off to these different places.
First he went to Mariette's. He had known her as a half-grown girl, the daughter of an aristocratic but not wealthy family, and had heard how she had married a man who was making a career, whom Nekhludoff had heard badly spoken of; and, as usual, he felt it hard to ask a favour of a man he did not esteem. In these cases he always felt an inner dissension and dissatisfaction, and wavered whether to ask the favour or not, and always resolved to ask. Besides feeling himself in a false position among those to whose set he no longer regarded himself as belonging, who yet regarded him as belonging to them, he felt himself getting into the old accustomed rut, and in spite of himself fell into the thoughtless and immoral tone that reigned in that circle. He felt that from the first, with his aunt, he involuntarily fell into a bantering tone while talking about serious matters.
Petersburg in general affected him with its usual physically invigorating and mentally dulling effect.
Everything so clean, so comfortably well-arranged and the people so lenient in moral matters, that life seemed very easy.
A fine, clean, and polite isvostchik drove him past fine, clean, polite policemen, along the fine, clean, watered streets, past fine, clean houses to the house in which Mariette lived. At the front door stood a pair of English horses, with English harness, and an English-looking coachman on the box, with the lower part of his face shaved, proudly holding a whip. The doorkeeper, dressed in a wonderfully clean livery, opened the door into the hall, where in still cleaner livery with gold cords stood the footman with his splendid whiskers well combed out, and the orderly on duty in a brand-new uniform. 'The general does not receive, and the generaless does not receive either. She is just going to drive out.'
Nekhludoff took out Katerina Ivanovna's letter, and going up to a table on which lay a visitors' book, began to write that he was sorry not to have been able to see any one; when the footman went up the staircase the doorkeeper went out and shouted to the coachman, and the orderly stood up rigid with his arms at his sides following with his eyes a little, slight lady, who was coming down the stairs with rapid steps not in keeping with all the grandeur.
Mariette had a large hat on, with feathers, a black dress and cape, and new black gloves. Her face was covered by a veil.
When she saw Nekhludoff she lifted the veil off a very pretty face with bright eyes that looked inquiringly at him.
'Ah, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff,' she said, with a soft, pleasant voice. 'I should have known—'
'What! you even remember my name?'
'I should think so. Why, I and my sisters have even been in love with you,' she said, in French. 'But, dear me, how you have altered. Oh, what a pity I have to go out. But let us go up again,' she said and stopped hesitatingly. Then she looked at the clock. 'No, I can't. I am going to Kamenskaya's to attend a mass for the dead. She is terribly afflicted.'
'Who is this Kamenskaya?'
'Have you not heard? Her son was killed in a duel. He fought Posen. He was the only son. Terrible I The mother is very much afflicted.'
'Yes. I have heard of it.'
'No, I had better go, and you must come again, to-night or to-morrow,' she said, and went to the door with quick, light steps.
'I cannot come to-night,' he said, going out after her; 'but I have a request to make you,' and he looked at the pair of bays that were drawing up to the front door.
'What is this?'
'This is a letter from aunt to you,' said Nekhludoff, handing her a narrow envelope, with a large crest. 'You'll find all about it in there.'
'I know Countess Katerina Ivanovna thinks I have some influence with my husband in business matters. She is mistaken. I can do nothing and do not like to interfere. But, of course, for you I am willing to be false to my principle. What is this business about?' she said, searching in vain for her pocket with her little black gloved hand.
'There is a girl imprisoned in the fortress, and she is ill and innocent.'
'What is her name?'
'Lydia Shoustova. It's in the note.'
'All right; I'll see what I can do,' she said, and lightly jumped into her little, softly upholstered, open carriage, its brightly-varnished splash-guards glistening in the sunshine, and opened her parasol. The footman got on the box and gave the coachman a sign. The carriage moved, but at that moment she touched the coachman with her parasol and the slim-legged beauties, the bay mares, stopped, bending their beautiful necks and stepping from foot to foot.
'But you must come, only, please, without interested motives,' and she looked at him with a smile, the force of which she well knew, and, as if the performance over and she were drawing the curtain, she dropped the veil over her face again. 'All right,' and she again touched the coachman.
Nekhludoff raised his hat, and the well-bred bays, slightly snorting, set off, their shoes clattering on the pavement, and the carriage rolled quickly and smoothly on its new rubber tyres, giving a jump only now and then over some unevenness of the road.
CHAPTER XVI.
AN UP-TO-DATE SENATOR.
When Nekhludoff remembered the smiles that had passed between him and Mariette, he shook his head.
'You have hardly time to turn round before you are again drawn into this life,' he thought, feeling that discord and those doubts which the necessity to curry favour from people he did not esteem caused.
After considering where to go first, so as not to have to retrace his steps, Nekhludoff set off for the Senate. There he was shown into the office where he found a great many very polite and very clean officials in the midst of a magnificent apartment. Maslova's petition was received and handed on to that Wolf, to whom Nekhludoff had a letter from his uncle, to be examined and reported on.
'There will be a meeting of the Senate this week,' the official said to Nekhludoff, 'but Maslova's case will hardly come before that meeting.'
'It might come before the meeting on Wednesday, by special request,' one of the officials remarked.
During the time Nekhludoff waited in the office, while some information was being taken, he heard that the conversation in the Senate was all about the duel, and he heard a detailed account of how a young man, Kaminski, had been killed. It was here he first heard all the facts of the case which was exciting the interest of all Petersburg. The story was this: Some officers were eating oysters and, as usual, drinking very much, when one of them said something ill-natured about the regiment to which Kaminski belonged, and Kaminski called him a liar. The other hit Kaminski. The next day they fought. Kaminski was wounded in the stomach and died two hours later. The murderer and the seconds were arrested, but it was said that though they were arrested and in the guardhouse they would be set free in a fortnight.
From the Senate Nekhludoff drove to see an influential member of the petition Committee, Baron Vorobioff, who lived in a splendid house belonging to the Crown. The doorkeeper told Nekhludoff in a severe tone that the Baron could not be seen except on his reception days; that he was with His Majesty the Emperor to-day, and the next day he would again have to deliver a report. Nekhludoff left his uncle's letter with the doorkeeper and went on to see the Senator Wolf. Wolf had just had his lunch, and was as usual helping digestion by smoking a cigar and pacing up and down the room, when Nekhludoff came in. Vladimir Vasilievitch Wolf was certainly
