CHAPTER XVII.
COUNTESS KATERINA IVANOVNA'S DINNER PARTY.
Countess Katerina Ivanovna's dinner hour was half-past seven, and
the dinner was served in a new manner that Nekhludoff had not yet
seen anywhere. After they had placed the dishes on the table the
waiters left the room and the diners helped themselves. The men
would not let the ladies take the trouble of moving, and, as
befitted the stronger sex, they manfully took on themselves the
burden of putting the food on the ladies' plates and of filling
their glasses. When one course was finished, the Countess pressed
the button of an electric bell fitted to the table and the
waiters stepped in noiselessly and quickly carried away the
dishes, changed the plates, and brought in the next course. The
dinner was very refined, the wines very costly. A French chef was
working in the large, light kitchens, with two white-clad
assistants. There were six persons at dinner, the Count and
Countess, their son (a surly officer in the Guards who sat with
his elbows on the table), Nekhludoff, a French lady reader, and
the Count's chief steward, who had come up from the country.
Here, too, the conversation was about the duel, and opinions were
given as to how the Emperor regarded the case. It was known that
the Emperor was very much grieved for the mother's sake, and all
were grieved for her, and as it was also known that the Emperor
did not mean to be very severe to the murderer, who defended the
honour of his uniform, all were also lenient to the officer who
had defended the honour of his uniform. Only the Countess
Katerina Ivanovna, with her free thoughtlessness, expresses her
disapproval.
"They get drunk, and kill unobjectionable young men. I should not
forgive them on any account," she said.
"Now, that's a thing I cannot understand," said the Count.
"I know that you never can understand what I say," the Countess
began, and turning to Nekhludoff, she added:
"Everybody understands except my husband. I say I am sorry for
the mother, and I do not wish him to be contented, having killed
a man." Then her son, who had been silent up to then, took the
murderer's part, and rudely attacked his mother, arguing that an
officer could not behave in any other way, because his
fellow-officers would condemn him and turn him out of the
regiment. Nekhludoff listened to the conversation without joining
in. Having been an officer himself, he understood, though he did
not agree with, young Tcharsky's arguments, and at the same time
he could not help contrasting the fate of the officer with that
of a beautiful young convict whom he had seen in the prison, and
who was condemned to the mines for having killed another in a
fight. Both had turned murderers through drunkenness. The peasant
had killed a man in a moment of irritation, and he was parted
from his wife and family, had chains on his legs, and his head
shaved, and was going to hard labour in Siberia, while the
officer was sitting in a fine room in the guardhouse, eating a
good dinner, drinking good wine, and reading books, and would be
set free in a day or two to live as he had done before, having
only become more interesting by the affair. Nekhludoff said what
he had been thinking, and at first his aunt, Katerina Ivanovna,
seemed to agree with him, but at last she became silent as the
rest had done, and Nekhludoff felt that he had committed
something akin to an impropriety. In the evening, soon after
dinner, the large hall, with high-backed carved chairs arranged
in rows as for a meeting, and an armchair next to a little table,
with a bottle of water for the speaker, began to fill with people
come to hear the foreigner, Kiesewetter, preach. Elegant
equipages stopped at the front entrance. In the hall sat
richly-dressed ladies in silks and velvets and lace, with false
hair and false busts and drawn-in waists, and among them men in
uniform and evening dress, and about five persons of the common
class, i.e., two men-servants, a shop-keeper, a footman, and a
coachman. Kiesewetter, a thick-set, grisly man, spoke English,
and a thin young girl, with a pince-nez, translated it into
Russian promptly and well. He was saying that our sins were so
great, the punishment for them so great and so unavoidable, that
it was impossible to live anticipating such punishment. "Beloved
brothers and sisters, let us for a moment consider what we are
doing, how we are living, how we have offended against the
all-loving Lord, and how we make Christ suffer, and we cannot but
understand that there is no forgiveness possible for us, no
escape possible, that we are all doomed to perish. A terrible
fate awaits us---everlasting torment," he said, with tears in his
trembling voice. "Oh, how can we be saved, brothers? How can we
be saved from this terrible, unquenchable fire? The house is in
flames; there is no escape."
He was silent for a while, and real tears flowed down his cheeks.
It was for about eight years that each time when he got to this
part of his speech, which he himself liked so well, he felt a
choking in his throat and an irritation in his nose, and the
tears came in his eyes, and these tears touched him still more.
Sobs were heard in the room. The Countess Katerina Ivanovna sat
with her elbows on an inlaid table, leaning her head on her
hands, and her shoulders were shaking. The coachman looked with
fear and surprise at the foreigner, feeling as if he was about to
run him down with the pole of his carriage and the foreigner
would not move out of his way. All sat in positions similar to
that Katerina Ivanovna had assumed. Wolf's daughter, a thin,
fashionably-dressed girl, very like her father, knelt with her
face in her hands.
The orator suddenly uncovered his face, and smiled a very
real-looking smile, such as actors express joy with, and began
again with a sweet, gentle voice:
"Yet there is a way to be saved. Here it is--a joyful, easy way.
The salvation is the blood shed for us by the only son of God,
who gave himself up to torments for our sake. His sufferings, His
blood, will save us. Brothers and sisters," he said, again with
tears in his voice, "let us praise the Lord, who has given His
only begotten son for the redemption of mankind. His holy blood
. . ."
Nekhludoff felt so deeply disgusted that he rose silently, and
frowning and keeping back a groan of shame, he left on tiptoe,
and went to his room.
