Resurrection 复活(III)英文版(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)


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Resurrection  复活(III)英文版

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Chapter1 MASLOVA MAKES NEW FRIENDS

The gang of prisoners to which Maslova belonged had walked about three thousand three hundred miles. She and the other prisoners condemned for criminal offences had travelled by rail and by steamboats as far as the town of Perm. It was only here that Nekhludoff succeeded in obtaining a permission for her to continue the journey with the political prisoners, as Vera Doukhova, who was among the latter, advised him to do. The journey up to Perm had been very trying to Maslova both morally and physically. Physically, because of the overcrowding, the dirt, and the disgusting vermin, which gave her no peace; morally, because of the equally disgusting men. The men, like the vermin, though they changed at each halting-place, were everywhere alike importunate; they swarmed round her, giving her no rest. Among the women prisoners and the men prisoners, the jailers and the convoy soldiers, the habit of a kind of cynical debauch was so firmly established that unless a female prisoner was willing to utilise her position as a woman she had to be constantly on the watch. To be continually in a state of fear and strife was very trying. And Maslova was specially exposed to attacks, her appearance being attractive and her past known to every one. The decided resistance with which she now met the importunity of all the men seemed offensive to them, and awakened another feeling, that of ill-will towards her. But her position was made a little easier by her intimacy with Theodosia, and Theodosia's husband, who, having heard of the molestations his wife was subject to, had in Nijni been arrested at his own desire in order to be able to protect her, and was now travelling with the gang as a prisoner. Maslova's position became much more bearable when she was allowed to join the political prisoners, who were provided with better accomodations, better food, and were treated less rudely, but besides all this Maslova's condition was much improved because among the political prisoners she was no longer molested by the men, and could live without being reminded of that past which she was so anxious to forget. But the chief advantage of the change lay in the fact that she made the acquaintance of several persons who exercised a decided and most beneficial influence on her character. Maslova was allowed to stop with the political prisoners at all the halting-places, but being a strong and healthy woman she was obliged to march with the criminal convicts. In this way she walked all the way from Tomsk. Two political prisoners also marched with the gang, Mary Pavlovna Schetinina, the girl with the hazel eyes who had attracted Nekhludoff's attention when he had been to visit Doukhova in prison, and one Simonson, who was on his way to the Takoutsk district, the dishevelled dark young fellow with deep-lying eyes, whom Nekhludoff had also noticed during that visit. Mary Pavlovna was walking because she had given her place on the cart to one of the criminals, a woman expecting to be confined, and Simonson because he did not dare to avail himself of a class privilege.

These three always started early in the morning before the rest of the political prisoners, who followed later on in the carts.

They were ready to start in this way just outside a large town, where a new convoy officer had taken charge of the gang.

It was early on a dull September morning. It kept raining and snowing alternately, and the cold wind blew in sudden gusts. The whole gang of prisoners, consisting of four hundred men and fifty women, was already assembled in the court of the halting station. Some of them were crowding round the chief of the convoy, who was giving to specially appointed prisoners money for two days' keep to distribute among the rest, while others were purchasing food from women who had been let into the courtyard. One could hear the voices of the prisoners counting their money and making their purchases, and the shrill voices of the women with the food.

Simonson, in his rubber jacket and rubber overshoes fastened with a string over his worsted stockings (he was a vegetarian and would not wear the skin of slaughtered animals), was also in the courtyard waiting for the gang to start. He stood by the porch and jotted down in his notebook a thought that had occurred to him. This was what he wrote: "If a bacteria watched and examined a human nail it would pronounce it inorganic matter, and thus we, examining our globe and watching its crust, pronounce it to be inorganic. This is incorrect."

Katusha and Mary Pavlovna, both wearing top-boots and with shawls tied round their heads, came out of the building into the courtyard where the women sat sheltered from the wind by the northern wall of the court, and vied with one another, offering their goods, hot meat pie, fish, vermicelli, buckwheat porridge, liver, beef, eggs, milk. One had even a roast pig to offer.

