Tolstoy, Leo - Resurrection

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The Resurrection

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RESURRECTION

BY LEO TOLSTOY

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The Resurrection

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Translated by

MRS. LOUISE MAUDE

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

Opinions about Tolstoy and his work differ, but on one point

there surely might be unanimity. A writer of world-wide

reputation should be at least allowed to know how to spell his

own name. Why should any one insist on spelling it "Tolstoi"

(with one, two or three dots over the "i"), when he himself

writes it "Tolstoy"? The only reason I have ever heard suggested

is, that in England and America such outlandish views are

attributed to him, that an outlandish spelling is desirable to

match those views.

This novel, written in the rough by Tolstoy some years ago and

founded upon an actual occurrence, was completely rewritten by

him during the last year and a half, and all the proceeds have

been devoted by him to aiding the Doukhobors, a sect who were

persecuted in the Caucasus (especially from 1895 to 1898) for

refusing to learn war. About seven thousand three hundred of them

are settled in Canada, and about a hundred of the leaders are

exiled to the remote parts of Siberia.

Anything I may receive for my work in translating the book will

go to the same cause. "Prevention is better than cure," and I

would rather help people to abstain from killing and wounding

each other than devote the money to patch up their wounds after

the battle.

LOUISE MAUDE

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RESURRECTION

CHAPTER I.

MASLOVA IN PRISON.

Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to

disfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded

together, by paying the ground with stones, scraping away every

vestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds

and beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and

coal, still spring was spring, even in the town.

The sun shone warm, the air was balmy; everywhere, where it did

not get scraped away, the grass revived and sprang up between the

paving-stones as well as on the narrow strips of lawn on the

boulevards. The birches, the poplars, and the wild cherry

unfolded their gummy and fragrant leaves, the limes were

expanding their opening buds; crows, sparrows, and pigeons,

filled with the joy of spring, were getting their nests ready;

the flies were buzzing along the walls, warmed by the sunshine.

All were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the

children. But men, grown-up men and women, did not leave off

cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. It was not

this spring morning men thought sacred and worthy of

consideration not the beauty of God's world, given for a joy to

all creatures, this beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to

harmony, and to love, but only their own devices for enslaving

one another.

Thus, in the prison office of the Government town, it was not the

fact that men and animals had received the grace and gladness of

spring that was considered sacred and important, but that a

notice, numbered and with a superscription, had come the day

before, ordering that on this 28th day of April, at 9 a.m., three

prisoners at present detained in the prison, a man and two women

(one of these women, as the chief criminal, to be conducted

separately), had to appear at Court. So now, on the 28th of

April, at 8 o'clock, a jailer and soon after him a woman warder

with curly grey hair, dressed in a jacket with sleeves trimmed

with gold, with a blue-edged belt round her waist, and having a

look of suffering on her face, came into the corridor.

"You want Maslova?" she asked, coming up to the cell with the

jailer who was on duty.

The jailer, rattling the iron padlock, opened the door of the

cell, from which there came a whiff of air fouler even than that

in the corridor, and called out, "Maslova! to the Court," and

closed the door again.

Even into the prison yard the breeze had brought the fresh

vivifying air from the fields. But in the corridor the air was

laden with the germs of typhoid, the smell of sewage,

putrefaction, and tar; every newcomer felt sad and dejected in

it. The woman warder felt this, though she was used to bad air.

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She had just come in from outside, and entering the corridor, she

at once became sleepy.

From inside the cell came the sound of bustle and women's voices,

and the patter of bare feet on the floor.

"Now, then, hurry up, Maslova, I say!" called out the jailer, and

in a minute or two a small young woman with a very full bust came

briskly out of the door and went up to the jailer. She had on a

grey cloak over a white jacket and petticoat. On her feet she

wore linen stockings and prison shoes, and round her head was

tied a white kerchief, from under which a few locks of black hair

were brushed over the forehead with evident intent. The face of

the woman was of that whiteness peculiar to people who have lived

long in confinement, and which puts one in mind of shoots of

potatoes that spring up in a cellar. Her small broad hands and

full neck, which showed from under the broad collar of her cloak,

were of the same hue. Her black, sparkling eyes, one with a

slight squint, appeared in striking contrast to the dull pallor

of her face.

She carried herself very straight, expanding her full bosom.

