thought of Maslova, of the decision of the Senate, of his resolve to follow her in any case, of his having given up the land. The face of Mariette appeared to him as if in answer to those thoughts—her look, her sigh, her words, "When shall I see you again?" and her smile seemed vivid as if he really saw her, and he also smiled. "Shall I be doing right in going to Siberia? And have I done right in divesting myself of my wealth?" And the answers to the questions on this Petersburg night, on which the daylight streamed into the window from under the blind, were quite indefinite. All seemed mixed in his head. He recalled his former state of mind, and the former sequence of his thoughts, but they had no longer their former power or validity.

"And supposing I have invented all this, and am unable to live it through—supposing I repent of having acted right," he thought; and unable to answer he was seized with such anguish and despair as he had long not felt. Unable to free himself from his perplexity, he fell into a heavy sleep, such as he had slept after a heavy loss at cards.



CHAPTER XXV.

LYDIA SHOUSTOVA'S HOME.

Nekhludoff awoke next morning feeling as if he had been guilty of some iniquity the day before. He began considering. He could not remember having done anything wrong; he had committed no evil act, but he had had evil thoughts. He had thought that all his present resolutions to marry Katusha and to give up his land were unachievable dreams; that he should be unable to bear it; that it was artificial, unnatural; and that he would have to go on living as he lived.

He had committed no evil action, but, what was far worse than an evil action, he had entertained evil thoughts whence all evil actions proceed. An evil action may not be repeated, and can be repented of; but evil thoughts generate all evil actions.

An evil action only smooths the path for other evil acts; evil thoughts uncontrollably drag one along that path.

When Nekhludoff repeated in his mind the thoughts of the day before, he was surprised that he could for a moment have believed these thoughts. However new and difficult that which he had decided to do might be, he knew that it was the only possible way of life for him now, and however easy and natural it might have been to return to his former state, he knew that state to be death.

Yesterday's temptation seemed like the feeling when one awakes from deep sleep, and, without feeling sleepy, wants to lie comfortably in bed a little longer, yet knows that it is time to rise and commence the glad and important work that awaits one.

On that, his last day in Petersburg, he went in the morning to the Vasilievski Ostrov to see Shoustova. Shoustova lived on the second floor, and having been shown the back stairs, Nekhludoff entered straight into the hot kitchen, which smelt strongly of food. An elderly woman, with turned-up sleeves, with an apron and spectacles, stood by the fire stirring something in a steaming pan.

"Whom do you want?" she asked severely, looking at him over her spectacles.

Before Nekhludoff had time to answer, an expression of fright and joy appeared on her face.

"Oh, Prince!" she exclaimed, wiping her hands on her apron. "But why have you come the back way? Our Benefactor! I am her mother. They have nearly killed my little girl. You have saved us," she said, catching hold of Nekhludoff's hand and trying to kiss it.

"I went to see you yesterday. My sister asked me to. She is here. This way, this way, please," said Shoustova's mother, as she led the way through a narrow door, and a dark passage, arranging her hair and pulling at her tucked-up skirt. "My sister's name is Kornilova. You must have heard of her," she added, stopping before a closed door. "She was mixed up in a political affair. An extremely clever woman!"

Shoustova's mother opened the door and showed Nekhludoff into a little room where on a sofa with a table before it sat a plump, short girl with fair hair that curled round her pale, round face, which was very like her mother's. She had a striped cotton blouse on.

Opposite her, in an armchair, leaning forward, so that he was nearly bent double, sat a young fellow with a slight, black beard and moustaches.

"Lydia, Prince Nekhludoff!" he said.

The pale girl jumped up, nervously pushing back a lock of hair behind her ear, and gazing at the newcomer with a frightened look in her large, grey eyes.

"So you are that dangerous woman whom Vera Doukhova wished me to intercede for?" Nekhludoff asked, with a smile.

"Yes, I am," said Lydia Shoustova, her broad, kind, child-like smile disclosing a row of beautiful teeth. "It was aunt who was so anxious to see you. Aunt!" she called out, in a pleasant, tender voice through a door.

"Your imprisonment grieved Vera Doukhova very much," said Nekhludoff.

