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.
聂赫留朵夫在监狱大门口拉了拉铃.他不知道玛丝洛娃今天情绪怎样,又想到她和她同监的人都对他保守着什么秘密,不禁提心吊胆,神经紧张.他向出来开门的看守说明要见玛丝洛娃.看守回去打听了一下,告诉他玛丝洛娃在医院里.聂赫留朵夫就上医院.医院看门的是个和善的小老头,立刻放他进去,问明他要见什么人,就把他领到儿科病房.
一个青年医生,浑身散发着石炭酸味,在走廊里接见聂赫留朵夫,严厉地问他有什么事.这位医生处处体恤囚犯,因此经常同监狱当局,甚至同主任医生发生冲突.他唯恐聂赫留朵夫提出什么违章要求,就表示他对任何人一视同仁,还装出一副怒气冲冲的样子.
"这里没有女病人,这里是儿科病房,"青年医生说.
"我知道,不过这里有个女人是从监狱里调来担任助理护一士的."
"对,这样的女人这儿有两个.您究竟有什么事?"
"其中有个叫玛丝洛娃的,我同她很熟,"聂赫留朵夫说,"我想见见她,我为她的案子要到彼得堡去上诉.我想把这东西一交一给她.里面只有一张照片,"聂赫留朵夫从口袋里掏出一个信封,说.
"行,这个可以,"医生态度缓和下来说,接着吩咐一个系白围裙的老太婆把助理护一士玛丝洛娃叫来."您要不要在这儿坐一下?到候诊室去也行."
"谢谢您,"聂赫留朵夫说,趁医生态度好转,就向他打听玛丝洛娃在医院里工作得好不好.
"还不错,要是考虑到她过去的生活经历,应该说很不错了,"医生说."喏,她来了."
老太婆从一扇门里走出来,后面跟着玛丝洛娃.玛丝洛娃穿一件条纹连衣裙,外面系着白围裙,头上扎着一块三角巾,盖住头发.她一看见聂赫留朵夫,脸刷地红起来,迟疑不决地站住,然后皱起眉头,垂下眼睛,踏着走廊里的长地毯快步向他走来.她走到聂赫留朵夫跟前,本想不同他握手,但后来还是向他伸出手,她的脸涨得越发红了.自从上次他们谈话时她发了脾气又道了歉以后,聂赫留朵夫还没有见到过她.他料想她今天的心情同上次一样.但今天她完全不同,脸上出现了一种新的表情:拘谨,羞怯,而且聂赫留朵夫觉得她对他很反感.他对她说的话同刚才对医生说的话一样.他告诉她他将去彼得堡,并且把装着他从巴诺伏带来的照片的信封一交一给她.
"这是我在巴诺伏找到的,一张很旧的照片,说不定您会喜欢的.拿去吧!"
她扬起黑眉一毛一,用她那双斜睨的眼睛惊奇地瞅了瞅,仿佛在问这给她做什么.然后默默地接过信封,把它插在围裙里.
"我在那里看到了您的姨一妈一,"聂赫留朵夫说.
"看到了?"她冷冷地说.
"您在这儿好吗?"聂赫留朵夫问.
"没什么,挺好,"她说.
"不太苦吧?"
"不,不算什么.可我还没有过惯."
"我很替您高兴.总比那边好一些."
"'那边'指什么地方?"她问,顿时脸上泛起了红晕.
"那边就是牢里,"聂赫留朵夫赶快回答.
"好什么呀?"她问.
"我想这里的人好些.不象那边的人."
"那边好人多得很,"她说.
"明肖夫母子的事我奔走过了,但愿他们能得到释放,"聂赫留朵夫说.
"但愿上帝保佑,那老太婆人真好,"她说,再次表示她对那个老太婆的看法,接着微微一笑.
"我今天要上彼得堡去.您的案子很快就会受理.我希望能撤销原判."
"撤销也好,不撤销也好,如今对我都一样,"她说.
"为什么说:'如今都一样'?"
"不为什么,"她说,用询问的眼光瞅了一下他的脸.
聂赫留朵夫把她这句话和这个眼光理解为她想知道,他是不是坚持他的决定,还是接受了她的拒绝而改变了主意.
"我不知道为什么对您都一样,"他说."不过对我来说,您无罪释放也好,不释放也好,倒真的都一样.不管情况怎样,我都将照我说过的话去做,"他坚决地说.
她抬起头来.她那双斜睨的黑眼睛又象瞅着他的脸,又象瞅着别的地方.她整个脸上洋溢着快乐的神采.不过她嘴里所说的同她眼睛所说的截然不同.
"您何必说这种话呢!"她说.
"我说这话是要让您明白我的心意."
"这事您已经说够了,用不着再说了,"她好容易忍住笑说.
病房里不知怎的喧闹起来.传来孩子的哭声.
"他们好象在叫我,"她不安地回头望望说.
"好吧,那么再见了,"他说.
她假装没有看见他伸出手来,没有跟他握手就转过身,竭力掩饰她的得意神气,沿着走廊的长地毯快步走去.
"她身上起了什么变化?她在想些什么?她有什么感受?她是要考验我,还是真的不能原谅我?她是没法把她的思想和感受说出来,还是不愿说?她的心肠变一软一了,还是怀恨在心?"聂赫留朵夫问自己,却怎么也无法回答.他只知道一点,那就是她变了,她的心灵里发生了重大变化.这个变化不仅使他同她联结起来,而且使他同促成这变化的上帝联结起来.
