CHAPTER XLVIII.
MASLOVA REFUSES TO MARRY.
The jailer who had brought Maslova in sat on a windowsill at some
distance from them.
The decisive moment had come for Nekhludoff. He had been
incessantly blaming himself for not having told her the principal
thing at the first interview, and was now determined to tell her
that he would marry her. She was sitting at the further side of
the table. Nekhludoff sat down opposite her. It was light in the
room, and Nekhludoff for the first time saw her face quite near.
He distinctly saw the crowsfeet round her eyes, the wrinkles
round her mouth, and the swollen eyelids. He felt more sorry than
before. Leaning over the table so as not to be beard by the
jailer--a man of Jewish type with grizzly whiskers, who sat by
the window--Nekhludoff said:
"Should this petition come to nothing we shall appeal to the
Emperor. All that is possible shall be done."
"There, now, if we had had a proper advocate from the first," she
interrupted. "My defendant was quite a silly. He did nothing but
pay me compliments," she said, and laughed. "If it had then been
known that I was acquainted with you, it would have been another
matter. They think every one's a thief."
"How strange she is to-day," Nekhludoff thought, and was just
going to say what he had on his mind when she began again:
"There's something I want to say. We have here an old woman; such
a fine one, d'you know, she just surprises every one; she is
imprisoned for nothing, and her son, too, and everybody knows
they are innocent, though they are accused of having set fire to
a house. D'you know, hearing I was acquainted with you, she says:
'Tell him to ask to see my son; he'll tell him all about it."'
Thus spoke Maslova, turning her head from side to side, and
glancing at Nekhludoff. "Their name's Menshoff. Well, will you do
it? Such a fine old thing, you know; you can see at once she's
innocent. You'll do it, there's a dear," and she smiled, glanced
up at him, and then cast down her eyes.
"All right. I'll find out about them," Nekhludoff said, more and
more astonished by her free-and-easy manner. "But I was going to
speak to you about myself. Do you remember what I told you last
time?"
"You said a lot last time. What was it you told me?" she said,
continuing to smile and to turn her head from side to side.
"I said I had come to ask you to forgive me," he began.
"What's the use of that? Forgive, forgive, where's the good of--"
"To atone for my sin, not by mere words, but in deed. I have made
up my mind to marry you."
An expression of fear suddenly came over her face. Her squinting
eyes remained fixed on him, and yet seemed not to be looking at
him.
"What's that for?" she said, with an angry frown.
"I feel that it is my duty before God to do it."
"What God have you found now? You are not saying what you ought
to. God, indeed! What God? You ought to have remembered God
then," she said, and stopped with her mouth open. It was only now
that Nekhludoff noticed that her breath smelled of spirits, and
that he understood the cause of her excitement.
"Try and be calm," he said.
"Why should I be calm?" she began, quickly, flushing scarlet. "I
am a convict, and you are a gentleman and a prince. There's no
need for you to soil yourself by touching me. You go to your
princesses; my price is a ten-rouble note."
"However cruelly you may speak, you cannot express what I myself
am feeling," he said, trembling all over; "you cannot imagine to
what extent I feel myself guilty towards you.
"Feel yourself guilty?" she said, angrily mimicking him. "You did
not feel so then, but threw me 100 roubles. That's your price."
"I know, I know; but what is to be done now?" said Nekhludoff. "I
have decided not to leave you, and what I have said I shall do."
"And I say you sha'n't," she said, and laughed aloud.
"Katusha" he said, touching her hand.
"You go away. I am a convict and you a prince, and you've no
business here," she cried, pulling away her hand, her whole
appearance transformed by her wrath. "You've got pleasure out of
me in this life, and want to save yourself through me in the life
to come. You are disgusting to me--your spectacles and the whole
of your dirty fat mug. Go, go!" she screamed, starting to her
feet.
The jailer came up to them.
"What are you kicking up this row for?' That won't--"
"Let her alone, please," said Nekhludoff.
"She must not forget herself," said the jailer. "Please wait a
little," said Nekhludoff, and the jailer returned to the window.
Maslova sat down again, dropping her eyes and firmly clasping her
small hands.
Nekhludoff stooped over her, not knowing what to do.
"You do not believe me?" he said.
"That you mean to marry me? It will never be. I'll rather hang
myself. So there!"
"Well, still I shall go on serving you."
"That's your affair, only I don't want anything from you. I am
telling you the plain truth," she said. "Oh, why did I not die
then?" she added, and began to cry piteously.
Nekhludoff could not speak; her tears infected him.
She lifted her eyes, looked at him in surprise, and began to wipe
her tears with her kerchief.
The jailer came up again and reminded them that it was time to
part.
Maslova rose.
"You are excited. If it is possible, I shall come again tomorrow;
you think it over," said Nekhludoff.
She gave him no answer and, without looking up, followed the
jailer out of the room.
"Well, lass, you'll have rare times now," Korableva said, when
Maslova returned to the cell. "Seems he's mighty sweet on you;
make the most of it while he's after you. He'll help you out.
Rich people can do anything."
"Yes, that's so," remarked the watchman's wife, with her musical
voice. "When a poor man thinks of getting married, there's many a
slip 'twixt the cup and the lip; but a rich man need only make up
his mind and it's done. We knew a toff like that duckie. What
d'you think he did?"
"Well, have you spoken about my affairs?" the old woman asked.
But Maslova gave her fellow-prisoners no answer; she lay down on
the shelf bedstead, her squinting eyes fixed on a corner of the
room, and lay there until the evening.
A painful struggle went on in her soul. What Nekhludoff had told
her called up the memory of that world in which she had suffered
and which she had left without having understood, hating it. She
now feared to wake from the trance in which she was living. Not
having arrived at any conclusion when evening came, she again
bought some vodka and drank with her companions.
