CHAPTER LV.
VERA DOUKHOVA EXPLAINS.
Through a door, at the back of the room, entered, with a
wriggling gait, the thin, yellow Vera Doukhova, with her large,
kind eyes.
"Thanks for having come," she said, pressing Nekhludoff's hand.
"Do you remember me? Let us sit down."
"I did not expect to see you like this."
"Oh, I am very happy. It is so delightful, so delightful, that I
desire nothing better," said Vera Doukhova, with the usual
expression of fright in the large, kind, round eyes fixed on
Nekhludoff, and twisting the terribly thin, sinewy neck,
surrounded by the shabby, crumpled, dirty collar of her bodice.
Nekhludoff asked her how she came to be in prison.
In answer she began relating all about her affairs with great
animation. Her speech was intermingled with a great many long
words, such as propaganda, disorganisation, social groups,
sections and sub-sections, about which she seemed to think
everybody knew, but which Nekhludoff had never heard of.
She told him all the secrets of the Nardovolstvo, [literally,
"People's Freedom," a revolutionary movement] evidently
convinced that he was pleased to hear them. Nekhludoff looked at
her miserable little neck, her thin, unkempt hair, and wondered
why she had been doing all these strange things, and why she was
now telling all this to him. He pitied her, but not as he had
pitied Menshoff, the peasant, kept for no fault of his own in the
stinking prison. She was pitiable because of the confusion that
filled her mind. It was clear that she considered herself a
heroine, and was ready to give her life for a cause, though she
could hardly have explained what that cause was and in what its
success would lie.
The business that Vera Doukhova wanted to see Nekhludoff about
was the following: A friend of hers, who had not even belonged to
their "sub-group," as she expressed it, had been arrested with
her about five months before, and imprisoned in the
Petropavlovsky fortress because some prohibited books and papers
(which she had been asked to keep) had been found in her
possession. Vera Doukhova felt herself in some measure to blame
for her friend's arrest, and implored Nekhludoff, who had
connections among influential people, to do all he could in order
to set this friend free.
Besides this, Doukhova asked him to try and get permission for
another friend of hers, Gourkevitch (who was also imprisoned in
the Petropavlovsky fortress), to see his parents, and to procure
some scientific books which he required for his studies.
Nekhludoff promised to do what he could when he went to
Petersburg.
As to her own story, this is what she said: Having finished a
course of midwifery, she became connected with a group of
adherents to the Nardovolstvo, and made up her mind to agitate in
the revolutionary movement. At first all went on smoothly. She
wrote proclamations and occupied herself with propaganda work in
the factories; then, an important member having been arrested,
their papers were seized and all concerned were arrested. "I was
also arrested, and shall be exiled. But what does it matter? I
feel perfectly happy." She concluded her story with a piteous
smile.
Nekhludoff made some inquiries concerning the girl with the
prominent eyes. Vera Doukhova told him that this girl was the
daughter of a general, and had been long attached to the
revolutionary party, and was arrested because she had pleaded
guilty to having shot a gendarme. She lived in a house with some
conspirators, where they had a secret printing press. One night,
when the police came to search this house, the occupiers resolved
to defend themselves, put out the light, and began destroying the
things that might incriminate them. The police forced their way
in, and one of the conspirators fired, and mortally wounded a
gendarme. When an inquiry was instituted, this girl said that it
was she who had fired, although she had never had a revolver in
her hands, and would not have hurt a fly. And she kept to it, and
was now condemned to penal servitude in Siberia.
"An altruistic, fine character," said Vera Doukhova, approvingly.
The third business that Vera Doukhova wanted to talk about
concerned Maslova. She knew, as everybody does know in prison,
the story of Maslova's life and his connection with her, and
advised him to take steps to get her removed into the political
prisoner's ward, or into the hospital to help to nurse the sick,
of which there were very many at that time, so that extra nurses
were needed.
Nekhludoff thanked her for the advice, and said he would try to
act upon it.
