“The shortcomings of the penitentiary system in nowise invalidate the law itself,” Rogózhinsky continued again, without heeding his brother-in-law.
“There is no remedy for these shortcomings,” said Nekhlúdoff, raising his voice.
“What of that? Shall we therefore go and kill, or, as a certain statesman proposed, go putting out people’s eyes?” Rogózhinsky remarked.
“Yes; that would be cruel, but it would be effective. What is done now is cruel, and not only ineffective, but so stupid that one cannot understand how people in their senses can take part in so absurd and cruel a business as criminal law.”
“But I happen to take part in it,” said Rogózhinsky, growing pale.
“That is your business. But to me it is incomprehensible.”
“I think there are a good many things incomprehensible to you,” said Rogózhinsky, with a trembling voice.
“I have seen how one public prosecutor did his very best to get an unfortunate boy condemned, who could have evoked nothing but sympathy in an unperverted mind. I know how another cross-examined a sectarian and put down the reading of the Gospels as a criminal offence; in fact, the whole business of the Law Courts consists in senseless and cruel actions of that sort.”
“I should not serve if I thought so,” said Rogózhinsky, rising.
Nekhlúdoff noticed a peculiar glitter under his brother-in-law’s spectacles. “Can it be tears?” he thought. And they were really tears of injured pride. Rogózhinsky went up to the window, got out his handkerchief, coughed and rubbed his spectacles, took them off, and wiped his eyes.
When he returned to the sofa he lit a cigar, and did not speak any more.
Nekhlúdoff felt pained and ashamed of having offended his brother-in-law and his sister to such a degree, especially as he was going away the next day.
He parted with them in confusion, and drove home.
“All I have said may be true—anyhow he did not reply. But it was not said in the right way. How little I must have changed if I could be carried away by ill-feeling to such an extent as to hurt and wound poor Nathalie in such a way!” he thought.
XXXIV
The gang of prisoners, among whom was Máslova, was to leave Moscow by rail at 3 p.m.; therefore, in order to see the gang start, and walk to the station with the prisoners Nekhlúdoff meant to reach the prison before twelve o’clock.
The night before, as he was packing up and sorting his papers, he came upon his diary, and read some bits here and there. The last bit written before he left for Petersburg ran thus: “Katúsha does not wish to accept my sacrifice; she wishes to make a sacrifice herself. She has conquered, and so have I. She makes me happy by the inner change, which seems to me, though I fear to believe it, to be going on in her. I fear to believe it, yet she seems to be coming back to life.” Then further on he read. “I have lived through something very hard and very joyful. I learnt that she has behaved very badly in the hospital, and I suddenly felt great pain. I never expected that it could be so painful. I spoke to her with loathing and hatred, then all of a sudden I called to mind how many times I have been, and even still am, though but in thought, guilty of the thing that I hated her for, and immediately I became disgusting to myself, and pitied her and felt happy again. If only we could manage to see the beam in our own eye in time, how kind we should be.” Then he wrote: “I have been to see Nathalie, and again self-satisfaction made me unkind and spiteful, and a heavy feeling remains. Well, what is to be done? Tomorrow a new life will begin. A final goodbye to the old! Many new impressions have accumulated, but I cannot yet bring them to unity.”
When he awoke the next morning Nekhlúdoff’s first feeling was regret about the affair between him and his brother-in-law.
“I cannot go away like this,” he thought. “I must go and make it up with them.” But when he looked at his watch he saw that he had not time to go, but must hurry so as not to be too late for the departure of the gang. He hastily got everything ready, and sent the things to the station with a servant and Tarás, Theodosia’s husband, who was going with them. Then he took the first isvóstchik he could find and drove off to the prison.
The prisoners’ train started two hours before the train by which he was going, so Nekhlúdoff paid his bill in the lodgings and left for good.
It was July, and the weather was unbearably hot. From the stones, the walls, the iron of the roofs, which the sultry night had not cooled, the heat streamed into the motionless air. When at rare intervals a slight breeze did arise, it brought but a whiff of hot air filled with dust and smelling of oil paint.
There were few people in the streets, and those who were out tried to keep on the shady side. Only the sunburnt peasants, with their bronzed faces and bark shoes on their feet, who were mending the road, sat hammering the stones into the burning sand in the sun; while the policemen, in their holland blouses, with revolvers fastened with orange cords, stood melancholy and depressed in the middle of the road, changing from foot to foot; and the tramcars, the horses of which wore holland hoods on their heads, with slits for the ears, kept passing up and down the sunny road with ringing bells.
When Nekhlúdoff drove up to the prison the gang had not left the yard. The work of delivering and receiving the prisoners that had commenced at 4 a.m. was still going on. The gang was to consist of six hundred and twenty-three men and sixty-four women; they had all to be