With her head slightly thrown back, she stood in the corridor,

looking straight into the eyes of the jailer, ready to comply

with any order.

The jailer was about to lock the door when a wrinkled and

severe-looking old woman put out her grey head and began speaking

to Maslova. But the jailer closed the door, pushing the old

woman's head with it. A woman's laughter was heard from the cell,

and Maslova smiled, turning to the little grated opening in the

cell door. The old woman pressed her face to the grating from the

other side, and said, in a hoarse voice:

"Now mind, and when they begin questioning you, just repeat over

the same thing, and stick to it; tell nothing that is not

wanted."

"Well, it could not be worse than it is now, anyhow; I only wish

it was settled one way or another."

"Of course, it will be settled one way or another," said the

jailer, with a superior's self-assured witticism. "Now, then, get

along! Take your places!"

The old woman's eyes vanished from the grating, and Maslova

stepped out into the middle of the corridor. The warder in front,

they descended the stone stairs, past the still fouler, noisy

cells of the men's ward, where they were followed by eyes looking

out of every one of the gratings in the doors, and entered the

office, where two soldiers were waiting to escort her. A clerk

who was sitting there gave one of the soldiers a paper reeking of

tobacco, and pointing to the prisoner, remarked, "Take her."

The soldier, a peasant from Nijni Novgorod, with a red,

pock-marked face, put the paper into the sleeve of his coat,

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winked to his companion, a broad-shouldered Tchouvash, and then

the prisoner and the soldiers went to the front entrance, out of

the prison yard, and through the town up the middle of the

roughly-paved street.

Isvostchiks [cabmen], tradespeople, cooks, workmen,

and government clerks, stopped and looked curiously at the

prisoner; some shook their heads and thought, "This is what evil

conduct, conduct unlike ours, leads to." The children stopped and

gazed at the robber with frightened looks; but the thought that

the soldiers were preventing her from doing more harm quieted

their fears. A peasant, who had sold his charcoal, and had had

some tea in the town, came up, and, after crossing himself, gave

her a copeck. The prisoner blushed and muttered something; she

noticed that she was attracting everybody's attention, and that

pleased her. The comparatively fresh air also gladdened her, but

it was painful to step on the rough stones with the ill-made

prison shoes on her feet, which had become unused to walking.

Passing by a corn-dealer's shop, in front of which a few pigeons

were strutting about, unmolested by any one, the prisoner almost

touched a grey-blue bird with her foot; it fluttered up and flew

close to her car, fanning her with its wings. She smiled, then

sighed deeply as she remembered her present position.

CHAPTER II.

MASLOVA'S EARLY LIFE.

The story of the prisoner Maslova's life was a very common one.

Maslova's mother was the unmarried daughter of a village woman,

employed on a dairy farm, which belonged to two maiden ladies who

were landowners. This unmarried woman had a baby every year, and,

as often happens among the village people, each one of these

undesired babies, after it had been carefully baptised, was

neglected by its mother, whom it hindered at her work, and left

to starve. Five children had died in this way. They had all been

baptised and then not sufficiently fed, and just left to die.

The sixth baby, whose father was a gipsy tramp, would have shared

the same fate, had it not so happened that one of the maiden

ladies came into the farmyard to scold the dairymaids for sending

up cream that smelt of the cow. The young woman was lying in the

cowshed with a fine, healthy, new-born baby. The old maiden lady

scolded the maids again for allowing the woman (who had just been

confined) to lie in the cowshed, and was about to go away, but

seeing the baby her heart was touched, and she offered to stand

godmother to the little girl, and pity for her little

god-daughter induced her to give milk and a little money to the

mother, so that she should feed the baby; and the little girl

lived. The old ladies spoke of her as "the saved one." When the

child was three years old, her mother fell ill and died, and the

maiden ladies took the child from her old grandmother, to whom

she was nothing but a burden.

The little black-eyed maiden grew to be extremely pretty, and so

full of spirits that the ladies found her very entertaining.

