“Yes, it is a stupid house,” he said, uttering his thought out aloud.
“Why stupid?” replied the isvostchik, in an offended tone. “Thanks to it, the people get work; it’s not stupid.”
“But the work is useless.”
“It can’t be useless, or why should it be done?” said the isvostchik. “The people get bread by it.”
Nekhludoff was silent, and it would have been difficult to talk because of the clatter the wheels made.
When they came nearer the prison, and the isvostchik turned off the paved on to the macadamised road, it became easier to talk, and he again turned to Nekhludoff.
“And what a lot of these people are flocking to the town nowadays; it’s awful,” he said, turning round on the box and pointing to a party of peasant workmen who were coming towards them, carrying saws, axes, sheepskins, coats, and bags strapped to their shoulders.
“More than in other years?” Nekhludoff asked.
“By far. This year every place is crowded, so that it’s just terrible. The employers just fling the workmen about like chaff. Not a job to be got.”
“Why is that?”
“They’ve increased. There’s no room for them.”
“Well, what if they have increased? Why do not they stay in the village?”
“There’s nothing for them to do in the village–no land to be had.”
Nekhludoff felt as one does when touching a sore place. It feels as if the bruised part was always being hit; yet it is only because the place is sore that the touch is felt.
“Is it possible that the same thing is happening everywhere?” he thought, and began questioning the isvostchik about the quantity of land in his village, how much land the man himself had, and why he had left the country.
“We have a desiatin per man, sir,” he said. “Our family have three men’s shares of the land. My father and a brother are at home, and manage the land, and another brother is serving in the army. But there’s nothing to manage. My brother has had thoughts of coming to Moscow, too.”
“And cannot land be rented?”
“How’s one to rent it nowadays? The gentry, such as they were, have squandered all theirs. Men of business have got it all into their own hands. One can’t rent it from them. They farm it themselves. We have a Frenchman ruling in our place; he bought the estate from our former landlord, and won’t let it–and there’s an end of it.”
“Who’s that Frenchman?”
“Dufour is the Frenchman’s name. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He makes wigs for the actors in the big theatre; it is a good business, so he’s prospering. He bought it from our lady, the whole of the estate, and now he has us in his power; he just rides on us as he pleases. The Lord be thanked, he is a good man himself; only his wife, a Russian, is such a brute that–God have mercy on us. She robs the people. It’s awful. Well, here’s the prison. Am I to drive you to the entrance? I’m afraid they’ll not let us do it, though.”
CHAPTER XIII
NURSE MASLOVA
When he rang the bell at the front entrance Nekhludoff’s heart stood still with horror as he thought of the state he might find Maslova in to-day, and at the mystery that he felt to be in her and in the people that were collected in the prison. He asked the jailer who opened the door for Maslova. After making the necessary inquiry the jailer informed him that she was in the hospital. Nekhludoff went there.
A kindly old man, the hospital doorkeeper, let him in at once and, after asking Nekhludoff whom he wanted, directed him to the children’s ward. A young doctor saturated with carbolic acid met Nekhludoff in the passage and asked him severely what he wanted. This doctor was always making all sorts of concessions to the prisoners, and was therefore continually coming into conflict with the prison authorities and even with the head doctor. Fearing lest Nekhludoff should demand something unlawful, and wishing to show that he made no exceptions for any one, he pretended to be cross. “There are no women here; it is the children’s ward,” he said.
“Yes, I know; but a prisoner has been removed here to be an assistant nurse.”
“Yes, there are two such here. Then whom do you want?”
“I am closely connected with one of them, named Maslova,” Nekhludoff answered, “and should like to speak to her. I am going to Petersburg to hand in an appeal to the Senate about her case and should like to give her this. It is only a photo,” Nekhludoff said, taking an envelope out of his pocket.
“All right, you may do that,” said the doctor, relenting, and turning to an old woman with a white apron, he told her to call the prisoner–Nurse Maslova.
