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

to sacrifice all on moral grounds, and marry her, again made him feel very tender towards himself. Concerning money matters he resolved this morning to arrange them in accord with his conviction, that the holding of landed property was unlawful. Even if he should not be strong enough to give up everything, he would still do what he could, not deceiving himself or others.

It was long since he had met the coming day with so much energy. When Agraphéna Petróvna came in, he told her, with more firmness than he thought himself capable of, that he no longer needed this lodging nor her services. There had been a tacit understanding that he was keeping up so large and expensive an establishment because he was thinking of getting married. The giving up of the house had, therefore, a special meaning. Agraphéna Petróvna looked at him in surprise.

“I thank you very much, Agraphéna Petróvna, for all your care for me, but I no longer require so large a house nor so many servants. If you wish to help me, be so good as to settle about the things, put them away as it used to be done during mamma’s life, and when Natásha comes she will see to everything.” Natásha was Nekhlúdoff’s sister.

Agraphéna Petróvna shook her head. “See about the things? Why, they’ll be required again,” she said.

“No, they won’t, Agraphéna Petróvna; I assure you they won’t be required,” said Nekhlúdoff, in answer to what the shaking of her head had expressed. “Please tell Cornéy also that I shall pay him two months’ wages, but shall have no further need of him.”

“It is a pity, Dmítri Ivánovitch, that you should think of doing this,” she said. “Well, supposing you go abroad, still you’ll require a place of residence again.”

“You are mistaken in your thoughts, Agraphéna Petróvna; I am not going abroad. If I go on a journey, it will be to quite a different place.” He suddenly blushed very red. “Yes, I must tell her,” he thought; “no hiding; everybody must be told.”

“A very strange and important thing happened to me yesterday. Do you remember my Aunt Mary Ivánovna’s Katúsha?”

“Oh, yes. Why, I taught her how to sew.”

“Well, this Katúsha was tried in the Court and I was on the jury.”

“Oh, Lord! What a pity!” cried Agraphéna Petróvna. “What was she being tried for?”

“Murder; and it is all my doing.”

“Well, now this is very strange; how could it be all your doing?”

“Yes, I am the cause of it all; and it is this that has altered all my plans.”

“What difference can it make to you?”

“This difference: that I, being the cause of her getting on to that path, must do all I can to help her.”

“That is just according to your own good pleasure; you are not particularly in fault there. It happens to everyone, and if one’s reasonable, it all gets smoothed over and forgotten,” she said, seriously and severely. “Why should you place it to your account? There’s no need. I had already heard before that she had strayed from the right path. Well, whose fault is it?”

“Mine! that’s why I want to put it right.”

“It is hard to put right.”

“That is my business. But if you are thinking about yourself, then I will tell you that, as mamma expressed the wish⁠—”

“I am not thinking about myself. I have been so bountifully treated by the dear defunct, that I desire nothing. Lísenka” (her married niece) “has been inviting me, and I shall go to her when I am not wanted any longer. Only it is a pity you should take this so to heart; it happens to everybody.”

“Well, I do not think so. And I still beg that you will help me let this lodging and put away the things. And please do not be angry with me. I am very, very grateful to you for all you have done.”

And, strangely, from the moment Nekhlúdoff realised that it was he who was so bad and disgusting to himself, others were no longer disgusting to him; on the contrary, he felt a kindly respect for Agraphéna Petróvna, and for Cornéy.

He would have liked to go and confess to Cornéy also, but Cornéy’s manner was so insinuatingly deferential that he had not the resolution to do it.

On the way to the Law Courts, passing along the same streets with the same isvóstchik as the day before, he was surprised what a different being he felt himself to be. The marriage with Missy, which only yesterday seemed so probable, appeared quite impossible now. The day before he felt it was for him to choose, and had no doubts that she would be happy to marry him; today he felt himself unworthy not only of marrying, but even of being intimate with her. “If she only knew what I am, nothing would induce her to receive me. And only yesterday I was finding fault with her because she flirted with N⁠⸺. Anyhow, even if she consented to marry me, could I be, I won’t say happy, but at peace, knowing that the other was here in prison, and would today or tomorrow be taken to Siberia with a gang of other prisoners, while I accepted congratulations and made calls with my young wife; or while I count the votes at the meetings, for and against the motion brought forward by the rural inspection, etc., together with the maréchal de noblesse, whom I abominably deceive, and afterwards make appointments with his wife (how abominable!) or while I continue to work at my picture, which will certainly never get finished? Besides, I have no business to waste time on such things. I can do nothing of the kind now,” he continued to himself, rejoicing at the change he felt within himself. “The first thing now is to see the advocate and find out his decision, and then⁠ ⁠… then go and see her and tell her everything.”

And when he pictured to himself how