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The younger of the ladies, Sophia Ivanovna, who had stood

godmother to the girl, had the kinder heart of the two sisters;

Maria Ivanovna, the elder, was rather hard. Sophia Ivanovna

dressed the little girl in nice clothes, and taught her to read

and write, meaning to educate her like a lady. Maria Ivanovna

thought the child should be brought up to work, and trained her

to be a good servant. She was exacting; she punished, and, when

in a bad temper, even struck the little girl. Growing up under

these two different influences, the girl turned out half servant,

half young lady. They called her Katusha, which sounds less

refined than Katinka, but is not quite so common as Katka. She

used to sew, tidy up the rooms, polish the metal cases of the

icons and do other light work, and sometimes she sat and read to

the ladies.

Though she had more than one offer, she would not marry. She felt

that life as the wife of any of the working men who were courting

her would be too hard; spoilt as she was by a life of case.

She lived in this manner till she was sixteen, when the nephew of

the old ladies, a rich young prince, and a university student,

came to stay with his aunts, and Katusha, not daring to

acknowledge it even to herself, fell in love with him.

Then two years later this same nephew stayed four days with his

aunts before proceeding to join his regiment, and the night

before he left he betrayed Katusha, and, after giving her a

100-rouble note, went away. Five months later she knew for

certain that she was to be a mother. After that everything seemed

repugnant to her, her only thought being how to escape from the

shame that awaited her. She began not only to serve the ladies in

a half-hearted and negligent way, but once, without knowing how

it happened, was very rude to them, and gave them notice, a thing

she repented of later, and the ladies let her go, noticing

something wrong and very dissatisfied with her. Then she got a

housemaid's place in a police-officer's house, but stayed there

only three months, for the police officer, a man of fifty, began

to torment her, and once, when he was in a specially enterprising

mood, she fired up, called him "a fool and old devil," and gave

him such a knock in the chest that he fell. She was turned out

for her rudeness. It was useless to look for another situation,

for the time of her confinement was drawing near, so she went to

the house of a village midwife, who also sold wine. The

confinement was easy; but the midwife, who had a case of fever in

the village, infected Katusha, and her baby boy had to be sent to

the foundlings' hospital, where, according to the words of the

old woman who took him there, he at once died. When Katusha went

to the midwife she had 127 roubles in all, 27 which she had

earned and 100 given her by her betrayer. When she left she had

but six roubles; she did not know how to keep money, but spent it

on herself, and gave to all who asked. The midwife took 40

roubles for two months' board and attendance, 25 went to get the

baby into the foundlings' hospital, and 40 the midwife borrowed

to buy a cow with. Twenty roubles went just for clothes and

dainties. Having nothing left to live on, Katusha had to look out

for a place again, and found one in the house of a forester. The

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forester was a married man, but he, too, began to annoy her from

the first day. He disgusted her, and she tried to avoid him. But

he, more experienced and cunning, besides being her master, who

could send her wherever he liked, managed to accomplish his

object. His wife found it out, and, catching Katusha and her

husband in a room all by themselves, began beating her. Katusha

defended herself, and they had a fight, and Katusha got turned

out of the house without being paid her wages.

Then Katusha went to live with her aunt in town. The aunt's

husband, a bookbinder, had once been comfortably off, but had

lost all his customers, and had taken to drink, and spent all he

could lay hands on at the public-house. The aunt kept a little

laundry, and managed to support herself, her children, and her

wretched husband. She offered Katusha the place of an assistant

laundress; but seeing what a life of misery and hardship her

aunt's assistants led, Katusha hesitated, and applied to a

registry office for a place. One was found for her with a lady

who lived with her two sons, pupils at a public day school. A

week after Katusha had entered the house the elder, a big fellow

with moustaches, threw up his studies and made love to her,

continually following her about. His mother laid all the blame on

Katusha, and gave her notice.

It so happened that, after many fruitless attempts to find a

situation, Katusha again went to the registry office, and there

met a woman with bracelets on her bare, plump arms and rings on

most of her fingers. Hearing that Katusha was badly in want of a

place, the woman gave her her address, and invited her to come to

her house. Katusha went. The woman received her very kindly, set

cake and sweet wine before her, then wrote a note and gave it to

a servant to take to somebody. In the evening a tall man, with

long, grey hair and a white beard, entered the room, and sat down

at once near Katusha, smiling and gazing at her with glistening

eyes. He began joking with her. The hostess called him away into

the next room, and Katusha heard her say, "A fresh one from the

country," Then the hostess called Katusha aside and told her that

the man was an author, and that he had a great deal of money, and

that if he liked her he would not grudge her anything. He did

like her, and gave her 25 roubles, promising to see her often.

