The following year he revised the book from the printed proofs, changing everything, as usual—crossing out whole pages and filling the margins and reverse sides with innumerable additions. At their wit's end, the publishers begged him to forgo some of his revisions; the book was coming out in a weekly review and the slightest delay in sending his copy might hold up publication. Letters and telegrams rained down 011 the desk of the overscrupulous author. To help with the revision he enlisted Sonya, his daughters, Obolensky and the alcoholic scribe Ivanov. Visiting friends occasionally joined the family team. One of them, Goldenwciscr, described the work in the following tenns: "The corrections of the proofs revised by Leo Nikolayevich, which are used as a rough draft, must be copied over onto a clean set of proofs, in two copics. The 'draft proofs' stay in the house, the 'clean proofs' arc sent to Marx, for Niva, and to Chertkov in England. It is interesting work, but exacting and difficult. To replace one sheet of proofs it is sometimes necessary to copy over three or four long pages. Leo Nikolayevich's corrections are often written so close together that they can only be made out with a magnifying glass."10
The publication of Resurrection in Niva began on March 13, 1899. while Tolstoy was still retouching and expanding the final pages of his manuscript. The imperial censor worried the book like a bone, but even in its amputated and watered-down form, its impact on the public was overwhelming from the very first issues.
In the story of Nckhlyudov, who recognizes the prostitute Katyusha Mazlova as the young peasant girl he seduced long ago and is then impelled by guilt to follow her to Siberia, Tolstoy is indicting the whole of modern society. But whereas in War and Peace and Anna Karenina the pace of the novel was slowed by philosophical and historical digressions, here the author rushes straight ahead, without pausing oncc to becomc entangled in secondary plots. As we move from cliaptcr to chapter we see only Mazlova and Nekhlvudov, at grips with the iniquity, poverty and squalor of the world. They form a pair of "reporters" whom we follow into the hell of criminal justice— "reporters" who are the victims of the universe they unmask. This universe—a place of stench and darkness—begins just on the other side of the paneled walls of drawing rooms, the gilded triptychs in the churches and the marble halls of the law courts. In denouncing the filth camouflaged by this opulent stage-setting, Tolstoy employs a technique of pitiless observation and a brutal style in which every word is calculated to sting the reader to the quick.
First of all, he wants to open his contemporaries' eyes to the prc- posterousness of the imperial institutions. Seen from the wings, the hearing in the court of assizes is enough to finish off the magistracy.
"The president of the court was a big, heavy man who wore long, grizzled side-whiskers. Although married, he lived in a very dissolute fashion, as did his wife. They did not interfere with one another. That morning he had received a message from a Swiss governess who had spent the previous summer with them and was passing through town on her way to St. Petersburg, informing him that she would expect him between three and six at the Italian Hotel. He was accordingly anxious to begin the hearing without delay." To limber up a little before going into court, he does a few turns on the bar in his office. One of his assistants has just quarreled with his wife, the other is worried about his stomach complaint. And yet when they come into the courtroom, these dregs of humanity, propped up by their stiffly starchcd robes, are supposed to intimidate both prisoners and public. The com- cdy continues with the parade of jurymen before a "little old priest with a swollen yellow face, wearing a brown cassock and a golden cross on his breast and some other little decoration pinned on one side." This holy man, who has been officiating for forty-six years, is proud to be working "for the good of Church, State and family; to his own family he was planning to leave a capital of thirty thousand rubles in stocks and bonds, in addition to a house." "His task," the author continues, "consists in administering oaths upon the Gospels, which expressly forbid it."
Still more ruthless is his description of the divine service in a prison: 'The mass consisted of the following procedure: the priest, having decked himself out in a special brocade costume, odd-looking and highly uncomfortable, cut some bread into little pieces which he arranged 011 a plate, before dipping them into a goblet of wine as he uttered various names and prayers. The sacristan, meanwhile, read and sang, alternating with the choir of prisoners, numerous orisons in Slavonic, which were hard enough to understand in themselves and were rendered totally unintelligible by the breakneck pace at which he recited them. The chief object of these prayers was to ask God's blessing upon the emperor and his family." Ilere is the communion: "The priest lifted the napkin covering the plate, cut the central piece of bread into four parts, dipped it in the wine and then put it into his mouth. He was supposed to be eating a piece of the body of God and drinking a mouthful of his blood." After distributing "this bread" and "this wine" among the faithful congregated in front of him, "he carried the goblet behind the partition where he proceeded to eat up all the little pieces of God's body and drink the remaining blood; then he carefully sucked on his mustache, wiped his mouth, clcancd the cup and, feeling very chipper, the thin soles of his calfskin boots creaking smartly, strode resolutely forth."
Sonya was so offended by this passage that after correcting the proofs she wrote in her diary, "I am revolted by his intentionally cynical description of the Orthodox mass. For instance, the place where the priest holds up a gilded cross to the people, 'representing the gallows on which Jesus Christ was executed.' For him, the communion is nothing but bread crumbled into a cup. It is all absurd and cynical, in my opinion, it is nothing but a crude attack on those who have faith, and it disgusts me."11
Naturally, neither prcist, deacon, prison governor, wardens nor prisoners would dream of supposing that what goes on in church is "monstrous and sacrilegious/' "a practical joke played on Christ." For the priests, the ritual hides the truth—just as civil servants have regulations in place of a heart. In his efforts to alleviate the sufferings of Katyusha Mazlova and the other convicts, Nckhlyudov comes into conflict with every possible representative of bureaucracy. Count Charsky, ex- minister, is a perfect example of a parasite, always on the lookout for some unearned preferment or perquisite. "lie had been convinced from earliest childhood that just as it is natural for a bird to eat worms, bear feathers and fly, so it was natural for him to feed on costly dishes prepared by famous cooks, dress in elegant and luxurious clothes and have the most handsome and swiftest horses." General Kriegsmuth, commander of the Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress, has been decorated twice, the first time in the Caucasus "because he had killed thousands of natives who were defending their freedom, their homes and their families" and the second time because he had facilitated the crimes of the Russian peasants in Poland. "Nekhlyudov listened to the rasping old voice, stared at the stiff limbs and lifeless eyes beneath the white eyebrows, the pendent shaven jowls supported by the military collar, and the white cross in which he took such evident pride because he had earned it for massacring people in particularly gruesome circumstances, and he realized that it was utterly useless to make any answer to this old man or to explain the meaning of his words." The chief attraction in this gallery of monsters, however, is Toporov, a caricature of Pobye- donostsev, the minister for religious affairs. Shown here with his big skull, blue-veined hands, and lips folded into an ingratiating smirk, he is cold, narrow-minded, hypocritical and cruel, encouraging superstition while feigning to defend the faith.