Having bought some eggs, bread, fish, and some rusks, Maslova was putting them into her bag, while Mary Pavlovna was paying the women, when a movement arose among the convicts. All were silent and took their places. The officer came out and began giving the last orders before starting. Everything was done in the usual manner. The prisoners were counted, the chains on their legs examined, and those who were to march in couples linked together with manacles. But suddenly the angry, authoritative voice of the officer shouting something was heard, also the sound of a blow and the crying of a child. All was silent for a moment and then came a hollow murmur from the crowd. Maslova and Mary Pavlovna advanced towards the spot whence the noise proceeded.

Chapter2 AN INCIDENT OF THE MARCH

This is what Mary Pavlovna and Katusha saw when they came up to the scene whence the noise proceeded. The officer, a sturdy fellow, with fair moustaches, stood uttering words of foul and coarse abuse, and rubbing with his left the palm of his right hand, which he had hurt in hitting a prisoner on the face. In front of him a thin, tall convict, with half his head shaved and dressed in a cloak too short for him and trousers much too short, stood wiping his bleeding face with one hand, and holding a little shrieking girl wrapped in a shawl with the other.

"I'll give it you" (foul abuse); "I'll teach you to reason" (more abuse); "you're to give her to the women!" shouted the officer. "Now, then, on with them."

The convict, who was exiled by the Commune, had been carrying his little daughter all the way from Tomsk, where his wife had died of typhus, and now the officer ordered him to be manacled. The exile's explanation that he could not carry the child if he was manacled irritated the officer, who happened to be in a bad temper, and he gave the troublesome prisoner a beating. [A fact described by Lineff in his "Transportation".] Before the injured convict stood a convoy soldier, and a black-bearded prisoner with manacles on one hand and a look of gloom on his face, which he turned now to the officer, now to the prisoner with the little girl.

The officer repeated his orders for the soldiers to take away the girl. The murmur among the prisoners grew louder.

"All the way from Tomsk they were not put on," came a hoarse voice from some one in the rear. "It's a child, and not a puppy."

"What's he to do with the lassie? That's not the law," said some one else.

"Who's that?" shouted the officer as if he had been stung, and rushed into the crowd.

"I'll teach you the law. Who spoke. You? You?"

"Everybody says so, because-" said a short, broad-faced prisoner.

Before he had finished speaking the officer hit him in the face.

"Mutiny, is it? I'll show you what mutiny means. I'll have you all shot like dogs, and the authorities will be only too thankful. Take the girl."

The crowd was silent. One convoy soldier pulled away the girl, who was screaming desperately, while another manacled the prisoner, who now submissively held out his hand.

"Take her to the women," shouted the officer, arranging his sword belt.

The little girl, whose face had grown quite red, was trying to disengage her arms from under the shawl, and screamed unceasingly. Mary Pavlovna stepped out from among the crowd and came up to the officer.

"Will you allow me to carry the little girl?" she said.

"Who are you?" asked the officer.

"A political prisoner."

Mary Pavlovna's handsome face, with the beautiful prominent eyes (he had noticed her before when the prisoners were given into his charge), evidently produced an effect on the officer. He looked at her in silence as if considering, then said: "I don't care; carry her if you like. It is easy for you to show pity; if he ran away who would have to answer?"

"How could he run away with the child in his arms?" said Mary Pavlovna.

"I have no time to talk with you. Take her if you like."

"Shall I give her?" asked the soldier.

"Yes, give her."

"Come to me," said Mary Pavlovna, trying to coax the child to come to her.

But the child in the soldier's arms stretched herself towards her father and continued to scream, and would not go to Mary Pavlovna.

"Wait a bit, Mary Pavlovna," said Maslova, getting a rusk out of her bag; "she will come to me."

The little girl knew Maslova, and when she saw her face and the rusk she let her take her. All was quiet. The gates were opened, and the gang stepped out, the convoy counted the prisoners over again, the bags were packed and tied on to the carts, the weak seated on the top. Maslova with the child in her arms took her place among the women next to Theodosia. Simonson, who had all the time been watching what was going on, stepped with large, determined strides up to the officer, who, having given his orders, was just getting into a trap, and said, "You have behaved badly."

"Get to your place; it is no business of yours."

"It is my business to tell you that you have behaved badly and I have said it," said Simonson, looking intently into the officer's face from under his bushy eyebrows.