"Take a seat here, or better here," said Shoustova, pointing to the battered easy-chair from which the young man had just risen.

"My cousin, Zakharov," she said, noticing that Nekhludoff looked at the young man.

The young man greeted the visitor with a smile as kindly as Shoustova's, and when Nekhludoff sat down he brought himself another chair, and sat by his side. A fair-haired schoolboy of about 10 also came into the room and silently sat down on the window-sill.

"Vera Doukhova is a great friend of my aunt's, but I hardly know her," said Shoustova.

Then a woman with a very pleasant face, with a white blouse and leather belt, came in from the next room.

"How do you do? Thanks for coming," she began as soon as she had taken the place next Shoustova's on the sofa.

"Well, and how is Vera. You have seen her? How does she bear her fate?"

"She does not complain," said Nekhludoff. "She says she feels perfectly happy."'

"Ah, that's like Vera. I know her," said the aunt, smiling and shaking her head. "One must know her. She has a fine character. Everything for others; nothing for herself."

"No, she asked nothing for herself, but only seemed concerned about your niece. What seemed to trouble her most was, as she said, that your niece was imprisoned for nothing."

"Yes, that's true," said the aunt. "It is a dreadful business. She suffered, in reality, because of me."

"Not at all, aunt. I should have taken the papers without you all the same."

"Allow me to know better," said the aunt. "You see," she went on to Nekhludoff, "it all happened because a certain person asked me to keep his papers for a time, and I, having no house at the time, brought them to her. And that very night the police searched her room and took her and the papers, and have kept her up to now, demanding that she should say from whom she had them."

"But I never told them," said Shoustova quickly, pulling nervously at a lock that was not even out of place.

"I never said you did," answered the aunt.

"If they took Mitin up it was certainly not through me," said Shoustova, blushing, and looking round uneasily.

"Don't speak about it, Lydia dear," said her mother.

"Why not? I should like to relate it," said Shoustova, no longer smiling nor pulling her lock, but twisting it round her finger and getting redder.

"Don't forget what happened yesterday when you began talking about it."

"Not at all—-Leave me alone, mamma. I did not tell, I only kept quiet. When he examined me about Mitin and about aunt, I said nothing, and told him I would not answer."

"Then this—Petrov—"

"Petrov is a spy, a gendarme, and a blackguard," put in the aunt, to explain her niece's words to Nekhludoff.

"Then he began persuading," continued Shoustova, excitedly and hurriedly. "'Anything you tell me,' he said, 'can harm no one; on the contrary, if you tell me, we may be able to set free innocent people whom we may be uselessly tormenting.' Well, I still said I would not tell. Then he said, 'All right, don't tell, but do not deny what I am going to say.' And he named Mitin."

"Don't talk about it," said the aunt.

"Oh, aunt, don't interrupt," and she went on pulling the lock of hair and looking round. "And then, only fancy, the next day I hear—they let me know by knocking at the wall—that Mitin is arrested. Well, I think I have betrayed him, and this tormented me so—it tormented me so that I nearly went mad."

"And it turned out that it was not at all because of you he was taken up?"

"Yes, but I didn't know. I think, 'There, now, I have betrayed him.' I walk and walk up and down from wall to wall, and cannot help thinking. I think, 'I have betrayed him.' I lie down and cover myself up, and hear something whispering, 'Betrayed! betrayed Mitin! Mitin betrayed!' I know it is an hallucination, but cannot help listening. I wish to fall asleep, I cannot. I wish not to think, and cannot cease. That is terrible!" and as Shoustova spoke she got more and more excited, and twisted and untwisted the lock of hair round her finger.

"Lydia, dear, be calm," the mother said, touching her shoulder.

But Shoustova could not stop herself.

"It is all the more terrible—" she began again, but did not finish, and jumping up with a cry rushed out of the room.

Her mother turned to follow her.

"They ought to be hanged, the rascals!" said the schoolboy who was sitting on the window-sill.

"What's that?" said the mother.

"I only said—Oh, it's nothing," the schoolboy answered, and taking a cigarette that lay on the table, he began to smoke.



CHAPTER XXVI.

LYDIA'S AUNT.

