Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy (best sci fi novels of all time TXT) 📕

and went with bare feet along the passage to her door, next to Matróna Pávlovna’s room. He heard Matróna Pávlovna snoring quietly, and was about to go on when she coughed and turned on her creaking bed, and his heart fell, and he stood immovable for about five minutes. When all was quiet and she began to snore peacefully again, he went on, trying to step on the boards that did not creak, and came to Katúsha’s door. There was no sound to be heard. She was probably awake, or else he would have heard her breathing. But as soon as he had whispered “Katúsha” she jumped up and began to persuade him, as if angrily, to go away.

“What do you mean by it? What are you doing? Your aunts will hear.” These were her words, but all her being was saying, “I am all thine.” And it was only this Nekhlúdoff understood.

“Open! Let me in just for a moment! I implore you!” He hardly knew what he was saying.

She was silent; then he heard her hand feeling for the latch. The latch clicked, and he entered the room. He caught hold of her just as she was⁠—in her coarse, hard chemise, with her bare arms⁠—lifted her, and carried her out.

“Oh, dear! What are you about?” she whispered; but he, paying no heed to her words, carried her into his room.

“Oh, don’t; you mustn’t! Let me go!” she said, clinging closer to him.

When she left him, trembling and silent, giving no answer to his words, he again went out into the porch and stood trying to understand the meaning of what had happened.

It was getting lighter. From the river below the creaking and tinkling and sobbing of the breaking ice came still louder and a gurgling sound could now also be heard. The mist had begun to sink, and from above it the waning moon dimly lighted up something black and weird.

“What was the meaning of it all? Was it a great joy or a great misfortune that had befallen him?” he asked himself.

“It happens to everybody⁠—everybody does it,” he said to himself, and went to bed and to sleep.

XVIII

The next day the gay, handsome, and brilliant Schönbock joined Nekhlúdoff at his aunts’ house, and quite won their hearts by his refined and amiable manner, his high spirits, his generosity, and his affection for Dmítri.

But though the old ladies admired his generosity it rather perplexed them, for it seemed exaggerated. He gave a rouble to some blind beggars who came to the gate, gave fifteen roubles in tips to the servants, and when Sophia Ivánovna’s pet dog hurt his paw and it bled, he tore his hemstitched cambric handkerchief into strips (Sophia Ivánovna knew that such handkerchiefs cost at least fifteen roubles a dozen) and bandaged the dog’s foot. The old ladies had never met people of this kind, and did not know that Schönbock owed 200,000 roubles which he was never going to pay, and that therefore twenty-five roubles more or less did not matter a bit to him. Schönbock stayed only one day, and he and Nekhlúdoff both left at night. They could not stay away from their regiment any longer, for their leave was fully up.

At the stage which Nekhlúdoff’s selfish mania had now reached he could think of nothing but himself. He was wondering whether his conduct, if found out, would be blamed much or at all, but he did not consider what Katúsha was now going through, and what was going to happen to her.

He saw that Schönbock guessed his relations to her and this flattered his vanity.

“Ah, I see how it is you have taken such a sudden fancy to your aunts that you have been living nearly a week with them,” Schönbock remarked when he had seen Katúsha. “Well, I don’t wonder⁠—should have done the same. She’s charming.” Nekhlúdoff was also thinking that though it was a pity to go away before having fully gratified the cravings of his love for her, yet the absolute necessity of parting had its advantages because it put a sudden stop to relations it would have been very difficult for him to continue. Then he thought that he ought to give her some money, not for her, not because she might need it, but because it was the thing to do.

So he gave her what seemed to him a liberal amount, considering his and her station. On the day of his departure, after dinner, he went out and waited for her at the side entrance. She flushed up when she saw him and wished to pass by, directing his attention to the open door of the maids’ room by a look, but he stopped her.

“I have come to say goodbye,” he said, crumbling in his hand an envelope with a hundred-rouble note inside. “There, I⁠—”

She guessed what he meant, knit her brows, and shaking her head pushed his hand away.

“Take it; oh, you must!” he stammered, and thrust the envelope into the bib of her apron and ran back to his room, groaning and frowning as if he had hurt himself. And for a long time he went up and down writhing as in pain, and even stamping and groaning aloud as he thought of this last scene. “But what else could I have done? Is it not what happens to everyone? And if everyone does the same⁠ ⁠… well I suppose it can’t be helped.” In this way he tried to get peace of mind, but in vain. The recollection of what had passed burned his conscience. In his soul⁠—in the very depths of his soul⁠—he knew that he had acted in a base, cruel, cowardly manner, and that the knowledge of this act of his must prevent him, not only from finding fault with anyone else, but even from looking straight into other people’s eyes; not to mention the impossibility of considering himself a splendid, noble, high-minded fellow, as he did and