The Awakening Part 50

"The case that has just been decided."

"Oh, the Maslova case!" said Selenin. "An entirely groundless appeal."

"The question is not of the appeal, but of the woman, who is innocent and undergoing punishment."

Selenin sighed.

"Quite possible, but----"

"It is not merely possible, but certain."

"How do you know?"

"I know because I was on the jury. I know wherein we made the mistake."

Selenin became thoughtful.

"It should have been declared on the trial," he said.

"I did so."

"It should have been made part of the record. If that had appeared in the appeal----"

Selenin, who was always busy, and did not mingle in society, had evidently not heard of Nekhludoff's romance. Nekhludoff, however, decided not to speak to him of his relations to Maslova.

"But it is evident even now that the verdict was preposterous," he said.

"The Senate has no right to say so. If the Senate attempted to interfere with the verdicts of the courts upon its own view of the justness of the verdicts themselves, there would be greater risks of justice being miscarried than established," he said, recalling the preceding case. "Besides, the verdicts of juries would lose their significance."

"I only know one thing, and that is that the woman is entirely innocent, and the last hope of saving her from an undeserved punishment is gone. The highest judicial inst.i.tution has affirmed what was absolutely unjust."

"It has not affirmed because it has not and could not consider the merits of the case," said Selenin, blinking his eyes. "You have probably stopped at your aunts," he added, evidently wis.h.i.+ng to change the subject of conversation. "I learned yesterday that you were in St.

Petersburg. Countess Catherine Ivanovna had invited me and you to be present at the meeting of the English preacher," said Selenin, smiling only with his lips.

"Yes, I was present, but left with disgust," Nekhludoff said angrily, vexed at Selenin's leading away from the conversation.

"Why should you be disgusted? At all events it is a manifestation of religious feeling, although one-sided and sectarian," said Selenin.

"It is such strange nonsense," said Nekhludoff.

"Well, no. The only strange thing here is that we know so little of the teachings of our church that we receive an exposition of its fundamental dogmas as a new revelation," said Selenin, as though hastening to tell his former friends his new views.

Nekhludoff gazed at Selenin with wonder. Selenin did not lower his eyes, in which there was an expression not only of sadness, but of ill-will.

"But we will discuss it later," said Selenin. "I am coming," he turned to the usher who approached him deferentially. "We must meet again,"

he added, sighing; "but you can never be found. You will always find me at home at seven. I live on Nadeghinskaia," and he mentioned the number. "It is a long time since we met," he added, again smiling with his lips.

"I will come if I have the time," said Nekhludoff, feeling that the man whom he had once loved was made strange and incomprehensible to him, if not hostile, by this short conversation.

As student Nekhludoff knew Selenin as a dutiful son, a true friend, and, for his years, an educated, worldly man, with great tact, always elegant and handsome, and uncommonly truthful and honest withal. He studied diligently, without any difficulty and without the slightest ostentation, receiving gold medals for his compositions.

He had made it the aim of his young life, not merely by word, but in reality, to serve others, and thought he saw his chance of doing so in government service. Systematically looking over the various activities to which he might devote his energies, he decided that he could be most useful in the legislative department, and entered it. But notwithstanding his most accurate and conscientious attention to his duties, he found nothing in them to satisfy his desire to be useful.

His discontent, due to the pettiness and vanity of his immediate superiors, grew until an opportunity offered to enter the Senate. He was better off in the Senate, but the same feeling of dissatisfaction pursued him. He constantly felt that things were not what he expected them to be, and what they should be. During his service in the Senate, his relations obtained for him the post of gentleman of the Emperor's bed-chamber, and he was obliged to drive around in gorgeous uniform to thank various people. In this post he felt even more than before out of place. At the same time, on the one hand, he could not refuse the appointment, because he would not disappoint those who thought they were pleasing him by it, and, on the other hand, the appointment flattered his vanity. It pleased him to see himself in a looking-gla.s.s in a gold embroidered uniform, and to receive the tokens of respect shown him by some people on his appointment.

The same thing happened with respect to his marriage. A brilliant match was arranged for him, as it is regarded from the world's standpoint. And he married princ.i.p.ally because to refuse would have been to offend and cause pain to the bride and those who had arranged the match. Hence the marriage to a young, pretty, distinguished girl flattered his vanity and gave him pleasure. But the marriage soon turned out to be "not the thing, you know," more so even than Court service. After her first child, his wife did not wish to have any more, and plunged into luxurious social life, in which he was obliged to partic.i.p.ate nolens volens. Although this poisoned the life of her husband, and brought her only exertion and fatigue, she nevertheless diligently pursued it. All his efforts to change her mode of life could not alter her confidence, supported by all her relatives and acquaintances, that it was quite proper.