"Yes, that solitary confinement is terrible for the young," said the aunt, shaking her head and also lighting a cigarette.

"I should say for every one," Nekhludoff replied.

"No, not for all," answered the aunt. "For the real revolutionists, I have been told, it is rest and quiet. A man who is wanted by the police lives in continual anxiety, material want, and fear for himself and others, and for his cause, and at last, when he is taken up and it is all over, and all responsibility is off his shoulders, he can sit and rest. I have been told they actually feel joyful when taken up. But the young and innocent (they always first arrest the innocent, like Lydia), for them the first shock is terrible. It is not that they deprive you of freedom; and the bad food and bad air—all that is nothing. Three times as many privations would be easily borne if it were not for the moral shock when one is first taken."

"Have you experienced it?"

"I? I was twice in prison," she answered, with a sad, gentle smile. "When I was arrested for the first time I had done nothing. I was 22, had a child, and was expecting another. Though the loss of freedom and the parting with my child and husband were hard, they were nothing when compared with what I felt when I found out that I had ceased being a human creature and had become a thing. I wished to say good-bye to my little daughter. I was told to go and get into the trap. I asked where I was being taken to. The answer was that I should know when I got there. I asked what I was accused of, but got no reply. After I had been examined, and after they had undressed me and put numbered prison clothes on me, they led me to a vault, opened a door, pushed me in, and left me alone; a sentinel, with a loaded gun, paced up and down in front of my door, and every now and then looked in through a crack—I felt terribly depressed. What struck me most at the time was that the gendarme officer who examined me offered me a cigarette. So he knew that people liked smoking, and must know that they liked freedom and light; and that mothers love their children, and children their mothers. Then how could they tear me pitilessly from all that was dear to me, and lock me up in prison like a wild animal? That sort of thing could not be borne without evil effects. Any one who believes in God and men, and believes that men love one another, will cease to believe it after all that. I have ceased to believe in humanity since then, and have grown embittered," she finished, with a smile.

Shoustova's mother came in at the door through which her daughter had gone out, and said that Lydia was very much upset, and would not come in again.

"And what has this young life been ruined for?" said the aunt. "What is especially painful to me is that I am the involuntary cause of it."

"She will recover in the country, with God's help," said the mother. "We shall send her to her father."

"Yes, if it were not for you she would have perished altogether," said the aunt. "Thank you. But what I wished to see you for is this: I wished to ask you to take a letter to Vera Doukhova," and she got the letter out of her pocket.

"The letter is not closed; you may read and tear it up, or hand it to her, according to how far it coincides with your principles," she said. "It contains nothing compromising."

Nekhludoff took the letter, and, having promised to give it to Vera Doukhova, he took his leave and went away. He sealed the letter without reading it, meaning to take it to its destination.



CHAPTER XXVII.

THE STATE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE.

The last thing that kept Nekhludoff in Petersburg was the case of the sectarians, whose petition he intended to get his former fellow-officer, Aide-de-camp Bogatyreff, to hand to the Tsar. He came to Bogatyreff in the morning, and found him about to go out, though still at breakfast. Bogatyreff was not tall, but firmly built and wonderfully strong (he could bend a horseshoe), a kind, honest, straight, and even liberal man. In spite of these qualities, he was intimate at Court, and very fond of the Tsar and his family, and by some strange method he managed, while living in that highest circle, to see nothing but the good in it and to take no part in the evil and corruption. He never condemned anybody nor any measure, and either kept silent or spoke in a bold, loud voice, almost shouting what he had to say, and often laughing in the same boisterous manner. And he did not do it for diplomatic reasons, but because such was his character.

"Ah, that's right that you have come. Would you like some breakfast? Sit down, the beefsteaks are fine! I always begin with something substantial—begin and finish, too. Ha! ha! ha! Well, then, have a glass of wine," he shouted, pointing to a decanter of claret. "I have been thinking of you. I will hand on the petition. I shall put it into his own hands. You may count on that, only it occurred to me that it would be best for you to call on Toporoff."

Nekhludoff made a wry face at the mention of Toporoff.

"It all depends on him. He will be consulted, anyhow. And perhaps he may himself meet your wishes."