"Ready? March!" the officer called out, paying no heed to Simonson, and, taking hold of the driver's shoulder, he got into the trap. The gang started and spread out as it stepped on to the muddy high road with ditches on each side, which passed through a dense forest.

Chapter3 MARY PAVLOVNA

In spite of the hard conditions in which they were placed, life among the political prisoners seemed very good to Katusha after the depraved, luxurious and effeminate life she had led in town for the last six years, and after two months' imprisonment with criminal prisoners. The fifteen to twenty miles they did per day, with one day's rest after two days' marching, strengthened her physically, and the fellowship with her new companions opened out to her a life full of interests such as she had never dreamed of. People so wonderful (as she expressed it) as those whom she was now going with she had not only never met but could not even have imagined.

"There now, and I cried when I was sentenced," she said. "Why, I must thank God for it all the days of my life. I have learned to know what I never should have found out else."

The motives she understood easily and without effort that guided these people, and, being of the people, fully sympathised with them. She understood that these persons were for the people and against the upper classes, and though themselves belonging to the upper classes had sacrificed their privileges, their liberty and their lives for the people. This especially made her value and admire them. She was charmed with all the new companions, but particularly with Mary Pavlovna, and she was not only charmed with her, but loved her with a peculiar, respectful and rapturous love. She was struck by the fact that this beautiful girl, the daughter of a rich general, who could speak three languages, gave away all that her rich brother sent her, and lived like the simplest working girl, and dressed not only simply, but poorly, paying no heed to her appearance. This trait and a complete absence of coquetry was particularly surprising and therefore attractive to Maslova. Maslova could see that Mary Pavlovna knew, and was even pleased to know, that she was handsome, and yet the effect her appearance had on men was not at all pleasing to her; she was even afraid of it, and felt an absolute disgust to all love affairs. Her men companions knew it, and if they felt attracted by her never permitted themselves to show it to her, but treated her as they would a man; but with strangers, who often molested her, the great physical strength on which she prided herself stood her in good stead.

"It happened once," she said to Katusha, "that a man followed me in the street and would not leave me on any account. At last I gave him such a shaking that he was frightened and ran away."

She became a revolutionary, as she said, because she felt a dislike to the life of the well-to-do from childhood up, and loved the life of the common people, and she was always being scolded for spending her time in the servants' hall, in the kitchen or the stables instead of the drawing-room.

"And I found it amusing to be with cooks and the coachmen, and dull with our gentlemen and ladies," she said. "Then when I came to understand things I saw that our life was altogether wrong; I had no mother and I did not care for my father, and so when I was nineteen I left home, and went with a girl friend to work as a factory hand."

After she left the factory she lived in the country, then returned to town and lived in a lodging, where they had a secret printing press. There she was arrested and sentenced to hard labour. Mary Pavlovna said nothing about it herself, but Katusha heard from others that Mary Pavlovna was sentenced because, when the lodging was searched by the police and one of the revolutionists fired a shot in the dark, she pleaded guilty.

As soon as she had learned to know Mary Pavlovna, Katusha noticed that, whatever the conditions she found herself in, Mary Pavlovna never thought of herself, but was always anxious to serve, to help some one, in matters small or great. One of her present companions, Novodvoroff, said of her that she devoted herself to philanthropic amusements. And this was true. The interest of her whole life lay in the search for opportunities of serving others. This kind of amusement had become the habit, the business of her life. And she did it all so naturally that those who knew her no longer valued but simply expected it of her.

When Maslova first came among them, Mary Pavlovna felt repulsed and disgusted. Katusha noticed this, but she also noticed that, having made an effort to overcome these feelings, Mary Pavlovna became particularly tender and kind to her. The tenderness and kindness of so uncommon a being touched Maslova so much that she gave her whole heart, and unconsciously accepting her views, could not help imitating her in everything.

This devoted love of Katusha touched Mary Pavlovna in her turn, and she learned to love Katusha.

These women were also united by the repulsion they both felt to sexual love. The one loathed that kind of love, having experienced all its horrors, the other, never having experienced it, looked on it as something incomprehensible and at the same time as something repugnant and offensive to human dignity.

