Resurrection. Leo Tolstoy
is quite true, Mr. Crooks plays remarkably well."
Nekhludoff had come here in order to distract his thoughts, for he used to like being in this house, both because its refined luxury had a pleasant effect on him and because of the atmosphere of tender flattery that unobtrusively surrounded him. But to-day everything in the house was repulsive to him--everything: beginning with the doorkeeper, the broad staircase, the flowers, the footman, the table decorations, up to Missy herself, who to-day seemed unattractive and affected. Kolosoff`s self-assured, trivial tone of liberalism was unpleasant, as was also the sensual, self-satisfied, bull-like appearance of old Korchagin, and the French phrases of Katerina Alexeevna, the Slavophil. The constrained looks of the governess and the student were unpleasant, too, but most unpleasant of all was the pronoun HIM that Missy had used. Nekhludoff had long been wavering between two ways of regarding Missy; sometimes he looked at her as if by moonlight, and could see in her nothing but what was beautiful, fresh, pretty, clever and natural; then suddenly, as if the bright sun shone on her, he saw her defects and could not help seeing them. This was such a day for him. To-day he saw all the wrinkles of her face, knew which of her teeth were false, saw the way her hair was crimped, the sharpness of her elbows, and, above all, how large her thumb-nail was and how like her father`s.
"Tennis is a dull game," said Kolosoff; "we used to play lapta when we were children. That was much more amusing."
"Oh, no, you never tried it; it`s awfully interesting," said Missy, laying, it seemed to Nekhludoff, a very affected stress on the word "awfully." Then a dispute arose in which Michael Sergeivitch, Katerina Alexeevna and all the others took part, except the governess, the student and the children, who sat silent and wearied.
"Oh, these everlasting disputes!" said old Korchagin, laughing, and he pulled the napkin out of his waistcoat, noisily pushed back his chair, which the footman instantly ,caught hold of, and left the table.
Everybody rose after him, and went up to another table on which stood glasses of scented water. They rinsed their mouths, then resumed the conversation, interesting to no one.
"Don`t you think so?" said Missy to Nekhludoff, calling for a confirmation of the statement that nothing shows up a man`s character like a game. She noticed that preoccupied and, as it seemed to her, dissatisfied look which she feared, and she wanted to find out what had caused it.
"Really, I can`t tell; I have never thought about it," Nekhludoff answered.
"Will you come to mamma?" asked Missy.
Yes, yes," he said, in a tone which plainly proved that he did not want to go, and took out a cigarette.
She looked at him in silence, with a questioning look, and he felt ashamed. "To come into a house and give the people the dumps," he thought about himself; then, trying to be amiable, said that he would go with pleasure if the princess would admit him.
"Oh, yes! Mamma will be pleased. You may smoke there; and Ivan Ivanovitch is also there."
The mistress of the house, Princess Sophia Vasilievna, was a recumbent lady. It was the eighth year that, when visitors were present, she lay in lace and ribbons, surrounded with velvet, gilding, ivory, bronze, lacquer and flowers, never going out, and only, as she put it, receiving intimate friends, i.e., those who according to her idea stood out from the common herd.
Nekhludoff was admitted into the number of these friends because he was considered clever, because his mother had been an intimate friend of the family, and because it was desirable that Missy should marry him.
Sophia Vasilievna`s room lay beyond the large and the small drawing-rooms. In the large drawing-room, Missy, who was in front of Nekhludoff, stopped resolutely, and taking hold of the back of a small green chair, faced him.
Missy was very anxious to get married, and as he was a suitable match and she also liked him, she had accustomed herself to the thought that he should be hers (not she his). To lose him would be very mortifying. She now began talking to him in order to get him to explain his intentions.
"I see something has happened," she said. "Tell me, what is the matter with you?"
He remembered the meeting in the law court, and frowned and blushed.
"Yes, something has happened," he said, wishing to be truthful; "a very unusual and serious event."
"What is it, then? Can you not tell me what it is?" She was pursuing her aim with that unconscious yet obstinate cunning often observable in the mentally diseased.
"Not now. Please do not ask me to tell you. I have not yet had time fully to consider it," and he blushed still more.
"And so you will not tell me?" A muscle twitched in her face and she pushed back the chair she was holding. "Well then, come!" She shook her head as if to expel useless thoughts, and, faster than usual, went on in front of him.
He fancied that her mouth was unnaturally compressed in order to keep back the tears. He was ashamed of having hurt her, and yet he knew that the least weakness on his part would mean disaster, i.e., would bind him to her. And to-day he feared this more than anything, and silently followed her to the princess`s cabinet.
Chapter XXVII
Princess Sophia Vasilievna, Missy`s mother, had finished her very elaborate and nourishing dinner. (She had it always alone, that no one should see her performing this unpoetical function.) By her couch stood a small table with her coffee, and she was smoking a pachitos. Princess Sophia Vasilievna was a long, thin woman, with dark hair, large black eyes and long teeth, and still pretended to be young.
Her intimacy with the doctor was being talked about. Nekhludoff had known that for some time; but when he saw the doctor sitting by her couch, his oily, glistening beard parted in the middle, he not only remembered the rumours about them, but felt greatly disgusted. By the table, on a low, soft, easy chair, next to Sophia Vasilievna, sat Kolosoff, stirring his coffee. A glass of liqueur stood on the table. Missy came in with Nekhludoff, but did not remain in the room.
"When mamma gets tired of you and drives you away, then come to me," she said, turning to Kolosoff and Nekhludoff, speaking as if nothing had occurred; then she went away, smiling merrily and stepping noiselessly on the thick carpet.
"How do you do, dear friend? Sit down and talk," said Princess Sophia Vasilievna, with her affected but very naturally-acted smile, showing her fine, long teeth--a splendid imitation of what her own had once been. "I hear that you have come from the Law Courts very much depressed. I think it must be very trying to a person with a heart," she added in French.
"Yes, that is so," said Nekhludoff. "One often feels one`s own de--one feels one has no right to judge."
"Comme, c`est vrai," she cried, as if struck by the truth of this remark. She was in the habit of artfully flattering all those with whom she conversed. "Well, and what of your picture? It does interest me so. If I were not such a sad invalid I should have been to see it long ago," she said.
"I have quite given it up," Nekhludoff replied drily. The falseness of her flattery seemed as evident to him to-day as her age, which she was trying to conceal, and he could not put himself into the right state to behave politely.
"Oh, that IS a pity! Why, he has a real talent for art; I have it from Repin`s own lips," she added, turning to Kolosoff.
"Why is it she is not ashamed of lying so?" Nekhludoff thought, and frowned.
When she had convinced herself that Nekhludoff was in a bad temper and that one could not get him into an agreeable and clever conversation, Sophia Vasilievna turned to Kolosoff, asking his opinion of a new play. She asked it in a tone as if Kolosoff`s opinion would decide all doubts, and each word of this opinion be worthy of being immortalised. Kolosoff found fault both with the play and its author, and that led him to express his views on art. Princess Sophia Vasilievna, while trying at the same time to defend the play, seemed impressed by the truth of his arguments, either