"If you advise it I shall go."

"That's right. Well, and how does Petersburg agree with you?" shouted Bogatyreff. "Tell me. Eh?"

"I feel myself getting hypnotised," replied Nekhludoff.

"Hypnotised!" Bogatyreff repeated, and burst out laughing. "You won't have anything? Well, just as you please," and he wiped his moustaches with his napkin. "Then you'll go? Eh? If he does not do it, give the petition to me, and I shall hand it on to-morrow." Shouting these words, he rose, crossed himself just as naturally as he had wiped his mouth, and began buckling on his sword.

"And now good-bye; I must go. We are both going out," said Nekhludoff, and shaking Bogatyreff's strong, broad hand, and with the sense of pleasure which the impression of something healthy and unconsciously fresh always gave him, Nekhludoff parted from Bogatyreff on the door-steps.

Though he expected no good result from his visit, still Nekhludoff, following Bogatyreff's advice, went to see Toporoff, on whom the sectarians' fate depended.

The position occupied by Toporoff, involving as it did an incongruity of purpose, could only be held by a dull man devoid of moral sensibility. Toporoff possessed both these negative qualities. The incongruity of the position he occupied was this. It was his duty to keep up and to defend, by external measures, not excluding violence, that Church which, by its own declaration, was established by God Himself and could not be shaken by the gates of hell nor by anything human. This divine and immutable God-established institution had to be sustained and defended by a human institution—the Holy Synod, managed by Toporoff and his officials. Toporoff did not see this contradiction, nor did he wish to see it, and he was therefore much concerned lest some Romish priest, some pastor, or some sectarian should destroy that Church which the gates of hell could not conquer.

Toporoff, like all those who are quite destitute of the fundamental religious feeling that recognises the equality and brotherhood of men, was fully convinced that the common people were creatures entirely different from himself, and that the people needed what he could very well do without, for at the bottom of his heart he believed in nothing, and found such a state very convenient and pleasant. Yet he feared lest the people might also come to such a state, and looked upon it as his sacred duty, as he called it, to save the people therefrom.

A certain cookery book declares that some crabs like to be boiled alive. In the same way he thought and spoke as if the people liked being kept in superstition; only he meant this in a literal sense, whereas the cookery book did not mean its words literally.

His feelings towards the religion he was keeping up were the same as those of the poultry-keeper towards the carrion he fed his fowls on. Carrion was very disgusting, but the fowls liked it; therefore it was right to feed the fowls on carrion. Of course all this worship of the images of the Iberian, Kasan and Smolensk Mothers of God was a gross superstition, but the people liked it and believed in it, and therefore the superstition must be kept up.

Thus thought Toporoff, not considering that the people only liked superstition because there always have been, and still are, men like himself who, being enlightened, instead of using their light to help others to struggle out of their dark ignorance, use it to plunge them still deeper into it.

When Nekhludoff entered the reception-room Toporoff was in his study talking with an abbess, a lively and aristocratic lady, who was spreading the Greek orthodox faith in Western Russia among the Uniates (who acknowledge the Pope of Rome), and who have the Greek religion enforced on them. An official who was in the reception-room inquired what Nekhludoff wanted, and when he heard that Nekhludoff meant to hand in a petition to the Emperor, he asked him if he would allow the petition to be read first. Nekhludoff gave it him, and the official took it into the study. The abbess, with her hood and flowing veil and her long train trailing behind, left the study and went out, her white hands (with their well-tended nails) holding a topaz rosary. Nekhludoff was not immediately asked to come in. Toporoff was reading the petition and shaking his head. He was unpleasantly surprised by the clear and emphatic wording of it.

"If it gets into the hands of the Emperor it may cause misunderstandings, and unpleasant questions may be asked," he thought as he read. Then he put the petition on the table, rang, and ordered Nekhludoff to be asked in.

