At this moment the inner door opened, and Petrov came out, heated and perspiring.
“He’ll remember it,” he muttered, turning to the sergeant major. The latter pointed at Nekhludoff by a look, and Petrov knitted his brows and went out through a door at the back.
“Who will remember it? Why do they all seem so confused? Why did the sergeant-major make a sign to him?” Nekhludoff thought.
The sergeant-major, again addressing Nekhludoff, said: “You cannot meet here; please step across to the office.” And Nekhludoff was about to comply when the inspector came out of the door at the back, looking even more confused than his subordinates, and sighing continually. When he saw Nekhludoff he turned to the jailer.
“Fedotoff, have Maslova, cell 5, women’s ward, taken to the office.”
“Will you come this way, please,” he said, turning to Nekhludoff. They ascended a steep staircase and entered a little room with one window, a writing-table, and a few chairs in it. The inspector sat down.
“Mine are heavy, heavy duties,” he remarked, again addressing Nekhludoff, and took out a cigarette.
“You are tired, evidently,” said Nekhludoff.
“Tired of the whole of the service—the duties are very trying. One tries to lighten their lot and only makes it worse; my only thought is how to get away. Heavy, heavy duties!”
Nekhludoff did not know what the inspector’s particular difficulties were, but he saw that to-day he was in a peculiarly dejected and hopeless condition, calling for pity.
“Yes, I should think the duties were heavy for a kind-hearted man,” he said. “Why do you serve in this capacity?”
“I have a family.”
“But, if it is so hard—”
“Well, still you know it is possible to be of use in some measure; I soften down all I can. Another in my place would conduct the affairs quite differently. Why, we have more than 2,000 persons here. And what persons! One must know how to manage them. It is easier said than done, you know. After all, they are also men; one cannot help pitying them.” The inspector began telling Nekhludoff of a fight that had lately taken place among the convicts, which had ended by one man being killed.
The story was interrupted by the entrance of Maslova, who was accompanied by a jailer.
Nekhludoff saw her through the doorway before she had noticed the inspector. She was following the warder briskly, smiling and tossing her head. When she saw the inspector she suddenly changed, and gazed at him with a frightened look; but, quickly recovering, she addressed Nekhludoff boldly and gaily.
“How d’you do?” she said, drawling out her words, and smilingly took his hand and shook it vigorously, not like the first time.
“Here, I’ve brought you a petition to sign,” said Nekhludoff, rather surprised by the boldness with which she greeted him to-day.
“The advocate has written out a petition which you will have to sign, and then we shall send it to Petersburg.”
“All right! That can be done. Anything you like,” she said, with a wink and a smile.
And Nekhludoff drew a folded paper from his pocket and went up to the table.
“May she sign it here?” asked Nekhludoff, turning to the inspector.
“It’s all right, it’s all right! Sit down. Here’s a pen; you can write?” said the inspector.
“I could at one time,” she said; and, after arranging her skirt and the sleeves of her jacket, she sat down at the table, smiled awkwardly, took the pen with her small, energetic hand, and glanced at Nekhludoff with a laugh.
Nekhludoff told her what to write and pointed out the place where to sign.
Sighing deeply as she dipped her pen into the ink, and carefully shaking some drops off the pen, she wrote her name.
“Is it all?” she asked, looking from Nekhludoff to the inspector, and putting the pen now on the inkstand, now on the papers.
“I have a few words to tell you,” Nekhludoff said, taking the pen from her.
“All right; tell me,” she said. And suddenly, as if remembering something, or feeling sleepy, she grew serious.
The inspector rose and left the room, and Nekhludoff remained with her.
XLVIII
Maslova refuses to marry.
The jailer who had brought Maslova in sat on a window-sill at some distance from them.
The decisive moment had come for Nekhludoff. He had been incessantly blaming himself for not having told her the principal thing at the first interview, and was now determined to tell her that he would marry her. She was sitting at the further side of the table. Nekhludoff sat down opposite her. It was light in the room, and Nekhludoff for the first time saw her face quite near. He distinctly saw the crowsfeet round her eyes, the wrinkles round her mouth, and the swollen eyelids. He felt more sorry than before. Leaning over the table so as not to be heard by the jailer—a man of Jewish type with grizzly whiskers, who sat by the window—Nekhludoff said:
“Should this petition come to nothing we shall appeal to the Emperor. All that is possible shall be done.”
“There, now, if we had had a proper advocate from the first,” she interrupted. “My defendant was quite a silly. He did nothing but pay me compliments,” she said, and laughed. “If it had then been known that I was acquainted with you, it would have been another matter. They think every one’s a thief.”
“How strange she is to-day,” Nekhludoff thought, and was just going to say what he had on his mind when she began again:
“There’s something I want to say. We have here an old woman; such a fine one, d’you know, she just surprises every one; she is imprisoned for nothing, and her son, too, and everybody knows they are innocent, though they are accused of having set fire to a house. D’you know, hearing I was acquainted with you, she says: ‘Tell him to ask to see my son; he’ll tell him all about it.“ ‘ Thus spoke Maslova, turning her head from side to side, and glancing at Nekhludoff. “Their name’s Menshoff. Well, will you do it? Such a fine old thing, you know; you can see at once she’s innocent. You’ll do it, there’s a dear,” and she smiled, glanced up at him, and then cast down her eyes.
“All right. I’ll find out about them,” Nekhludoff said, more and more astonished by her free—and-easy manner. “But I was going to speak to you about myself. Do you remember what I told you last time?”
“You said a lot last time. What was it you told me?” she said, continuing to smile and to turn her head from side to side.
“I said I had come to ask you to forgive me,” he began.
“What’s the use of that? Forgive, forgive, where’s the good of—”
“To atone for my sin, not by mere words, but in deed. I have made up my mind to marry you.”
An expression of fear suddenly came over her face. Her squinting eyes remained fixed on him, and yet seemed not to be looking at him.
“What’s that for?” she said, with an angry frown.
“I feel that it is my duty before God to do it.”
“What God have you found now? You are not saying what you ought to. God, indeed! What God? You ought to have remembered God then,” she said, and stopped with her mouth open. It was only now that Nekhludoff noticed that her breath smelled of spirits, and that he understood the cause of her excitement.
“Try and be calm,” he said.
“Why should I be calm?” she began, quickly, flushing scarlet. “I am a convict, and you are a gentleman and a prince. There’s no need for you to soil yourself by touching me. You go to your princesses; my price is a ten-rouble note.”
“However cruelly you may speak, you cannot express what I myself am feeling,” he said, trembling all over; “you cannot imagine to what extent I feel myself guilty towards you.”
“Feel yourself guilty?” she said, angrily mimicking him. “You did not feel so then, but threw me 100 roubles. That’s your price.”
“I know, I know; but what is to be done now?” said Nekhludoff. “I have decided not to leave you, and what I have said I shall do.”