Count Nekhludoff

“ Nekhludoff did as he was asked.
"And this I cannot do either," said the general, concerning his request to see the patient. "Of course I don't suspect you, but you are interested in them and in others. You have money, and the people here are corrupt. How, then, is it possible for me to watch a person who is five thousand miles distant from me? There he is king, as I am here," and he began to laugh. "You have surely seen the political prisoners. You have surely given them money," he added, smiling. ”

“ It is so delightful, so delightful, that I desire nothing better," said Vera Doukhova, with the usual expression of fright in the large, kind, round eyes fixed on Nekhludoff, and twisting the terribly thin, sinewy neck, surrounded by the shabby, crumpled, dirty collar of her bodice. Nekhludoff asked her how she came to be in prison. ”

“ Nekhludoff listened, and at the same time kept looking around him—at the low bedstead with its straw mattress, the window and the dirty, damp wall, and the piteous face and form of this unfortunate, disfigured peasant in his prison cloak and shoes, and he felt sadder and sadder, and would have liked not to believe what this good-natured fellow was saying. It seemed too dreadful to think that men could do such a thing as to take a man, dress him in convict clothes, and put him in this horrible place without any reason only because he himself had been injured. ”

“ We educate in this way not one, but millions of people, and then catch one of them and imagine that we have done something, that we have guarded ourselves, and nothing more can be expected of us. Have we not sent him from the Moscow to the Irkoutsk Government?” Thus thought Nekhludoff with unusual clearness and vividness, sitting in his high-backed chair next to the colonel, and listening to the different intonations of the advocates’, prosecutor’s, and president’s voices, and looking at their self-confident gestures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nekhludoff thought, and was just going to say what he had on his mind when she began again:
“There’s something I want to say. We have here an old woman; such a fine one, d’you know, she just surprises every one; she is imprisoned for nothing, and her son, too, and everybody knows they are innocent, though they are accused of having set fire to a house. D’you know, hearing I was acquainted with you, she says: ‘Tell him to ask to see my son; he’ll tell him all about it.”’ Thus spoke Maslova, turning her head from side to side, and glancing at Nekhludoff. “Their name’s Menshoff. ”

“ Only she herself does not wish it. She says, `Much need have I to carry out the slops for the scurvy beggars.` You don`t know what these people are, Prince," he added.
Nekhludoff did not reply, but asked to have the interview. The inspector called a jailer, whom Nekhludoff followed into the women`s visiting-room, where there was no one but Maslova waiting. ”

“ He was awakened by a servant in dress-coat holding a napkin in his hand.
"Mister, mister, are you not Prince Nekhludoff? A lady is looking for you."
Nekhludoff quickly raised himself, rubbing his eyes, and the incidents of the morning passed before his mind's eye—the procession of the convicts, the men who had died from the heat, the grated windows of the cars, and the women huddled behind them, one of whom was laboring in child-birth without aid, and another piteously smiling to him from behind the iron grating. ”

“ The inspector who directed Nekhludoff to the women’s ward, evidently becoming interested in him, came into the room, and, seeing him in the middle of the passage, asked him why he was not speaking with the prisoner he had inquired about. Nekhludoff blew his nose, and, endeavoring to assume an air of calmness, said:
“I can’t speak through the net; nothing can be heard.” ”

“ Nekhludoff took out his pocketbook as soon as the director turned his back on them, but before he could hand her the ten-ruble bill the inspector turned round, facing them. He crumpled the bill in his hand.
“Why, she is a dead woman,” thought Nekhludoff as he looked at her once lovely, but now defiled, bloated face with the unhealthy sparkle in her black, squinting eyes, which looked now at the inspector, now at Nekhludoff’s hand with the crumpled bill. ”

“ In the presence of women, Nekhludoff was very shy, but it was this very shyness that determined the married woman to conquer him. This woman was the wife of the commander of the district in which Nekhludoff was one of the electors. She led him into relations with her which held him fast, and at the same time grew more and more repulsive to him. At first Nekhludoff could not resist her wiles, then, feeling himself at fault, he could not break off the relations against her will. ”

“ Nekhludoff thought to himself as he came out of the cell, while a hundred eyes were fixed upon him through the openings of the cell doors and from the prisoners that met him, making him feel as if he were running the gauntlet.
“Is it really possible that perfectly innocent people are kept here?” Nekhludoff uttered when they left the corridor.
“What would you have us do? They lie so. To hear them talk they are all of them innocent,” said the inspector’s assistant. “But it does happen that some are really imprisoned for nothing.” ”

“ During this period, because of Maslova's transfer to the politicals, Nekhludoff became acquainted with many political prisoners. On closer acquaintance he was convinced that they were not all villains, as many people imagined them to be, nor all heroes, as some of them considered the members of their party, but that they were ordinary people, among whom, as in other parties, some were good, some bad, the others indifferent.
He became particularly attached to a consumptive young man who was on his way to a life term at hard labor. ”

“ And when, sickly and depraved from the unhealthy work, from drink and lewdness, foolish and capricious, he aimlessly prowled around the city, as in a dream, entered some shed and abstracted a few worthless mats, then, instead of destroying the causes that led this boy into his present condition, we intend to mend matters by punishing him!
It is dreadful!
Thus Nekhludoff thought, and no longer listened to what was going on around him. He was himself terrified at this revelation. He wondered why he had not seen it before—­how others failed to see it. ”

