Count Vasily Nekhludoff

“ The Emperor and the country need honest people. What if I and such as you refused to serve? Who would be left? We are complaining of conditions, but refuse to aid the government.”
Nekhludoff sighed deeply, made a low bow, pressed the bony hand condescendingly extended, and departed.
The general disapprovingly shook his head, and, rubbing his loins, went to the reception-room, where the artist awaited him with the answer of Jeanne D’Arc. The general put on his pince-nez and read: “They will recognize each other by the light issuing from the ethereal bodies.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The boy was now being tried as a dangerous creature from whom it was necessary to protect society.
“As dangerous a creature as the prisoner of yesterday,” 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. ”

“ He left the house in the morning, hired two modest and not over-clean furnished rooms near the prison, and went to his lawyer.
After the storms and rains came those cold, piercing winds that usually occur in the fall. Protected only by a light overcoat, Nekhludoff was chilled to the bone. He walked quickly in order to warm himself.
The village scenes came to his mind—­the women, children and old men, whose poverty and exhaustion he had noticed as if for the first time, especially that oldish child which twisted its little calfless legs—­and he involuntarily compared them with the city folks. ”

“ I know nothing about it.”
“Well, anyhow, you come from outside; tell somebody—one of the authorities, if need be,” said an indignant voice. “Show some pity on us, as a human being. Here we are suffering the second month for nothing.”
“What do you mean? Why?” said Nekhludoff.
“Why? We ourselves don’t know why, but are sitting here the second month.”
“Yes, it’s quite true, and it is owing to an accident,” said the inspector. “These people were taken up because they had no passports, and ought to have been sent back to their native government ”

“ When Kartinkin and Bochkova left the court-room she was still standing and crying, so that the gendarme had to touch the sleeve of her coat.
"She cannot be left to her fate," said Nekhludoff to himself, entirely forgetting his evil thoughts, and, without knowing why, he ran into the corridor to look at her again. He was detained at the door for a few minutes by the jostling, animated crowd of jurors and lawyers, who were glad that the case was over, so that when he reached the corridor Maslova was some distance away. ”

“ There is a duty to the land, too. To give up, to destroy everything is very easy; to acquire it very difficult. Above all, you must consider your future life, and what you will do with yourself, and you must dispose of your property accordingly. And are you really firm in your resolve? And then, are you really acting according to your conscience, or are you acting in order to be admired of men?” Nekhludoff asked himself all this, and had to acknowledge that he was influenced by the thought of what people would say about him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sit down and tell us the news," said Sophia Vasilievna, with an artful, feigned, resembling a perfectly natural, smile, which displayed her beautiful, long, skillfully made, almost natural-looking teeth. "I am told that you returned from the court in very gloomy spirits. It must be very painful to people with a heart," she said in French.
"Yes, that is true," said Nekhludoff. "One often feels his—feels that he has no right to judge others." ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Why, we have more than 2,000 persons here. And what persons! One must know how to manage them. It is easier said than done, you know. After all, they are also men; one cannot help pitying them." The inspector began telling Nekhludoff of a fight that had lately taken place among the convicts, which had ended by one man being killed.
The story was interrupted by the entrance of Maslova, who was accompanied by a jailer.
Nekhludoff saw her through the doorway before she had noticed the inspector. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If it is carrying on with the medical assistant, let her carry on with the medical assistant; that is her business. I must do what my conscience demands of me. And my conscience expects me to sacrifice my freedom. My resolution to marry her, if only in form, and to follow wherever she may be sent, remains unalterable.” Nekhludoff said all this to himself with vicious obstinacy as he left the hospital and walked with resolute steps towards the big gates of the prison. He asked the warder on duty at the gate to inform the inspector that he wished to see Maslova. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nekhludoff, with his passionate nature, gave himself thoroughly to the new way of life so approved of by all those around, and he entirely stifled the inner voice which demanded something different. This began after he moved to St. Petersburg, and reached its highest point when he entered the army.
Military life in general depraves men. It places them in conditions of complete idleness, i.e., absence of all useful work; frees them of their common human duties, which it replaces by merely conventional ones to the honour of the regiment, the uniform, the flag ”

“ The advocate promised to look into the case, and if it turned out to be as Nekhludoff said he would in all probability undertake the defence free of charge. Then Nekhludoff told him of the 130 men who were kept in prison owing to a mistake. “On whom did it depend? Whose fault was it?”
The advocate was silent for a moment, evidently anxious to give a correct reply.
“Whose fault is it? No one’s,” he said, decidedly. “Ask the Procureur, he’ll say it is the Governor’s; ask the Governor, he’ll say it is the Procureur’s fault. No one is in fault.” ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”