The 25 roubles soon went; some she paid to her aunt for board and

lodging; the rest was spent on a hat, ribbons, and such like. A

few days later the author sent for her, and she went. He gave her

another 25 roubles, and offered her a separate lodging.

Next door to the lodging rented for her by the author there lived

a jolly young shopman, with whom Katusha soon fell in love. She

told the author, and moved to a little lodging of her own. The

shopman, who promised to marry her, went to Nijni on business

without mentioning it to her, having evidently thrown her up, and

Katusha remained alone. She meant to continue living in the

lodging by herself, but was informed by the police that in this

case she would have to get a license. She returned to her aunt.

Seeing her fine dress, her hat, and mantle, her aunt no longer

offered her laundry work. As she understood things, her niece had

risen above that sort of thing. The question as to whether she

was to become a laundress or not did not occur to Katusha,

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either. She looked with pity at the thin, hard-worked

laundresses, some already in consumption, who stood washing or

ironing with their thin arms in the fearfully hot front room,

which was always full of soapy steam and draughts from the

windows, and thought with horror that she might have shared the

same fate.

Katusha had begun to smoke some time before, and since the young

shopman had thrown her up she was getting more and more into the

habit of drinking. It was not so much the flavour of wine that

tempted her as the fact that it gave her a chance of forgetting

the misery she suffered, making her feel more unrestrained and

more confident of her own worth, which she was not when quite

sober; without wine she felt sad and ashamed. Just at this time a

woman came along who offered to place her in one of the largest

establishments in the city, explaining all the advantages and

benefits of the situation. Katusha had the choice before her of

either going into service or accepting this offer--and she chose

the latter. Besides, it seemed to her as though, in this way, she

could revenge herself on her betrayer and the shopman and all

those who had injured her. One of the things that tempted her,

and was the cause of her decision, was the woman telling her she

might order her own dresses--velvet, silk, satin, low-necked ball

dresses, anything she liked. A mental picture of herself in a

bright yellow silk trimmed with black velvet with low neck and

short sleeves conquered her, and she gave up her passport. On the

same evening the procuress took an isvostchik and drove her to

the notorious house kept by Carolina Albertovna Kitaeva.

From that day a life of chronic sin against human and divine laws

commenced for Katusha Maslova, a life which is led by hundreds of

thousands of women, and which is not merely tolerated but

sanctioned by the Government, anxious for the welfare of its

subjects; a life which for nine women out of ten ends in painful

disease, premature decrepitude, and death.

Katusha Maslova lived this life for seven years. During these

years she twice changed houses, and had once been to the

hospital. In the seventh year of this life, when she was

twenty-six years old, happened that for which she was put in

prison and for which she was now being taken to be tried, after

more than three months of confinement with thieves and murderers

in the stifling air of a prison.

CHAPTER III.

NEKHLUDOFF.

When Maslova, wearied out by the long walk, reached the building,

accompanied by two soldiers, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff,

who had seduced her, was still lying on his high bedstead, with a

feather bed on the top of the spring mattress, in a fine, clean,

well-ironed linen night shirt, smoking a cigarette, and

considering what he had to do to-day, and what had happened

yesterday.

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Recalling the evening he had spent with the Korchagins, a wealthy

and aristocratic family, whose daughter every one expected he

would marry, he sighed, and, throwing away the end of his

cigarette, was going to take another out of the silver case; but,

changing his mind, he resolutely raised his solid frame, and,

putting down his smooth, white legs, stepped into his slippers,

threw his silk dressing gown over his broad shoulders, and passed

into his dressing-room, walking heavily and quickly. There he

carefully cleaned his teeth, many of which were filled, with

tooth powder, and rinsed his mouth with scented elixir. After

that he washed his hands with perfumed soap, cleaned his long

nails with particular care, then, from a tap fixed to his marble

washstand, he let a spray of cold water run over his face and

stout neck. Having finished this part of the business, he went

into a third room, where a shower bath stood ready for him.

Having refreshed his full, white, muscular body, and dried it

with a rough bath sheet, he put on his fine undergarments and his

boots, and sat down before the glass to brush his black beard and

his curly hair, that had begun to get thin above the forehead.