The child, a girl with long, golden curls, was an entire stranger to her father, mainly because she was brought up not in accord with his desires. The result was the customary misunderstanding between the husband and wife, and even in a want of desire to understand each other, and a quiet, silent struggle, hidden from strangers and tempered by propriety, which made Selenin's life at home very burdensome. So that his family life turned out to be "not the thing, you know," in still greater degree than his service or the Court appointment.

These were the reasons why his eyes were always sad. And this was why, seeing Nekhludoff, whom he had known before all these lies had fastened themselves upon him, he thought of himself as he had been then, and more than ever felt the discord between his character and his surroundings, and he became painfully sad. The same feeling came over Nekhludoff, after the first impression of joy at meeting an old friend.

That was why, having promised that they would meet each other, neither sought that meeting, nor had they seen each other on this visit of Nekhludoff to St. Petersburg.

CHAPTER XV.

On leaving the Senate, Nekhludoff and his lawyer walked along the sidewalk. Fanirin told his driver to follow him, and he began to relate to Nekhludoff how the mistress of so-and-so had made millions on 'Change, how so-and-so had sold, and another had bought, his wife.

He also related some stories of swindling and all sorts of crimes committed by well-known people who were not occupying cells in prison, but presidents' chairs in various inst.i.tutions. These stories, of which he seemed to possess an inexhaustible source, afforded the lawyer great pleasure, as showing most conclusively that the means employed by him as a lawyer to make money were perfectly innocent in comparison with those used by the more noted public men of St.

Petersburg. And the lawyer was greatly surprised when Nekhludoff, in the middle of one of these stories, hailed a trap, took leave and drove home. Nekhludoff was very sad. He was sad because the Senate's judgment continued the unreasonable suffering of the innocent Maslova, and also because it made it more difficult for him to carry out his unalterable intention of joining his fate to hers. His sadness increased as the lawyer related with so much pleasure the frightful stories of the prevailing wickedness. Besides, the unkind, cold, repelling gaze of the once charming, open-hearted and n.o.ble Selenin constantly recurred to his mind. Nekhludoff, after the impressions of his stay in St. Petersburg, was almost in despair of ever reaching any results. All the plans he had laid out in Moskow seemed to him like those youthful dreams which usually end in disappointment. However, he considered it his duty, while in St. Petersburg, to exhaust his resources in endeavoring to fulfill his mission.

Soon after he reached his room, a servant called him upstairs for tea.

Mariette, in a multi-colored dress, was sitting beside the Countess, sipping tea. On Nekhludoff's entering the room, Mariette had just dropped some funny, indecent joke. Nekhludoff noticed it by the character of their laughter. The good-natured, mustached Countess Catherine Ivanovna was shaking in all her stout body with laughter, while Mariette, with a particularly mischievous expression, and her energetic and cheerful face somewhat bent to one side, was silently looking at her companion.

"You will be the death of me," said the Countess, in a fit of coughing.

No sooner had Nekhludoff seated himself than Mariette, noticing the serious and slightly displeased expression on his face, immediately changed not only her expression, but her frame of mind. This was with the intention she had in mind since she first saw him--to get him to like her. She suddenly became grave, dissatisfied with her life, seeking something, striving after something. She not merely feigned, but actually induced in herself a state of mind similar to that in which Nekhludoff was, although she would not be able to say what it consisted of. In a sympathetic conversation about the injustice of the strong, the poverty of the people, the awful condition of the prisoners, she succeeded in rousing in him the least expected feeling of physical attraction, and under the din of conversation their eyes plainly queried, "Can you love me?" and they answered, "Yes, I can."

On leaving, she told him that she was always ready to be of service to him, and asked him to visit her at the theatre the next day, if only for a minute, saying that she wished to have a talk with him on a matter of importance.

"When will I see you again?" she added, sighing, and carefully putting the gloves on her ring-bedecked hand. "Tell me that you will come."

Nekhludoff promised to come.

For a long time that night Nekhludoff could not fall asleep. When he recalled Maslova, the decision of the Senate, and his determination to follow her; when he recalled his relinquishment of his right to the land, there suddenly appeared before him, as if in answer to these questions, the face of Mariette; her sigh and glance when she said, "When will I see you again?" and her smile--all so distinct that she seemed to stand before him, and he smiled himself. "Would it be proper for me to follow her to Siberia? And would it be proper to deprive myself of my property?" he asked himself.

And the answers to these questions on that bright St. Petersburg night were indefinite. His mind was all in confusion. He called forth his former trend of thought, but those thoughts had lost their former power of conviction.

"And what if all my ideas are due to an over-wrought imagination, and I should be unable to live up to them? If I should repent of what I have done?" he asked himself, and, being unable to find answers to these questions, he was stricken with such sadness and despair as he had rarely experienced before, and he fell into that deep slumber which had been habitual with him after heavy losses at cards.

CHAPTER XVI.