“Well, now let us go upstairs. How glad I am,” Maslenikoff began excitedly, seizing Nekhludoff by the arm, and, notwithstanding his corpulence, nimbly leading him up the stairs. Maslenikoff was in a particularly happy mood, which Nekhludoff could not help ascribing to the attention shown him by the important person. Every attention shown him by an important person put him into such an ecstasy as may be observed in a fawning little dog when its master pats it, strokes it, and scratches under its ears. It wags its tail, shrinks, wriggles, and, straightening its ears, madly runs in a circle. Maslenikoff was ready to do the same thing. He did not notice the grave expression on Nekhludoff’s face, nor hear what he was saying, but irresistibly dragged him into the reception-room. Nekhludoff involuntarily followed.
“Business afterward. I will do anything you wish,” said Maslenikoff, leading him through the parlor. “Announce Prince Nekhludoff to Her Excellency,” he said on the way to a lackey. The lackey, in an ambling gait, ran ahead of them. “Vous n’avez qu’à ordonner. But you must see my wife without fail. She would not forgive my failure to present you last time you were here.”
The lackey had already announced him when they entered, and Anna Ignatievna, the vice-governess–Mrs. General, as she called herself–sat on a couch surrounded by ladies. As Nekhludoff approached she was already leaning forward with a radiant smile on her face. At the other end of the reception-room women sat around a table, while men in military uniforms and civil attire stood over them. An incessant cackle came from that direction.
“Enfin! Why do you estrange yourself? Have we offended you in any way?”
With these words, presupposing an intimacy between her and Nekhludoff, which never existed, Anna Ignatievna greeted him.
“Are you acquainted? Madam Beliavskaia–Michael Ivanovich Chernoff. Take a seat here.”
“Missy, venez donc à notre table. On vous opportera votre thé. And you,” she turned to the officer who was conversing with Missy, evidently forgetting his name, “come here, please. Will you have some tea, Prince?”
“No, no; I will never agree with you. She simply did not love him,” said a woman’s voice.
“But she loved pie.”
“Eternally those stupid jests,” laughingly interfered another lady in a high hat and dazzling with gold and diamonds.
“C’est excellent, these waffles, and so light! Let us have some more.”
“Well, how soon are you going to leave us?”
“Yes, this is the last day. That is why we came here.”
“Such a beautiful spring! How pleasant it is in the country!”
Missy in her hat and some dark, striped dress which clasped her waist without a wrinkle, was very pretty. She blushed when she saw Nekhludoff.
“I thought you had left the city,” she said to him.
“Almost. Business keeps me here. I come here also for business.”
“Call on mamma. She is very anxious to see you,” she said, and, feeling that she was lying, and that he understood it, her face turned a still deeper purple.
“I shall hardly have the time,” gloomily answered Nekhludoff, pretending not to see that she was blushing.
Missy frowned angrily, shrugged her shoulders, and turned to an elegant officer, who took from her hands the empty teacup and valiantly carried it to another table, his sword striking every object it encountered.
“You must also contribute toward the asylum.”
“I am not refusing, only I wish to keep my contribution for the lottery. There I will show all my liberality.”
“Don’t forget, now,” a plainly dissimulating laugh was heard.
The reception day was brilliant, and Anna Ignatievna was delighted.
“Mika told me that you busy yourself in the prisons. I understand it very well,” she said to Nekhludoff. “Mika”–she meant her stout husband, Maslenikoff–“may have his faults, but you know that he is kind. All these unfortunate prisoners are his children. He does not look on them in any other light. Il est d’une bonté—-“
She stopped, not finding words to express bonté of a husband, and immediately, smiling, turned to an old, wrinkled woman in lilac-colored bows who had just entered.
Having talked as much and as meaninglessly as it was necessary to preserve the decorum, Nekhludoff arose and went over to Maslenikoff.
“Will you please hear me now?”
“Ah! yes. Well, what is it?”
“Come in here.”
They entered a small Japanese cabinet and seated themselves near the window.
CHAPTER LVI.
“Well, je suis à vous. Will you smoke a cigarette? But wait; we must not soil the things here,” and he brought an ash-holder. “Well?”
“I want two things of you.”
“Is that so?”
