CHAPTER XIII.
NURSE MASLOVA.
When he rang the bell at the front entrance Nekhludoff's heart
stood still with horror as he thought of the state he might find
Maslova in to-day, and at the mystery that he felt to be in her
and in the people that were collected in the prison. He asked the
jailer who opened the door for Maslova. After making the
necessary inquiry the jailer informed him that she was in the
hospital. Nekhludoff went there. A kindly old man, the hospital
doorkeeper, let him in at once and, after asking Nekhludoff whom
he wanted, directed him to the children's ward. A young doctor
saturated with carbolic acid met Nekhludoff in the passage and
asked him severely what he wanted. This doctor was always making
all sorts of concessions to the prisoners, and was therefore
continually coming into conflict with the prison authorities and
even with the head doctor. Fearing lest Nekhludoff should demand
something unlawful, and wishing to show that he made no
exceptions for any one, he pretended to be cross. "There are no
women here; it is the children's ward," he said.
"Yes, I know; but a prisoner has been removed here to be an
assistant nurse."
"Yes, there are two such here. Then whom do you want?"
"I am closely connected with one of them, named Maslova,"
Nekhludoff answered, "and should like to speak to her. I am going
to Petersburg to hand in an appeal to the Senate about her case
and should like to give her this. It is only a photo," Nekhludoff
said, taking an envelope out of his pocket.
"All right, you may do that," said the doctor, relenting, and
turning to an old woman with a white apron, he told her to call
the prisoner--Nurse Maslova.
"Will you take a seat, or go into the waiting-room?
"Thanks," said Nekhludoff, and profiting by the favourable change
in the manner of the doctor towards him asked how they were
satisfied with Maslova in the hospital.
"Oh, she is all right. She works fairly well, if you the
conditions of her former life into account. But here she is."
The old nurse came in at one of the doors, followed by Maslova,
who wore a blue striped dress, a white apron, a kerchief that
quite covered her hair. When she saw Nekhludoff her face flushed,
and she stopped as if hesitating, then frowned, and with downcast
eyes went quickly towards him along the strip of carpet in the
middle of the passage. When she came up to Nekhludoff she did not
wish to give him her hand, and then gave it, growing redder
still. Nekhludoff had not seen her since the day when she begged
forgiveness for having been in a passion, and he expected to find
her the same as she was then. But to-day she quite different.
There was something new in the expression of her face, reserve
and shyness, and, as it seemed to him, animosity towards him. He
told her what he had already said to the doctor, i.e., that he
was going to Petersburg, and he handed her the envelope with the
photograph which he had brought from Panovo.
"I found this in Panovo--it's an old photo; perhaps you would like
it. Take it."
Lifting her dark eyebrows, she looked at him with surprise in her
squinting eyes, as if asking, "What is this for?" took the photo
silently and put it in the bib of her apron
"I saw your aunt there," said Nekhludoff.
"Did you?" she said, indifferently.
"Are you all right here?" Nekhludoff asked.
"Oh, yes, it's all right," she said.
"Not too difficult?"
"Oh, no. But I am not used to it yet."
"I am glad, for your sake. Anyhow, it is better than there."
"Than where--there?" she asked, her face flushing again.
"There--in the prison," Nekhludoff hurriedly answered.
"Why better?" she asked.
"I think the people are better. Here are none such as there must
be there."
"There are many good ones there," she said.
"I have been seeing about the Menshoffs, and hope they will be
liberated," said Nekhludoff.
"God grant they may. Such a splendid old woman," she said, again
repeating her opinion of the old woman, and slightly smiling.
"I am going to Petersburg to-day. Your case will come on soon,
and I hope the sentence will be repealed."
"Whether it is repealed or not won't matter now," she said.
"Why not now?"
"So," she said, looking with a quick, questioning glance into his
eyes.
Nekhludoff understood the word and the look to mean that she
wished to know whether he still kept firm to his decision or had
accepted her refusal.
"I do not know why it does not matter to you," he said. "It
certainly does not matter as far as I am concerned whether you
are acquitted or not. I am ready to do what I told you in any
case," he said decidedly.
She lifted her head and her black squinting eyes remained fixed
on him and beyond him, and her face beamed with joy. But the
words she spoke were very different from what her eyes said.
"You should not speak like that," she said.
"I am saying it so that you should know."
"Everything has been said about that, and there is no use
speaking," she said, with difficulty repressing a smile.
A sudden noise came from the hospital ward, and the sound of a
child crying.
"I think they are calling me," she said, and looked round
uneasily.
"Well, good-bye, then," he said. She pretended not to see his
extended hand, and, without taking it, turned away and hastily
walked along the strip of carpet, trying to hide the triumph she
felt.
