“Forgive me, Dmitri Ivanovitch, I spoke hastily the day before yesterday.”
“It is not for me to forgive you,” Nekhludoff began.
“But all the same, you must leave me,” she interrupted, and in the terribly squinting eyes with which she looked at him Nekhludoff read the former strained, angry expression.
“Why should I leave you?”
“So.”
“But why so?”
She again looked up, as it seemed to him, with the same angry look.
“Well, then, thus it is,” she said. “You must leave me. It is true what I am saying. I cannot. You just give it up altogether.” Her lips trembled and she was silent for a moment. “It is true. I’d rather hang myself.”
Nekhludoff felt that in this refusal there was hatred and unforgiving resentment, but there was also something besides, something good. This confirmation of the refusal in cold blood at once quenched all the doubts in Nekhludoff’s bosom, and brought back the serious, triumphant emotion he had felt in relation to Katusha.
“Katusha, what I have said I will again repeat,” he uttered, very seriously. “I ask you to marry me. If you do not wish it, and for as long as you do not wish it, I shall only continue to follow you, and shall go where you are taken.”
“That is your business. I shall not say anything more,” she answered, and her lips began to tremble again.
He, too, was silent, feeling unable to speak.
“I shall now go to the country, and then to Petersburg,” he said, when he was quieter again. “I shall do my utmost to get your— our case, I mean, reconsidered, and by the help of God the sentence may be revoked.”
“And if it is not revoked, never mind. I have deserved it, if not in this case, in other ways,” she said, and he saw how difficult it was for her to keep down her tears.
“Well, have you seen Menshoff?” she suddenly asked, to hide her emotion. “It’s true they are innocent, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Such a splendid old woman,” she said.
There was another pause.
“Well, and as to the hospital?” she suddenly said, and looking at him with her squinting eyes. “If you like, I will go, and I shall not drink any spirits, either.”
Nekhludoff looked into her eyes. They were smiling.
“Yes, yes, she is quite a different being,” Nekhludoff thought. After all his former doubts, he now felt something he had never before experienced–the certainty that love is invincible.
When Maslova returned to her noisome cell after this interview, she took off her cloak and sat down in her place on the shelf bedstead with her hands folded on her lap. In the cell were only the consumptive woman, the Vladimir woman with her baby, Menshoff’s old mother, and the watchman’s wife. The deacon’s daughter had the day before been declared mentally diseased and removed to the hospital. The rest of the women were away, washing clothes. The old woman was asleep, the cell door stood open, and the watchman’s children were in the corridor outside. The Vladimir woman, with her baby in her arms, and the watchman’s wife, with the stocking she was knitting with deft fingers, came up to Maslova. “Well, have you had a chat?” they asked. Maslova sat silent on the high bedstead, swinging her legs, which did not reach to the floor.
“What’s the good of snivelling?” said the watchman’s wife. “The chief thing’s not to go down into the dumps. Eh, Katusha? Now, then!” and she went on, quickly moving her fingers.
Maslova did not answer.
“And our women have all gone to wash,” said the Vladimir woman. “I heard them say much has been given in alms to-day. Quite a lot has been brought.”
“Finashka,” called out the watchman’s wife, “where’s the little imp gone to?”
She took a knitting needle, stuck it through both the ball and the stocking, and went out into the corridor.
At this moment the sound of women’s voices was heard from the corridor, and the inmates of the cell entered, with their prison shoes, but no stockings on their feet. Each was carrying a roll, some even two. Theodosia came at once up to Maslova.
“What’s the matter; is anything wrong?” Theodosia asked, looking lovingly at Maslova with her clear, blue eyes. “This is for our tea,” and she put the rolls on a shelf.
“Why, surely he has not changed his mind about marrying?” asked Korableva.
“No, he has not, but I don’t wish to,” said Maslova, “and so I told him.”
“More fool you!” muttered Korableva in her deep tones.
“If one’s not to live together, what’s the use of marrying?” said Theodosia.
“There’s your husband–he’s going with you,” said the watchman’s wife.
“Well, of course, we’re married,” said Theodosia. “But why should he go through the ceremony if he is not to live with her?”
“Why, indeed! Don’t be a fool! You know if he marries her she’ll roll in wealth,” said Korableva.
“He says, ‘Wherever they take you, I’ll follow,'” said Maslova. “If he does, it’s well; if he does not, well also. I am not going to ask him to. Now he is going to try and arrange the matter in Petersburg. He is related to all the Ministers there. But, all the same, I have no need of him,” she continued.
“Of course not,” suddenly agreed Korableva, evidently thinking about something else as she sat examining her bag. “Well, shall we have a drop?”
“You have some,” replied Maslova. “I won’t.”
END OF BOOK I
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
PROPERTY IN LAND
It was possible for Maslova’s case to come before the Senate in a fortnight, at which time Nekhludoff meant to go to Petersburg, and, if need be, to appeal to the Emperor (as the advocate who had drawn up the petition advised) should the appeal be disregarded (and, according to the advocate, it was best to be prepared for that, since the causes for appeal were so slight). The party of convicts, among whom was Maslova, would very likely leave in the beginning of June. In order to be able to follow her to Siberia, as Nekhludoff was firmly resolved to do, he was now obliged to visit his estates, and settle matters there. Nekhludoff first went to the nearest, Kousminski, a large estate that lay in the black earth district, and from which he derived the greatest part of his income.
He had lived on that estate in his childhood and youth, and had been there twice since, and once, at his mother’s request, he had taken a German steward there, and had with him verified the accounts. The state of things there and the peasants’ relations to the management, i.e., the landlord, had therefore been long known to him. The relations of the peasants to the administration were those of utter dependence on that management. Nekhludoff knew all this when still a university student, he had confessed and preached Henry Georgeism, and, on the basis of that teaching, had given the land inherited from his father to the peasants.
It is true that after entering the army, when he got into the habit of spending 20,000 roubles a year, those former occupations ceased to be regarded as a duty, and were forgotten, and he not only left off asking himself where the money his mother allowed him came from, but even avoided thinking about it. But his mother’s death, the coming into the property, and the necessity of managing it, again raised the question as to what his position in reference to private property in land was.
A month before Nekhludoff would have answered that he had not the strength to alter the existing order of things; that it was not he who was administering the estate; and would one way or another have eased his conscience, continuing to live far from his estates, and having the money sent him. But now he decided that he could not leave things to go on as they were, but would have to alter them in a way unprofitable to himself, even though he had all these complicated and difficult relations with the prison world which made money necessary, as well as a probable journey to Siberia before him.
Therefore he decided not to farm the land, but to let it to the peasants at a low rent, to enable them to cultivate it without depending on a landlord. More than once, when comparing the position of a landowner with that of an owner of serfs, Nekhludoff had compared the renting of land to the peasants instead of cultivating it with hired labour, to the old system by which serf proprietors used to exact a money payment from their serfs in place of labour. It was not a solution of the problem, and yet a step towards the solution; it was a movement towards a less rude form of slavery. And it was in this way he meant to act.
Nekhludoff reached Kousminski about noon. Trying to simplify his life in every way, he did not telegraph, but hired a cart and pair at the station. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen coat, with a belt below his long waist. He was glad to talk to the gentleman, especially because while they were talking his broken-winded white horse and the emaciated spavined one could go at a foot-pace, which they always liked to do.
The driver spoke about the steward at Kousminski without knowing that he was driving “the master.” Nekhludoff had purposely not told him who he was.
“That ostentatious German,” said the driver (who had been to town and read novels) as he sat sideways