Everything he used, everything belonging to his toilet, his

linen, his clothes, boots, necktie, pin, studs, was of the best

quality, very quiet, simple, durable and costly.

Nekhludoff dressed leisurely, and went into the dining-room. A

table, which looked very imposing with its four legs carved in

the shape of lions' paws, and a huge side-board to match, stood

in the oblong room, the floor of which had been polished by three

men the day before. On the table, which was covered with a fine,

starched cloth, stood a silver coffeepot full of aromatic coffee,

a sugar basin, a jug of fresh cream, and a bread basket filled

with fresh rolls, rusks, and biscuits; and beside the plate lay

the last number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, a newspaper, and

several letters.

Nekhludoff was just going to open his letters, when a stout,

middle-aged woman in mourning, a lace cap covering the widening

parting of her hair, glided into the room. This was Agraphena

Petrovna, formerly lady's maid to Nekhludoff's mother. Her

mistress had died quite recently in this very house, and she

remained with the son as his housekeeper. Agraphena Petrovna had

spent nearly ten years, at different times, abroad with

Nekhludoff's mother, and had the appearance and manners of a

lady. She had lived with the Nekhludoffs from the time she was a

child, and had known Dmitri Ivanovitch at the time when he was

still little Mitinka.

"Good-morning, Dmitri Ivanovitch."

"Good-morning, Agraphena Petrovna. What is it you want?"

Nekhludoff asked.

"A letter from the princess; either from the mother or the

daughter. The maid brought it some time ago, and is waiting in my

room," answered Agraphena Petrovna, handing him the letter with a

significant smile.

"All right! Directly!" said Nekhludoff, taking the letter and

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frowning as he noticed Agraphena Petrovna's smile.

That smile meant that the letter was from the younger Princess

Korchagin, whom Agraphena Petrovna expected him to marry. This

supposition of hers annoyed Nekhludoff.

"Then I'll tell her to wait?" and Agraphena Petrovna took a crumb

brush which was not in its place, put it away, and sailed out of

the room.

Nekhludoff opened the perfumed note, and began reading it.

The note was written on a sheet of thick grey paper, with rough

edges; the writing looked English. It said:

Having assumed the task of acting as your memory, I take the

liberty of reminding you that on this the 28th day of April you

have to appear at the Law Courts, as juryman, and, in

consequence, can on no account accompany us and Kolosoff to the

picture gallery, as, with your habitual flightiness, you promised

yesterday; a moins que vous ne soyez dispose a payer la cour

d'assise les 300 roubles d'amende que vous vous refusez pour

votre cheval, for not appearing in time. I remembered it last

night after you were gone, so do not forget.

Princess M. Korchagin.

On the other side was a postscript.

Maman vous fait dire que votre convert vous attendra jusqu'a la

nuit. Venez absolument a quelle heure que cela soit.

M. K.

Nekhludoff made a grimace. This note was a continuation of that

skilful manoeuvring which the Princess Korchagin had already

practised for two months in order to bind him closer and closer

with invisible threads. And yet, beside the usual hesitation of

men past their youth to marry unless they are very much in love,

Nekhludoff had very good reasons why, even if he did make up his

mind to it, he could not propose at once. It was not that ten

years previously he had betrayed and forsaken Maslova; he had

quite forgotten that, and he would not have considered it a

reason for not marrying. No! The reason was that he had a liaison

with a married woman, and, though he considered it broken off,

she did not.

Nekhludoff was rather shy with women, and his very shyness

awakened in this married woman, the unprincipled wife of the

marechal de noblesse of a district where Nekhludoff was present

at an election, the desire of vanquishing him. This woman drew

him into an intimacy which entangled him more and more, while it

daily became more distasteful to him. Having succumbed to the

temptation, Nekhludoff felt guilty, and had not the courage to

break the tie without her consent. And this was the reason he did

not feel at liberty to propose to Korchagin even if he had wished

to do so. Among the letters on the table was one from this

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TheResurrectionGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.com1RESURRECTIONBYLEOTOLSTOYGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.comTheResurrectionGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.com2TranslatedbyMRS.LOUISEMAUDETRANSLATOR'SPREFACEOpinionsaboutTolstoyandhisworkdiffer,butononepointtheresurelymightbeunanimity.Awriterofworld-widere...

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Tolstoy, Leo - Resurrection

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