CHAPTER X.
NEKHLUDOFF RETURNS TO TOWN.
The town struck Nekhludoff in a new and peculiar light on his
return. He came back in the evening, when the gas was lit, and
drove from the railway station to his house, where the rooms
still smelt of naphthaline. Agraphena Petrovna and Corney were
both feeling tired and dissatisfied, and had even had a quarrel
over those things that seemed made only to be aired and packed
away. Nekhludoff's room was empty, but not in order, and the way
to it was blocked up with boxes, so that his arrival evidently
hindered the business which, owing to a curious kind of inertia,
was going on in this house. The evident folly of these
proceedings, in which he had once taken part, was so distasteful
to Nekhludoff after the impressions the misery of the life of the
peasants had made on him, that he decided to go to a hotel the
next day, leaving Agraphena Petrovna to put away the things as
she thought fit until his sister should come and finally dispose
of everything in the house.
Nekhludoff left home early and chose a couple of rooms in a very
modest and not particularly clean lodging-house within easy reach
of the prison, and, having given orders that some of his things
should be sent there, he went to see the advocate. It was cold
out of doors. After some rainy and stormy weather it had turned
out cold, as it often does in spring. It was so cold that
Nekhludoff felt quite chilly in his light overcoat, and walked
fast hoping to get warmer. His mind was filled with thoughts of
the peasants, the women, children, old men, and all the poverty
and weariness which he seemed to have seen for the first time,
especially the smiling, old-faced infant writhing with his
calfless little legs, and he could not help contrasting what was
going on in the town. Passing by the butchers', fishmongers', and
clothiers' shops, he was struck, as if he saw them for the first
time, by the appearance of the clean, well-fed shopkeepers, like
whom you could not find one peasant in the country. These men
were apparently convinced that the pains they took to deceive the
people who did not know much about their goods was not a useless
but rather an important business. The coachmen with their broad
hips and rows of buttons down their sides, and the door-keepers
with gold cords on their caps, the servant-girls with their
aprons and curly fringes, and especially the smart isvostchiks
with the nape of their necks clean shaved, as they sat lolling
back in their traps, and examined the passers-by with dissolute
and contemptuous air, looked well fed. In all these people
Nekhludoff could not now help seeing some of these very peasants
who had been driven into the town by lack of land. Some of the
peasants driven to the town had found means of profiting by the
conditions of town life and had become like the gentlefolk and
were pleased with their position; others were in a worse position
than they had been in the country and were more to be pitied than
the country people.
Such seemed the bootmakers Nekhludoff saw in the cellar, the
pale, dishevelled washerwomen with their thin, bare, arms ironing
at an open window, out of which streamed soapy steam; such the
two house-painters with their aprons, stockingless feet, all
bespattered and smeared with paint, whom Nekhludoff met--their
weak, brown arms bared to above the elbows--carrying a pailful of
paint, and quarrelling with each other. Their faces looked
haggard and cross. The dark faces of the carters jolting along in
their carts bore the same expression, and so did the faces of the
tattered men and women who stood begging at the street corners.
The same kind of faces were to be seen at the open, windows of
the eating-houses which Nekhludoff passed. By the dirty tables on
which stood tea things and bottles, and between which waiters
dressed in white shirts were rushing hither and thither, sat
shouting and singing red, perspiring men with stupefied faces.
One sat by the window with lifted brows and pouting lips and
fixed eyes as if trying to remember something.
"And why are they all gathered here?" Nekhludoff thought,
breathing in together with the dust which the cold wind blew
towards him the air filled with the smell of rank oil and fresh
paint.
In one street he met a row of carts loaded with something made of
iron, that rattled so on the uneven pavement that it made his
ears and head ache. He started walking still faster in order to
pass the row of carts, when he heard himself called by name. He
stopped and saw an officer with sharp pointed moustaches and
shining face who sat in the trap of a swell isvostchik and waved
his hand in a friendly manner, his smile disclosing unusually
long, white teeth.
"Nekhludoff! Can it be you?"
Nekhludoff's first feeling was one of pleasure. "Ah, Schonbock!"
he exclaimed joyfully; but he knew the next moment that there was
nothing to be joyful about.
This was that Schonbock who had been in the house of Nekhludoff's
aunts that day, and whom Nekhludoff had quite lost out of sight,
but about whom he had heard that in spite of his debts he had
somehow managed to remain in the cavalry, and by some means or
other still kept his place among the rich. His gay, contented
appearance corroborated this report.
"What a good thing that I have caught you. There is no one in
town. Ah, old fellow; you have grown old," he said, getting out
of the trap and moving his shoulders about. "I only knew you by
your walk. Look here, we must dine together. Is there any place
where they feed one decently?"
"I don't think I can spare the time," Nekhludoff answered,
thinking only of how he could best get rid of his companion
without hurting him.
"And what has brought you here?" he asked.
"Business, old fellow. Guardianship business. I am a guardian
now. I am managing Samanoff's affairs--the millionaire, you know.
He has softening of the brain, and he's got fifty-four thousand
desiatins of land," he said, with peculiar pride, as if he had
himself made all these desiatins. "The affairs were terribly
neglected. All the land was let to the peasants. They did not pay
anything. There were more than eighty thousand roubles debts. I
changed it all in one year, and have got 70 per cent. more out of
it. What do you think of that?" he asked proudly.
Nekhludoff remembered having heard that this Schonbock, just
because, he had spent all he had, had attained by some special
influence the post of guardian to a rich old man who was
squandering his property--and was now evidently living by this
guardianship.
"How am I to get rid of him without offending him?" thought
Nekhludoff, looking at this full, shiny face with the stiffened
moustache and listening to his friendly, good-humoured chatter
about where one gets fed best, and his bragging about his doings
as a guardian.
"Well, then, where do we dine?"
"Really, I have no time to spare," said Nekhludoff, glancing at
his watch.
"Then, look here. To-night, at the races--will you be there?"
"No, I shall not be there."
"Do come. I have none of my own now, but I back Grisha's horses.
You remember; he has a fine stud. You'll come, won't you? And
we'll have some supper together."
"No, I cannot have supper with you either," said Nekhludoff with
a smile.
"Well, that's too bad! And where are you off to now? Shall I give
you a lift?"
"I am going to see an advocate, close to here round the corner."
"Oh, yes, of course. You have got something to do with the
prisons--have turned into a prisoners' mediator, I hear," said
Schonbock, laughing. "The Korchagins told me. They have left town
already. What does it all mean? Tell me."
"Yes, yes, it is quite true," Nekhludoff answered; "but I cannot
tell you about it in the street."
"Of course; you always were a crank. But you will come to the
races?"
"No. I neither can nor wish to come. Please do not be angry with
me."
"Angry? Dear me, no. Where do you live?" And suddenly his face
became serious, his eyes fixed, and he drew up his brows. He
seemed to be trying to remember something, and Nekhludoff noticed
the same dull expression as that of the man with the raised brows
and pouting lips whom he had seen at the window of the
eating-house.
"How cold it is! Is it not? Have you got the parcels?" said
Schonbock, turning to the isvostchik.
"All right. Good-bye. I am very glad indeed to have met you," and
warmly pressing Nekhludoff's hand, he jumped into the trap and
waved his white-gloved hand in front of his shiny face, with his
usual smile, showing his exceptionally white teeth.
"Can I have also been like that?" Nekhludoff thought, as he
continued his way to the advocate's. "Yes, I wished to be like
that, though I was not quite like it. And I thought of living my
life in that way."
