This archive contains 92 texts, with 110,064 words or 665,971 characters.
Book 3, Chapter 10
Nekhludoff, after parting with the Englishman, went straight to his hotel, and walked about his room for a long time. The affair with Katiousha was at an end. There was something ugly in the very memory of it. But it was not that which grieved him. Some other affair of his was yet unsettled—an affair which tortured him and required his attention. In his imagination rose the gloomy scenes of the hundreds and thousands of human beings pent up in the pestiferous air. The laughter of the prisoners resounded in his ears. He saw again among the dead bodies the beautiful, angry, waxen face of the dead Kryltzoff; and the question whether he was mad, or all those who commit those evils and think themselves wise were mad, bore in upon his mind with renewed power, and he found no answer to it. The principal difficulty consisted in finding an answer to the principal question, which was: What should be done with those who became brutalized in the struggle for life? (From : Gutenberg.org.)
Book 3, Chapter 9
Passing through the hall and the ill-smelling corridors, the superintendent passed into the first building of the prison in which those condemned to hard labor were confined. Entering the first room in that building they found the prisoners stretched on their berths, which occupied the middle of the room. Hearing the visitors enter they all jumped down, and, clinking their chains, placed themselves beside their berths, while their half-shaven heads were distinctly set off against the gloom of the prison. Only two of the prisoners remained at their places. One of them was a young man whose face was evidently heated with fever; the other was an old man, who never left off groaning. The Englishman asked whether the young man had been sick for a long time. The superintendent replied that he had been taken sick that very same morning, that the old man had had convulsions for a long time, and that they kept him in prison because there was no place for him in the... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
Book 3, Chapter 8
After the disappointment at the prison, Nekhludoff drove down to the Governor's Bureau to find out whether they had received there any news concerning the pardon of Maslova. There was no news there, so he drove back to his hotel, and wrote at once to the lawyer and to Selenin concerning it. Having finished the letters, he glanced at his watch; it was already time to go to the general. On the way he thought again of how he might hand over the pardon to Katiousha; of the place she would be sent to, and how he would live with her. At dinner in the general's house all were not only very friendly to Nekhludoff, but, as it seemed, very favorably inclined to him, as he was a new, interesting personality. The general, who came in to dinner with a white cross on his breast, greeted Nekhludoff like an old friend. On the general's inquiry as to what he had done since he saw him in the morning, Nekhludoff answered that he had been at the post-office, that... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
Book 3, Chapter 7
"What do you think of him?" said Maria Pablovna. "In love, and earnestly in love! I never thought that Vladimir Simonson could fall in love in such a very stupid, childish fashion. It is remarkable, and to tell the truth, sad," she concluded, sighing. "But Katia? How do you think she will take it?" asked Nekhludoff. "She?" Maria Pablovna stopped, evidently desiring to give a precise answer. "She? You see, notwithstanding her past, she is naturally of a most moral character. And her feelings are so refined. She loves you—very much so—and is happy to be able to do you the negative good of not binding you to herself. Marriage with you would be a dreadful fall to her, worse than all her past. For this reason she would never consent to it. At the same time, your presence perplexes her." "Ought I then to disappear?" asked Nekhludoff. Maria Pablovna smiled in her pleasant, childish way. "Yes, partly." "How ca... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
Book 3, Chapter 6
An officer entered the cell and announced that the time for departing had arrived. He counted every prisoner, pointing at every one with his finger. When he reached Nekhludoff he said, familiarly: "It is too late to remain now, Prince; it is time to go." Nekhludoff, knowing what that meant, approached him and thrust three rubles into his hand. "Nothing can be done with you—stay here a while longer." Simonson, who was all the while silently sitting on his bunk, his hands clasped behind his head, firmly arose, and carefully making his way through those sitting around the bunk, went over to Nekhludoff. "Can you hear me now?" asked Simonson. "Certainly," said Nekhludoff, also rising to follow him. Maslova saw Nekhludoff rising, and their eyes meeting, she turned red in the face and doubtfully, as it seemed, shook her head. "My business with you is the following," began Simonson, when they reached the corr... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
Yes, it was Katiousha. The relations of Nekhludoff to Katiousha were the following: Nekhludoff first met Katiousha when he went to stay one summer out at the estate of his aunts in order that he might quietly prepare his thesis on the private ownership of land. Ordinarily he lived on the estate of his mother, near Moskow, with his mother and sister. But that year his sister married, and his mother went abroad. Nekhludoff had to write a composition in the course of his university studies, and decided to pass the summer at his aunts'. There in the woods it was quiet, and there was nothing to distract him from his studies. Besides, the aunts loved their nephew and heir, and he loved them, loved their old-fashioned way of living. During that su... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
As soon as the first recess was taken, Nekhludoff rose and went out of the court, intending to return no more. They might do with him what they pleased, but he could no longer take part in that farce. Having inquired where the prosecutor's room was, he directed his steps toward that dignitary. The messenger would not admit him, declaring that the prosecutor was busy, but Nekhludoff brushed past him and asked an officer who met him to announce him to the prosecutor, saying that he was on important business. His title and dress helped Nekhludoff. The officer announced him, and he was admitted. The prosecutor received him standing, evidently dissatisfied with Nekhludoff's persistence in seeking an audience with him. "What do you wish?" the pro... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
For a long time that night Maslova lay awake with open eyes, and, looking at the door, mused. She was thinking that under no circumstances would she marry a convict on the island of Saghalin, but would settle down some other way—with some inspector, or clerk, or even the warden, or an assistant. They are all eager for such a thing. "Only I must not get thin. Otherwise I am done for." And she recalled how she was looked at by her lawyer, the justiciary—in fact, everybody in the court-room. She recalled how Bertha, who visited her in prison, told her that the student, whom she loved while she was an inmate at Kitaeva's, inquired about her and expressed his regrets when told of her condition. She recalled the fight with the red-hai... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
The history of the prisoner Maslova was a very common one. Maslova was the daughter of an unmarried menial who lived with her mother, a cowherd, on the estate of two spinsters. This unmarried woman gave birth to a child every year, and, as is the custom in the villages, baptized them; then neglected the troublesome newcomers, and they finally starved to death. Thus five children died. Every one of these was baptized, then it starved and finally died. The sixth child, begotten of a passing gypsy, was a girl, who would have shared the same fate, but it happened that one of the two old maidens entered the cow-shed to reprimand the milkmaids for carelessness in skimming the cream, and there saw the mother with the healthy and beautiful child. T... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
That morning service formed the brightest and most impressive reminiscence of Nekhludoff's after life. The darkness of the night was only relieved here and there by white patches of snow, and as the stallion, splashing through the mud-pools, and his ears pricked up at the sight of the fire-pots surrounding the church, entered its enclosure, the service had already begun. The peasants, recognizing Maria Ivanovna's nephew, led his horse to the driest spot, where he dismounted, then they escorted him to the church filled with a holiday crowd. To the right were the male peasants; old men in homespun coats and bast shoes, and young men in new cloth caftans, bright-colored belts and boots. To the left the women, with red silk 'kerchiefs on their ... (From : Gutenberg.org.)