"But what will you do?" continued Natalia Ivanovna.
"I will do what I can. I do not know what, but I feel that I must do something. And I will do what I can."
"Yes, yes, I understand that. And what about him?" she said, smiling and nodding in the direction of Korchagin. "Is it really all over?"
"Yes, it is and I think without regret on either side."
"I am very sorry. I like her. But I suppose it must be so. But why should you bind yourself? Why are you following her?"
"Because it is proper that I should," Nekhludoff said dryly, as though desiring to change the subject.
But he immediately felt ashamed of his coldness to his sister. "Why should I not tell her what I think?" he thought; "and let Agrippina Petrovna also know it," he said to himself, looking at the old servant.
The presence of Agrippina Petrovna only encouraged him to repeat his decision to his sister.
"You are speaking of my intention to marry Katiusha. You see, I have decided to do it, but she firmly and decidedly refused me," he said, and his voice trembled, as it always did when he spoke of it. "She does not desire my sacrifice, and in her position she sacrifices very much, and I could not accept her sacrifice, even if it were only momentary. That is why I am following her, and I will be near her, and will endeavor to relieve her condition as far as I am able."
Natalia Ivanovna was silent. Agrippina Petrovna looked inquiringly at Natalia Ivanovna, shaking her head. At that moment the procession started again from the ladies' room. The same handsome Phillip and the porter were bearing the Princess. She stopped the bearers, beckoned Nekhludoff to her side, and in a piteously languid manner extended her white, ring-bedecked hand, with horror anticipating the hard pressure of his.
"Epouvantable!" she said of the heat. "It is unbearable. Ce climat me tue." And having said a few words of the horrors of the Russian climate, and invited Nekhludoff to visit them, she gave a sign to the bearers. "Don't fail to come, now," she added, turning her long face to Nekhludoff.
Nekhludoff went out on the platform. The procession turned to the right, toward the first-class coaches. Nekhludoff, with a porter who carried his baggage, and Tarass, with his bags, turned to the left.
"That is my comrade," Nekhludoff said to his sister, pointing to Tarass, whose story he had told her before.
"What, are you taking the third class?" asked Natalia Ivanovna, when Nekhludoff stopped before a third-class car and the porter, with Tarass, entered it.
"Yes, I will have it more convenient then. Tarass is with me. Another thing," he added. "I have not yet given the Kusminskoie land to the peasants. So that, in case of my death, your children will inherit it."
"Dmitri, don't talk that way," said Natalia Ivanovna.
"And if I do give it away, then all I have to tell you is that the remainder will be theirs, for I shall hardly marry. And if I do, there will be no children—so that——"
"Dmitri, please stop it," said Natalia Ivanovna; but Nekhludoff saw that she was glad to hear what he was saying.
The time for parting had come. The conductors were closing the doors, inviting the passengers to take seats, others to leave the cars.
Nekhludoff entered the heated and ill-smelling car and immediately appeared on its platform. Natalia Ivanovna was standing opposite, and evidently wished to say something, but could not find words. She could not say "ecrivez," because they had long been ridiculing the customary phrase of parting friends. The conversation about financial affairs and the inheritance at once destroyed the tender relations they had resumed. They now felt themselves estranged from each other. So that Natalia Ivanovna was glad when the train began to move and she could say, with a smile: "Well, Dmitri, good-by!" As soon as the train left she began to think how to tell her husband of her conversation with her brother, and her face became grave and worried.
And though Nekhludoff entertained the best sentiments toward his sister, and he concealed nothing from her, he now felt estranged from her, and was glad to be rid of her. He felt that the Natasha of old was no more; that there was only a slave of an unpleasant, dark, hairy man with whom he had nothing in common. He plainly saw this, because her face became illumined with peculiar animation only when he spoke of that which interested her husband—of the distribution of the land among the peasants, and of the inheritance. This made him sad.
CHAPTER XXV.
The heat in the large car of the third class, due to its exposure to the scorching sun rays and the large crowd within, was so suffocating that Nekhludoff remained on the platform. But there was no relief even there, and he drew in long breaths when the train rolled out beyond the houses and the movement of the train created a draught. "Yes, killed," he repeated to himself. And to his imagination appeared with unusual vividness the beautiful face of the second dead convict, with a smile on his lips, the forbidding expression of his forehead, and the small, strong ear under the shaved, bluish scalp. "And the worst part of it is that he was killed, and no one knows who killed him. Yet he was killed. He was forwarded, like the others, at the order of Maslenikoff. Maslenikoff probably signed the usual order with his foolish flourish, on a printed letter-head, and, of course, does not consider himself guilty. The prison physician, who inspected the convicts, has still less reason for considering himself guilty. He carefully fulfilled his duties, separated the weak ones, and could not possibly foresee either the terrible heat, or that they would be taken away so late and in such a crowd. The inspector? But the inspector only carried out the order that on such a day so many men and women prisoners should be sent away. No more guilty was the officer of the convoy, whose duty consisted in receiving so many people at such a place and delivering them at another place. He led the party in the usual way, according to instructions, and could not possibly foresee that such strong men, like the two whom Nekhludoff had seen, would succumb and die. No one was guilty, and yet the men were killed by these very people who were innocent of their death.
"All this happened," thought Nekhludoff, "because all those people—the governor, inspector and the other officers—saw before them, not human beings and their duties toward them, but the service and its requirements. Therein lies the difficulty."
In his meditation Nekhludoff did not notice how the weather had changed. The sun had hidden behind a low strip of cloud, and from the southern sky a light-gray mass, from which a slanting rain was already pouring in the distance over the fields and forests, was coming on. Now and then a flash of lightning rent the clouds, and the rattle of the train mingled with the rattle of thunder. The clouds came nearer and nearer, the slanting drops of rain, driven by the wind, pattered on the platform of the car and stained Nekhludoff's overcoat. He moved to the other side, and drawing in the fresh, humid air and the odor of the wheat coming from the parched ground, he looked on the passing gardens, forests; the rye fields just turning yellow, the emerald streaks of oats, and the furrows of the dark-green, flowering potato. Everything looked as if covered with varnish: the green and yellow colors became brighter; the black became blacker.
"More, more," said Nekhludoff, rejoicing at the reviving fields and gardens under the abundant rain.
The heavy rain did not last long. The clouds partly dissipated, and the last fine shower fell straight on the wet ground. The sun came forth again, the earth brightened, and a low but brilliant violet tinged rainbow, broken at one end, appeared in the eastern horizon.
"What was I thinking of?" Nekhludoff asked himself, when all these changes of nature came to an end and the train descended into a vale. "Yes, I was thinking that all those people—the inspector, the guard and all those servants, for the most part gentle, kind people—have become wicked."