第80章

The jailer who had brought Maslova in sat on a windowsill at some distance from them.

The decisive moment had come for Nekhludoff. He had been incessantly blaming himself for not having told her the principal thing at the first interview, and was now determined to tell her that he would marry her. She was sitting at the further side of the table. Nekhludoff sat down opposite her. It was light in the room, and Nekhludoff for the first time saw her face quite near.

He distinctly saw the crowsfeet round her eyes, the wrinkles round her mouth, and the swollen eyelids. He felt more sorry than before. Leaning over the table so as not to be beard by the jailer--a man of Jewish type with grizzly whiskers, who sat by the window--Nekhludoff said:

"Should this petition come to nothing we shall appeal to the Emperor. All that is possible shall be done."

"There, now, if we had had a proper advocate from the first," she interrupted. "My defendant was quite a silly. He did nothing but pay me compliments," she said, and laughed. "If it had then been known that I was acquainted with you, it would have been another matter. They think every one's a thief."

"How strange she is to-day," Nekhludoff thought, and was just going to say what he had on his mind when she began again:

"There's something I want to say. We have here an old woman; such a fine one, d'you know, she just surprises every one; she is imprisoned for nothing, and her son, too, and everybody knows they are innocent, though they are accused of having set fire to a house. D'you know, hearing I was acquainted with you, she says:

'Tell him to ask to see my son; he'll tell him all about it."'

Thus spoke Maslova, turning her head from side to side, and glancing at Nekhludoff. "Their name's Menshoff. Well, will you do it? Such a fine old thing, you know; you can see at once she's innocent. You'll do it, there's a dear," and she smiled, glanced up at him, and then cast down her eyes.

"All right. I'll find out about them," Nekhludoff said, more and more astonished by her free-and-easy manner. "But I was going to speak to you about myself. Do you remember what I told you last time?"

"You said a lot last time. What was it you told me?" she said, continuing to smile and to turn her head from side to side.

"I said I had come to ask you to forgive me," he began.

"What's the use of that? Forgive, forgive, where's the good of--"

"To atone for my sin, not by mere words, but in deed. I have made up my mind to marry you."

An expression of fear suddenly came over her face. Her squinting eyes remained fixed on him, and yet seemed not to be looking at him.

"What's that for?" she said, with an angry frown.

"I feel that it is my duty before God to do it."

"What God have you found now? You are not saying what you ought to. God, indeed! What God? You ought to have remembered God then," she said, and stopped with her mouth open. It was only now that Nekhludoff noticed that her breath smelled of spirits, and that he understood the cause of her excitement.

"Try and be calm," he said.