Chapter4 SIMONSON

Mary Pavlovna's influence was one that Maslova submitted to because she loved Mary Pavlovna. Simonson influenced her because he loved her.

Everybody lives and acts partly according to his own, partly according to other people's, ideas. This is what constitutes one of the great differences among men. To some, thinking is a kind of mental game; they treat their reason as if it were a fly-wheel without a connecting strap, and are guided in their actions by other people's ideas, by custom or laws; while others look upon their own ideas as the chief motive power of all their actions, and always listen to the dictates of their own reason and submit to it, accepting other people's opinions only on rare occasions and after weighing them critically. Simonson was a man of the latter sort; he settled and verified everything according to his own reason and acted on the decisions he arrived at. When a schoolboy he made up his mind that his father's income, made as a paymaster in government office was dishonestly gained, and he told his father that it ought to be given to the people. When his father, instead of listening to him, gave him a scolding, he left his father's house and would not make use of his father's means. Having come to the conclusion that all the existing misery was a result of the people's ignorance, he joined the socialists, who carried on propaganda among the people, as soon as he left the university and got a place as a village schoolmaster. He taught and explained to his pupils and to the peasants what he considered to be just, and openly blamed what he thought unjust. He was arrested and tried. During his trial he determined to tell his judges that his was a just cause, for which he ought not to be tried or punished. When the judges paid no heed to his words, but went on with the trial, he decided not to answer them and kept resolutely silent when they questioned him. He was exiled to the Government of Archangel. There he formulated a religious teaching which was founded on the theory that everything in the world was alive, that nothing is lifeless, and that all the objects we consider to be without life or inorganic are only parts of an enormous organic body which we cannot compass. A man's task is to sustain the life of that huge organism and all its animate parts. Therefore he was against war, capital punishment and every kind of killing, not only of human beings, but also of animals. Concerning marriage, too, he had a peculiar idea of his own; he thought that increase was a lower function of man, the highest function being to serve the already existing lives. He found a confirmation of his theory in the fact that there were phacocytes in the blood. Celibates, according to his opinion, were the same as phacocytes, their function being to help the weak and the sickly particles of the organism. From the moment he came to this conclusion he began to consider himself as well as Mary Pavlovna as phacocytes, and to live accordingly, though as a youth he had been addicted to vice. His love for Katusha did not infringe this conception, because he loved her platonically, and such love he considered could not hinder his activity as a phacocytes, but acted, on the contrary, as an inspiration.

Not only moral, but also most practical questions he decided in his own way. He applied a theory of his own to all practical business, had rules relating to the number of hours for rest and for work, to the kind of food to eat, the way to dress, to heat and light up the rooms. With all this Simonson was very shy and modest; and yet when he had once made up his mind nothing could make him waver. And this man had a decided influence on Maslova through his love for her. With a woman's instinct Maslova very soon found out that he loved her. And the fact that she could awaken love in a man of that kind raised her in her own estimation. It was Nekhludoff's magnanimity and what had been in the past that made him offer to marry her, but Simonson loved her such as she was now, loved her simply because of the love he bore her. And she felt that Simonson considered her to be an exceptional woman, having peculiarly high moral qualities. She did not quite know what the qualities he attributed to her were, but in order to be on the safe side and that he should not be disappointed in her, she tried with all her might to awaken in herself all the highest qualities she could conceive, and she tried to be as good as possible. This had begun while they were still in prison, when on a common visiting day she had noticed his kindly dark blue eyes gazing fixedly at her from under his projecting brow. Even then she had noticed that this was a peculiar man, and that he was looking at her in a peculiar manner, and had also noticed the striking combination of sternness--the unruly hair and the frowning forehead gave him this appearance--with the child-like kindness and innocence of his look. She saw him again in Tomsk, where she joined the political prisoners. Though they had not uttered a word, their looks told plainly that they had understood one another. Even after that they had had no serious conversation with each other, but Maslova felt that when he spoke in her presence his words were addressed to her, and that he spoke for her sake, trying to express himself as plainly as he could; but it was when he started walking with the criminal prisoners that they grew specially near to one another.

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