“ Believing others there was nothing to decide; everything had been decided already, and decided always in favour of the animal I and against the spiritual. Nor was this all. Believing in his own self he was always exposing himself to the censure of those around him; believing others he had their approval. So, when Nekhludoff had talked of the serious matters of life, of God, truth, riches, and poverty, all round him thought it out of place and even rather funny, and his mother and aunts called him, with kindly irony, notre cher philosophe. ”

“ Nekhludoff was seized with dread, and went to Menshoff’s cell, No. 21, without stopping to look through any more holes. The jailer unlocked the door and opened it. A young man, with long neck, well-developed muscles, a small head, and kind, round eyes, stood by the bed, hastily putting on his cloak, and looking at the newcomers with a frightened face. Nekhludoff was specially struck by the kind, round eyes that were throwing frightened and inquiring glances in turns at him, at the jailer, and at the assistant, and back again. ”

“ He had one nominal and one real wife, from both of whom he was separated, having come to the conclusion that there was no real love between them, and now he thought of entering on a free union with Grabetz. He despised Nekhludoff for “playing the fool,” as Novodvoroff termed it, with Maslova, but especially for the freedom Nekhludoff took of considering the defects of the existing system and the methods of correcting those defects in a manner which was not only not exactly the same as Novodvoroff’s, but was Nekhludoff’s own—a prince’s, that is, a fool’s manner. ”

“ How many exiles? How many sick persons?”
Nekhludoff translated the Englishman’s and the inspector’s words without paying any attention to their meaning, and felt an awkwardness he had not in the least expected at the thought of the impending interview. When, in the midst of a sentence he was translating for the Englishman, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and the office door opened, and, as had happened many times before, a jailer came in, followed by Katusha, and he saw her with a kerchief tied round her head, and in a prison jacket a heavy sensation came over him. ”

“ But Nekhludoff did not answer, and followed where the body was being carried. The madman, sitting on a bed, was smoking greedily the cigarette Nekhludoff had given him.
"Ah, you`ve come back," he said, and laughed. When he saw the body he made a face, and said, "Again! I am sick of it. I am not a boy, am I, eh?" and he turned to Nekhludoff with a questioning smile.
Nekhludoff was looking at the dead man, whose face, which had been hidden by his cap, was now visible. This convict was as handsome in face and body as the other was hideous. He was a man in the full bloom of life. ”

“ Answers in the form of new questions, like the boy`s, was all Nekhludoff got in reply to his one primary question. He found much that was clever, learned much that was interesting, but what he did not find was an answer to the principal question: By what right some people punish others? ”

“ The old man with the blue spectacles, stepping heavily, went out, followed by Nekhludoff.
"Yes, a strange state of things this," said the talkative young man, as if continuing an interrupted conversation, as he descended the stairs side by side with Nekhludoff. "Yet we have reason to be grateful to the inspector who does not keep strictly to the rules, kind-hearted fellow. If they can get a talk it does relieve their hearts a bit, after all!"
While talking to the young man, who introduced himself as Medinzeff, Nekhludoff reached the hall. There the inspector came up to them with weary step. ”

“ Although he was going to do something for the peasants which they never dared even to think of, his conscience was troubled. The peasants stood in a fine, drizzling rain, waiting to hear what their master had to say, and Nekhludoff was so confused that he could not open his mouth. The calm, self-confident German came to his relief. This strong, overfed man, like Nekhludoff himself, made a striking contrast to the emaciated, wrinkled faces of the peasants, and the bare shoulder-bones sticking out from under their caftans. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV.
"It is awful!" said Nekhludoff to the lawyer, as they entered the waiting-room. "In the plainest possible case they cavil at idle forms. It is awful!"
"The case was spoiled at the trial," said Fanirin.
"Selenin, too, was against reversal. It is awful, awful!" Nekhludoff continued to repeat. "What is to be done now?"
"We will petition the Emperor. Head it yourself while you are here. I will prepare the petition."
At that moment Wolf in his uniform and stars hung on his breast entered the waiting-room and approached Nekhludoff. ”

“ Nekhludoff had lost sight of him long ago, but heard that on leaving his regiment and joining the cavalry, notwithstanding his debts he managed to hold his own in rich society.
“I am glad I met you. There is not a soul in the city. How old you have grown, my boy! ”

“ And to crown all, my conduct toward Katiousha? Scoundrel! Villain! Let people judge me as they please—I can deceive them, but I cannot deceive myself."
And he suddenly understood that the disgust which he had lately felt toward everybody, and especially to-day [Pg 105] toward the Prince and Maria Vasilievna, and Missy, and Kornei, was disgust with himself. And in this confession of his own baseness there was something painful, and at the same time joyous and calming.
In the course of his life Nekhludoff often experienced what he called a "cleansing of the soul." ”

“ He felt himself in the position of a puppy, when its master, taking it by the scruff of its neck, rubs its nose in the mess it has made. The puppy whines, draws back and wants to get away as far as possible from the effects of its misdeed, but the pitiless master does not let go.
And so, Nekhludoff, feeling all the repulsiveness of what he had done, felt also the powerful hand of the Master, but he did not feel the whole significance of his action yet and would not recognise the Master`s hand. ”

“ Nekhludoff thought while watching the proceedings. "They are dangerous, but are we not dangerous? I am a libertine, an impostor; and all of us, all those that know me as I am, not only do not detest but respect me."
It is evident that this boy is no villain, but a very ordinary person—every one sees that—and that he became what he is only because he lived amid conditions that beget such people. It is therefore plain that such boys will exist as long as the conditions producing these unfortunates remain unchanged. ”