Maslenikoff’s face became gloomy and despondent. All traces of that animation of the little dog whom its master had scratched under the ears entirely disappeared. Voices came from the reception-room. One, a woman’s voice, said: “Jamais, jamais je ne croirais;” another, a man’s voice from the other corner, was telling something, constantly repeating: “La Comtesse Vorouzoff” and “Victor Apraksine.” From the third side only a humming noise mingled with laughter was heard. Maslenikoff listened to the voices; so did Nekhludoff.
“I want to talk to you again about that woman.”
“Yes; who was innocently condemned. I know, I know.”
“I would like her to be transferred to the hospital. I was told that it can be done.”
Maslenikoff pursed up his lips and began to meditate.
“It can hardly be done,” he said. “However, I will consult about it, and will wire you to-morrow.”
“I was told that there are many sick people in the hospital, and they need assistants.”
“Well, yes. But I will let you know, as I said.”
“Please do,” said Nekhludoff.
There was a burst of general and even natural laughter in the reception-room.
“That is caused by Victor,” said Maslenikoff, smiling. “He is remarkably witty when in high spirits.”
“Another thing,” said Nekhludoff. “There are a hundred and thirty men languishing in prison for the only reason that their passports were not renewed in time. They have been in prison now for a month.”
And he related the causes that kept them there.
“How did you come to know it?” asked Nekhludoff, and his face showed disquietude and displeasure.
“I was visiting a prisoner, and these people surrounded me and asked—-“
“What prisoner were you visiting?”
“The peasant who is innocently accused, and for whom I have obtained counsel. But that is not to the point. Is it possible that these innocent people are kept in prison only because they failed to renew their passports?”
“That is the prosecutor’s business,” interrupted Maslenikoff, somewhat vexed. “Now, you say that trials must be speedy and just. It is the duty of the assistant prosecutor to visit the prisons and see that no one is innocently kept there. But these assistants do nothing but play cards.”
“So you can do nothing for them?” Nekhludoff asked gloomily, recalling the words of the lawyer, that the governor would shift the responsibility.
“I will see to it. I will make inquiries immediately.”
“So much the worse for her. C’est un souffre-douleur,” came from the reception-room, the voice of a woman apparently entirely indifferent to what she was saying.
“So much the better; I will take this,” from the other side was heard a man’s playful voice, and the merry laughter of a woman who refused him something.
“No, no, for no consideration,” said a woman’s voice.
“Well, then, I will do everything,” repeated Maslenikoff, extinguishing the cigarette with his white hand, on which was a turquoise ring. “Now, let us go to the ladies.”
“And yet another question,” said Nekhludoff, without going into the reception-room, and stopping at the door. “I was told that some people in the prison were subjected to corporal punishment. Is it true?”
Maslenikoff’s face flushed.
“Ah! you have reference to that affair? No, mon cher, you must positively not be admitted there–you want to know everything. Come, come; Annette is calling us,” he said, seizing Nekhludoff’s arm with the same excitement he evinced after the attention shown him by the important person, but this time alarming, and not joyful.
Nekhludoff tore himself loose, and, without bowing or saying anything, gloomily passed through the reception-room, the parlor and by the lackeys, who sprang to their feet in the ante-chamber, to the street.
“What is the matter with him? What did you do to him?” Annette asked her husband.
“That is à la française,” said some one.
“Rather à la zoulon.”
“Oh, he has always been queer.”
Some one arose, some one arrived, and the chirping continued.
The following morning Nekhludoff received from Maslenikoff a letter on heavy, glossy paper, bearing a coat-of-arms and seals, written in a fine, firm hand, in which he said that he had written to the prison physician asking that Maslova be transferred, and that he hoped his request would be acceded to. It was signed, “Your loving senior comrade,” followed by a remarkably skillful flourish.
“Fool!” Nekhludoff could not help exclaiming, especially because he felt that by the word “comrade” Maslenikoff was condescending, i. e., although he considered himself a very important personage, he nevertheless was not too proud of his greatness, and called himself his comrade.
CHAPTER LVII.
One of the most popular superstitions consists in the belief that every man is endowed with definite qualities–that some men are kind, some wicked; some wise, some foolish; some energetic, some apathetic, etc. This is not true. We may say of a man that he is oftener kind than wicked; oftener wise than foolish; oftener energetic than apathetic, and vice versa. But it would not be true to say of one man that
