CHAPTER XLIV.
MASLOVA'S VIEW OF LIFE.
Before the first interview, Nekhludoff thought that when she saw
him and knew of his intention to serve her, Katusha would be
pleased and touched, and would be Katusha again; but, to his
horror, he found that Katusha existed no more, and there was
Maslova in her place. This astonished and horrified him.
What astonished him most was that Katusha was not ashamed of her
position--not the position of a prisoner (she was ashamed of
that), but her position as a prostitute. She seemed satisfied,
even proud of it. And, yet, how could it be otherwise? Everybody,
in order to be able to act, has to consider his occupation
important and good. Therefore, in whatever position a person is,
he is certain to form such a view of the life of men in general
which will make his occupation seem important and good.
It is usually imagined that a thief, a murderer, a spy, a
prostitute, acknowledging his or her profession as evil, is
ashamed of it. But the contrary is true. People whom fate and
their sin-mistakes have placed in a certain position, however
false that position may be, form a view of life in general which
makes their position seem good and admissible. In order to keep
up their view of life, these people instinctively keep to the
circle of those people who share their views of life and their
own place in it. This surprises us, where the persons concerned
are thieves, bragging about their dexterity, prostitutes vaunting
their depravity, or murderers boasting of their cruelty. This
surprises us only because the circle, the atmosphere in which
these people live, is limited, and we are outside it. But can we
not observe the same phenomenon when the rich boast of their
wealth, i.e., robbery; the commanders in the army pride themselves
on victories, i.e., murder; and those in high places vaunt their
power, i.e., violence? We do not see the perversion in the views
of life held by these people, only because the circle formed by
them is more extensive, and we ourselves are moving inside of it.
And in this manner Maslova had formed her views of life and of
her own position. She was a prostitute condemned to Siberia, and
yet she had a conception of life which made it possible for her
to be satisfied with herself, and even to pride herself on her
position before others.
According to this conception, the highest good for all men
without exception--old, young, schoolboys, generals, educated and
uneducated, was connected with the relation of the sexes;
therefore, all men, even when they pretended to be occupied with
other things, in reality took this view. She was an attractive
woman, and therefore she was an important and necessary person.
The whole of her former and present life was a confirmation of
the correctness of this conception.
With such a view of life, she was by no means the lowest, but a
very important person. And Maslova prized this view of life more
than anything; she could not but prize it, for, if she lost the
importance that such a view of life gave her among men, she would
lose the meaning of her life. And, in order not to lose the
meaning of her life, she instinctively clung to the set that
looked at life in the same way as she did. Feeling that
Nekhludoff wanted to lead her out into another world, she
resisted him, foreseeing that she would have to lose her place in
life, with the self-possession and self-respect it gave her. For
this reason she drove from her the recollections of her early
youth and her first relations with Nekhludoff. These
recollections did not correspond with her present conception of
the world, and were therefore quite rubbed out of her mind, or,
rather, lay somewhere buried and untouched, closed up and
plastered over so that they should not escape, as when bees, in
order to protect the result of their labour, will sometimes
plaster a nest of worms. Therefore, the present Nekhludoff was
not the man she had once loved with a pure love, but only a rich
gentleman whom she could, and must, make use of, and with whom
she could only have the same relations as with men in general.
"No, I could not tell her the chief thing," thought Nekhludoff,
moving towards the front doors with the rest of the people. "I
did not tell her that I would marry her; I did not tell her so,
but I will," he thought.
The two warders at the door let out the visitors, counting them
again, and touching each one with their hands, so that no extra
person should go out, and none remain within. The slap on his
shoulder did not offend Nekhludoff this time; he did not even
notice it.