这样的联结使他欢欣鼓舞,心里充满一温一暖.
玛丝洛娃回到放有八张童一床一的病房里,听从护一士的吩咐开始铺一床一.她铺一床一单的时候腰弯得太低,脚底一滑,差点儿跌一交一.一个脖子上扎着绷带的男孩,正在休养,看见她差点儿跌一交一,笑起来.玛丝洛娃也忍不住,在一床一边上一坐,发出响亮而富有感染一性一的笑声,逗得几个孩子都哈哈大笑.护一士生气地对她嚷道:
"笑什么?你以为你还在原来那种地方吗!快去拿饭来."
玛丝洛娃不作声,拿起食具到护一士吩咐她的地方去,但她同那个扎着绷带,被护一士禁止笑的男孩相互看了一眼,又扑哧一声笑出来.这天白天,当房间里没有人时,玛丝洛娃几次从信封里取出照片,欣赏一下.晚上下班以后,她回到同另一个助理护一士合住的房间里,才把照片从信封里取出来,含情脉脉地一动不动仔细察看着照片上的那几个人,他们的服装,一�一台的台阶,灌木丛,以及灌木丛前面他的脸,她的脸和两位姑一妈一的脸,看了好半天.她看着这张发黄的褪色照片,怎么也看不够,特别是对她自己,对她那张额上鬈发飘飞的年轻美丽的脸看得出了神.她看得这样专心致志,连那个跟她同住的助理护一士走进屋子,她都没有发觉.
"这是什么?是他给你的吗?"身一体肥胖,心地善良的助理护一士弯下腰来看照片,问道."难道这是你吗?"
"不是我又是谁?"玛丝洛娃笑吟吟地瞧着同伴的脸说.
"那么这是谁?就是他?这是他母亲吗?"
"是姑一妈一.难道你认不出来?"玛丝洛娃问.
"怎么认得出来?一辈子也认不出来.整个模样都变了.
我看离现在都有十年了吧!"
"不是几年,是隔了一辈子,"玛丝洛娃说.她的活泼样儿顿时消失.脸色变得一�一郁,眉一毛一之间凹进去一条皱纹.
"怎么样,那边的生活一定很轻松吧."
"哼,轻松,"玛丝洛娃闭上眼睛,摇摇头说."比服苦役还要苦."
"那怎么会?"
"就是这样.从晚上八点钟忙到早晨四点钟.天天这样."
"那大家为什么不抛下这种生活呢?"
"抛是想抛的,可是办不到.说这些做什么!"玛丝洛娃说着,霍地站起来,拿起照片往一抽一屉里一扔,好容易忍住愤怒的眼泪,砰地一声带上门,跑到走廊里.刚才她瞧着照片,觉得自己似乎还是原来的样子,迷迷糊糊地想象着她当年是多么幸福,现在要是同他在一起又将是多么幸福.同伴的话使她想起她现在的处境,也使她想起当年在那边的生活--那种生活的痛苦,她当时只模模糊糊地感觉到,却不让自己去深入思量.现在她才清楚地想起那些痛苦的夜晚,特别是谢肉节的夜晚,她在等待那个答应替她赎身的大学生.她想起那天她穿着一件酒迹斑斑的袒胸红绸连衣裙,蓬乱的头发上系着一个大红蝴蝶结,一精一疲力竭,浑身虚弱,喝得醉醺醺的,直到深夜两时才把客人们送走.趁跳舞间歇,她在那个瘦得皮包骨头,满脸粉刺的给小提琴伴奏的弹钢琴女人旁边坐下,向她诉说自己的悲惨遭遇.弹钢琴女人也诉说她处境的苦恼,很想改变环境.这当儿,克拉拉也走到她们跟前.她们三人立刻决定抛弃这种生活.她们以为这个夜晚已经过去,刚要走散,忽然听见有几个喝醉酒的客人在前厅喧闹.小提琴手又拉起前奏曲,女钢琴师使劲敲着琴键,弹奏卡德里尔舞①曲第一节,用的是一首欢乐的俄罗斯歌曲.一个穿燕尾服,系白领带的矮小男人,满头大汗,酒气醺天,打着饱嗝,走过来一把搂住她的腰.到弹第二节时,他又把燕尾服脱掉.另外一个留大一胡一子的胖子,也穿着燕尾服(他们刚从一个舞会上出来),搂住了克拉拉的腰.他们旋转,跳舞,叫嚷,喝酒,闹了好一阵......就这样,一年又一年,一年又一年过着同样的日子.一个人怎么能不变!归根结蒂这一切都是他造成的.对他的旧恨顿时又涌上她的心头.她真想把他训斥一番,痛骂一顿.她后悔今天错过机会没有再对他说:她知道他是个怎样的人,她决不受他欺骗,不让他在一精一神上利用她,就象从前在肉一体上利用她那样,也不让他借她来显示他的宽宏大量.她又是怜惜自己,又是徒然责备他.她很想喝点酒来浇灭心头的痛苦.要是她此刻在监狱里,她就会不遵守诺言,喝起酒来.在这里要喝酒,除了找医士,没有别的办法,可是她害怕医士,因为他老是纠缠她.现在她厌恶同男人来往.她在走廊长凳上坐了一会儿,然后回到小屋子里,没有答理同伴的话,而为自己饱经沧桑的身世哭了好半天.
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①四人组成两对的舞蹈,包括六个舞式.