"What is going on in her? What is she thinking? What does she
feel? Does she mean to prove me, or can she really not forgive
me? Is it that she cannot or that she will not express what she
feels and thinks? Has she softened or hardened?" he asked
himself, and could find no answer. He only knew that she had
altered and that an important change was going on in her soul,
and this change united him not only to her but also to Him for
whose sake that change was being wrought. And this union brought
on a state of joyful animation and tenderness.
When she returned to the ward, in which there stood eight small
beds, Maslova began, in obedience to the nurse's order, to
arrange one of the beds; and, bending over too far with the
sheet, she slipped and nearly fell down.
A little convalescent boy with a bandaged neck, who was looking
at her, laughed. Maslova could no longer contain herself and
burst into loud laughter, and such contagious laughter that
several of the children also burst out laughing, and one of the
sisters rebuked her angrily.
"What are you giggling at? Do you think you are where you used to
be? Go and fetch the food." Maslova obeyed and went where she was
sent; but, catching the eye of the bandaged boy who was not
allowed to laugh, she again burst out laughing.
Whenever she was alone Maslova again and again pulled the
photograph partly out of the envelope and looked at it
admiringly; but only in the evening when she was off duty and
alone in the bedroom which she shared with a nurse, did she take
it quite out of the envelope and gaze long at the faded yellow
photograph, caressing with, her eyes every detail of faces and
clothing, the steps of the veranda, and the bushes which served
as a background to his and hers and his aunts' faces, and could
not cease from admiring especially herself--her pretty young face
with the curly hair round the forehead. She was so absorbed that
she did not hear her fellow-nurse come into the room.
"What is it that he's given you?" said the good-natured, fat
nurse, stooping over the photograph.
"Who's this? You?"
"Who else?" said Maslova, looking into her companion's face with
a smile.
"And who's this?"
"Himself."
"And is this his mother?"
"No, his aunt. Would you not have known me?"
"Never. The whole face is altered. Why, it must be 10 years since
then."
"Not years, but a lifetime," said Maslova. And suddenly her
animation went, her face grew gloomy, and a deep line appeared
between her brows.
"Why so? Your way of life must have been an easy one."
"Easy, indeed," Maslova reiterated, closing her eyes and shaking
her head. "It is hell."
"Why, what makes it so?"
"What makes it so! From eight till four in the morning, and every
night the same!"
"Then why don't they give it up?"
"They can't give it up if they want to. But what's the use of
talking?" Maslova said, jumping up and throwing the photograph
into the drawer of the table. And with difficulty repressing
angry tears, she ran out into the passage and slammed the door.
While looking at the group she imagined herself such as she was
there and dreamt of her happiness then and of the possibility of
happiness with him now. But her companion's words reminded her of
what she was now and what she had been, and brought back all the
horrors of that life, which she had felt but dimly, and not
allowed herself to realise.
It was only now that the memory of all those terrible nights came
vividly back to her, especially one during the carnival when she
was expecting a student who had promised to buy her out. She
remembered how she--wearing her low necked silk dress stained
with wine, a red bow in her untidy hair, wearied, weak, half
tipsy, having seen her visitors off, sat down during an interval
in the dancing by the piano beside the bony pianiste with the
blotchy face, who played the accompaniments to the violin, and
began complaining of her hard fate; and how this pianiste said
that she, too, was feeling how heavy her position was and would
like to change it; and how Clara suddenly came up to them; and
how they all three decided to change their life. They thought
that the night was over, and were about to go away, when suddenly
the noise of tipsy voices was herd in the ante-room. The
violinist played a tune and the pianiste began hammering the
first figure of a quadrille on the piano, to the tune of a most
merry Russian song. A small, perspiring man, smelling of spirits,
with a white tie and swallow-tail coat, which he took off after
the first figure, came up to her, hiccoughing, and caught her up,
while another fat man, with a beard, and also wearing a
dress-coat (they had come straight from a ball) caught Clara up,
and for a long time they turned, danced, screamed, drank. . . .
And so it went on for another year, and another, and a third. How
could she help changing? And he was the cause of it all. And,
suddenly, all her former bitterness against him reawoke; she
wished to scold, to reproach him. She regretted having neglected
the opportunity of repeating to him once more that she knew him,
and would not give in to him--would not let him make use of her
spiritually as he had done physically.
And she longed for drink in order to stifle the feeling of pity
to herself and the useless feeling of reproach to him. And she
would have broken her word if she had been inside the prison.
Here she could not get any spirits except by applying to the
medical assistant, and she was afraid of him because he made up
to her, and intimate relations with men were disgusting to her
now. After sitting a while on a form in the passage she returned
to her little room, and without paying any heed to her
companion's words, she wept for a long time over her wrecked
life.