“Will you take a seat, or go into the waiting-room?”
“Thanks,” said Nekhludoff, and profiting by the favourable change in the manner of the doctor towards him asked how they were satisfied with Maslova in the hospital.
“Oh, she is all right. She works fairly well, if you the conditions of her former life into account. But here she is.”
The old nurse came in at one of the doors, followed by Maslova, who wore a blue striped dress, a white apron, a kerchief that quite covered her hair. When she saw Nekhludoff her face flushed, and she stopped as if hesitating, then frowned, and with downcast eyes went quickly towards him along the strip of carpet in the middle of the passage. When she came up to Nekhludoff she did not wish to give him her hand, and then gave it, growing redder still.
Nekhludoff had not seen her since the day when she begged forgiveness for having been in a passion, and he expected to find her the same as she was then. But to-day she quite different. There was something new in the expression of her face, reserve and shyness, and, as it seemed to him, animosity towards him. He told her what he had already said to the doctor, i.e., that he was going to Petersburg, and he handed her the envelope with the photograph which he had brought from Panovo.
“I found this in Panovo–it’s an old photo; perhaps you would like it. Take it.”
Lifting her dark eyebrows, she looked at him with surprise in her squinting eyes, as if asking, “What is this for?” took the photo silently and put it in the bib of her apron.
“I saw your aunt there,” said Nekhludoff.
“Did you?” she said, indifferently.
“Are you all right here?” Nekhludoff asked.
“Oh, yes, it’s all right,” she said.
“Not too difficult?”
“Oh, no. But I am not used to it yet.”
“I am glad, for your sake. Anyhow, it is better than there.”
“Than where–there?” she asked, her face flushing again.
“There–in the prison,” Nekhludoff hurriedly answered.
“Why better?” she asked.
“I think the people are better. Here are none such as there must be there.”
“There are many good ones there,” she said.
“I have been seeing about the Menshoffs, and hope they will be liberated,” said Nekhludoff.
“God grant they may. Such a splendid old woman,” she said, again repeating her opinion of the old woman, and slightly smiling.
“I am going to Petersburg to-day. Your case will come on soon, and I hope the sentence will be repealed.”
“Whether it is repealed or not won’t matter now,” she said.
“Why not now?”
“So,” she said, looking with a quick, questioning glance into his eyes.
Nekhludoff understood the word and the look to mean that she wished to know whether he still kept firm to his decision or had accepted her refusal.
“I do not know why it does not matter to you,” he said. “It certainly does not matter as far as I am concerned whether you are acquitted or not. I am ready to do what I told you in any case,” he said decidedly.
She lifted her head and her black squinting eyes remained fixed on him and beyond him, and her face beamed with joy. But the words she spoke were very different from what her eyes said.
“You should not speak like that,” she said.
“I am saying it so that you should know.”
“Everything has been said about that, and there is no use speaking,” she said, with difficulty repressing a smile.
A sudden noise came from the hospital ward, and the sound of a child crying.
“I think they are calling me,” she said, and looked round uneasily.
“Well, good-bye, then,” he said. She pretended not to see his extended hand, and, without taking it, turned away and hastily walked along the strip of carpet, trying to hide the triumph she felt.
“What is going on in her? What is she thinking? What does she feel? Does she mean to prove me, or can she really not forgive me? Is it that she cannot or that she will not express what she feels and thinks? Has she softened or hardened?” he asked himself, and could find no answer. He only knew that she had altered and that an important change was going on in her soul, and this change united him not only to her but also to Him for whose sake that change was being wrought. And this union brought on a state of joyful animation and tenderness.
When she returned to the ward, in which there stood eight small beds, Maslova began, in obedience to the nurse’s order, to arrange one of the beds; and, bending over too far with the sheet, she slipped and nearly fell down.
A little convalescent boy with a bandaged neck, who was looking at her, laughed. Maslova could no longer contain herself and burst into loud laughter, and such
