The Awakening (The Resurrection). Лев ТолÑтой
without enjoying his love in its fullness, the necessity of going was advantageous in that he was able to break the relations which it were difficult to keep up. He further thought it was necessary to give her money, not because she might need it, but because it was customary to do so. So he gave as much money as he thought was proper, considering their respective positions.
On the day of his departure, after dinner he waited in the passage until she came by. She flushed as she saw him, and wished to pass on, pointing with her eyes to the door of her room, but he detained her.
"I came to bid you farewell," he said, crumpling an envelope containing a hundred ruble bill. "How is——"
She suspected it, frowned, shook her head and thrust aside his hand.
"Yes, take it," he murmured, thrusting the envelope in the bosom of her waist, and, as if it had burned his fingers, he ran to his room.
For a long time he paced his room to and fro, frowning, and even jumping, and moaning aloud as if from physical pain, as he thought of the scene.
But what is to be done? It is always thus. Thus it was with Shenbok and the governess whom he had told about; it was thus with Uncle Gregory; with his father, when he lived in the country, and the illegitimate son Miteuka, who is still living, was born to him. And if everybody acts thus, consequently it ought to be so. Thus he was consoling himself, but he could not be consoled. The recollection of it stung his conscience.
In the depth of his soul he knew that his action was so base, abominable and cruel that, with that action upon his conscience, not only would he have no right to condemn others but he should not be able to look others in the face, to say nothing of considering himself the good, noble, magnanimous man he esteemed himself. And he had to esteem himself as such in order to be able to continue to lead a valiant and joyous life. And there was but one way of doing so, and that was not to think of it. This he endeavored to do.
The life into which he had just entered—new scenes, comrades, and active service—helped him on. The more he lived, the less he thought of it, and in the end really forgot it entirely.
Only once, on his return from active service, when, in the hope of seeing her, he paid a visit to his aunts, he was told that Katiousha, soon after his departure, had left them; that she had given birth to a child, and, as the aunts were informed, had gone to the bad. As he heard it his heart was oppressed with grief. From the statement of the time when she gave birth to the child it might be his, and it might not be his. The aunts said that she was vicious and of a depraved nature, just like her mother. And this opinion of the aunts pleased him, because it exculpated him, as it were. At first he intended to find her and the child, but as it pained him very much, and he was ashamed to think of it, he did not make the necessary efforts, and gradually ceased to think of his sin.
But now, this fortuitous meeting brought everything to his mind, and compelled the acknowledgment of his heartlessness, cruelty and baseness which made it possible for him to live undisturbed by the sin which lay on his conscience. He was yet far from such acknowledgment, and at this moment was only thinking how to avoid disclosure which might be made by her, or her attorney, and thus disgrace him before everybody.
CHAPTER XIX.
Nekhludoff was in this state of mind when he left the court-room and entered the jury-room. He sat near the window, listening to the conversations of his fellow jurymen, and smoked incessantly.
The cheerful merchant evidently sympathized with Merchant Smelkoff's manner of passing his time.
"Well, well! He went on his spree just like a Siberian! Seems to have known a good thing when he saw it. What a beauty!"
The foreman expressed the opinion that the whole case depended on the expert evidence. Peter Gerasimovich was jesting with the Jewish clerk, and both of them burst out laughing. Nekhludoff answered all questions in monosyllables, and only wished to be left in peace.
When the usher with the sidling gait called the jury into court Nekhludoff was seized with fear, as if judgment was to be passed on him, and not he to pass judgment on others.
In the depth of his soul he already felt that he was a rascal, who ought to be ashamed to look people in the face, and yet, by force of habit, he walked to the elevation with his customary air of self-confidence, and took his seat next to the foreman, crossed his legs and began to play with his pince-nez.
The prisoners, who had also been removed from the court, were brought in again.
The new faces of witnesses were now seen in the court-room, and Nekhludoff noticed Maslova constantly turning her head in the direction of a smartly attired, stout woman in silk and plush, with an elegant reticule hanging on her half-bare arm. This was, as Nekhludoff afterward learned, Maslova's mistress and a witness against her.
The examination of the witnesses began as to their names, age, religion, et cetera. After being questioned as to whether they preferred to testify under oath, the same old priest, with difficulty moving his legs, came, and again arranging the gold cross on his silk-covered breast, with the same calmness and confidence, began to administer the oath to the witnesses and the expert. When the swearing in was over, the witnesses were removed to an adjoining room, leaving only Kitaeva, Maslova's mistress. She was asked what she knew of the affair. Kitaeva, with a feigned smile, a German accent, and straightening her hat at every sentence, fluently and circumstantially related the following:
Simon came first to her house for Liubasha.[E] In a little while Liubasha returned with the merchant. "The merchant was already in ecstasy," slightly smiling, said Kitaeva, "and he continued to drink and treat himself, but as he was short of money he sent to his room this same Liubasha, for whom he acquired a predilection," she said, looking at Maslova.
It seemed to Nekhludoff that Maslova smiled at this, and the smile seemed to him disgusting. A strange feeling of squeamishness mingled with compassion rose in his breast.
"What opinion did you entertain of Maslova?" timidly and blushingly asked the attorney assigned by the court to defend Maslova.
"Very excellent," answered Kitaeva. "The girl is very well educated and elegant in her manners. She was raised in a very good family, and could read French. She sometimes drank a little too much, but she never forgot herself. She is a very good girl."
Katiousha looked at her mistress, then suddenly turned her eyes on the jury and rested them on Nekhludoff, her face becoming serious and even stern. One of the stern eyes squinted. These strangely gazing eyes were turned on Nekhludoff for a considerable time. Notwithstanding the terror that seized him, he could not remove his own gaze from those squinting eyes with their shining whites. He recalled that awful night with the breaking ice, the fog, and especially that waning, upturned moon which rose in the morning and lit up something dark and terrible. These two black eyes which looked at and at the same time by him reminded him of something dark and terrible.
"She recognized me!" he thought. And Nekhludoff shrank, as it were, waiting for the blow. But she did not recognize him. She sighed calmly and again fixed her eyes on the justiciary. Nekhludoff also sighed. "Ah, if they would only hasten it through," he thought. He felt now as he did once when out game shooting, when he was obliged to kill a wounded bird—he was filled with disgust, pity and vexation. The wounded bird is struggling in the game bag; he feels disgust and pity, and wishes to kill it quickly and forget it.
Such mingled feelings filled Nekhludoff's breast as he sat listening to the examination of the witnesses.
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