He remembered the case of the sectarians; he had had a petition from them before. The case was this: These Christians, fallen away from the Greek Orthodox Church, were first exhorted and then tried by law, but were acquitted. Then the Archdeacon and the Governor arranged, on the plea that their marriages were illegal, to exile these sectarians, separating the husbands, wives, and children. These fathers and wives were now petitioning that they should not be parted. Toporoff recollected the first time the case came to his notice: he had at that time hesitated whether he had not better put a stop to it. But then he thought no harm could result from his confirming the decision to separate and exile the different members of the sectarian families, whereas allowing the peasant sect to remain where it was might have a bad effect on the rest of the inhabitants of the place and cause them to fall away from Orthodoxy. And then the affair also proved the zeal of the Archdeacon, and so he let the case proceed along the lines it had taken. But now that they had a defender such as Nekhludoff, who had some influence in Petersburg, the case might be specially pointed out to the Emperor as something cruel, or it might get into the foreign papers. Therefore he at once took an unexpected decision.

"How do you do?" he said, with the air of a very busy man, receiving Nekhludoff standing, and at once starting on the business. "I know this case. As soon as I saw the names I recollected this unfortunate business," he said, taking up the petition and showing it to Nekhludoff. "And I am much indebted to you for reminding me of it. It is the over-zealousness of the provincial authorities."

Nekhludoff stood silent, looking with no kindly feelings at the immovable, pale mask of a face before him.

"And I shall give orders that these measures should be revoked and the people reinstated in their homes."

"So that I need not make use of this petition?"

"I promise you most assuredly," answered Toporoff, laying a stress on the word I, as if quite convinced that his honesty, his word was the best guarantee. "It will be best if I write at once. Take a seat, please."

He went up to the table and began to write. As Nekhludoff sat down he looked at the narrow, bald skull, at the fat, blue-veined hand that was swiftly guiding the pen, and wondered why this evidently indifferent man was doing what he did and why he was doing it with such care.

"Well, here you are," said Toporoff, sealing the envelope; "you may let your clients know," and he stretched his lips to imitate a smile.

"Then what did these people suffer for?" Nekhludoff asked, as he took the envelope.

Toporoff raised his head and smiled, as if Nekhludoff's question gave him pleasure. "That I cannot tell. All I can say is that the interests of the people guarded by us are so important that too great a zeal in matters of religion is not so dangerous or so harmful as the indifference which is now spreading—"

"But how is it that in the name of religion the very first demands of righteousness are violated—families are separated?"

Toporoff continued to smile patronisingly, evidently thinking what Nekhludoff said very pretty. Anything that Nekhludoff could say he would have considered very pretty and very one-sided, from the height of what he considered his far-reaching office in the State.

"It may seem so from the point of view of a private individual," he said, "but from an administrative point of view it appears in a rather different light. However, I must bid you good-bye, now," said Toporoff, bowing his head and holding out his hand, which Nekhludoff pressed.

"The interests of the people! Your interests is what you mean!" thought Nekhludoff as he went out. And he ran over in his mind the people in whom is manifested the activity of the institutions that uphold religion and educate the people. He began with the woman punished for the illicit sale of spirits, the boy for theft, the tramp for tramping, the incendiary for setting a house on fire, the banker for fraud, and that unfortunate Lydia Shoustova imprisoned only because they hoped to get such information as they required from her. Then he thought of the sectarians punished for violating Orthodoxy, and Gourkevitch for wanting constitutional government, and Nekhludoff clearly saw that all these people were arrested, locked up, exiled, not really because they transgressed against justice or behaved unlawfully, but only because they were an obstacle hindering the officials and the rich from enjoying the property they had taken away from the people. And the woman who sold wine without having a license, and the thief knocking about the town, and Lydia Shoustova hiding proclamations, and the sectarians upsetting superstitions, and Gourkevitch desiring a constitution, were a real hindrance. It seemed perfectly clear to Nekhludoff that all these officials, beginning with his aunt's husband, the Senators, and Toporoff, down to those clean and correct gentlemen who sat at the tables in the Ministry Office, were not at all troubled by the fact that that in such a state of things the innocent had to suffer, but were only concerned how to get rid of the really dangerous, so that the rule that ten guilty should escape rather than that one innocent should be condemned was not observed, but, on the contrary, for the sake of getting rid of one really dangerous person, ten who seemed dangerous were punished, as, when cutting a rotten piece out of anything, one has to cut away some that is good.