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"Do you wish anything else?" she asked, looking now at Nekhludoff, now at the inspector, and depositing the pen now on the ink-stand, now on the paper. "I wish to tell you something," said Nekhludoff, taking the pen from her hand. "Very well; go on," she uttered, and suddenly, as though meditating or growing sleepy, her face became grave.
From Kusminskoie Nekhludoff went to Panovo, the estate left him by his aunts, and where he had first seen Katiousha. He intended to dispose of this land in the same manner as he disposed of the other, and also desired to learn all there was known about Katiousha, and to find out if it was true that their child had died.
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."
He went to the table, sat down and began to write. "Please be seated." Nekhludoff stood still. When he had made out the pass the prosecutor handed it to Nekhludoff and eyed him with curiosity. "I must also tell you," said Nekhludoff, "that I cannot continue to serve as juror." "As you know, satisfactory reasons must be given to the court in such cases."
When Nekhludoff had finished he took a book from the table, and frequently wetting the fingers with which he turned the leaves, he lighted on the chapter treating of marriage and perused it. "What's her sentence?" he asked, lifting his eyes from the book. "Hers? Hard labor." "If this is the case, the sentence cannot be changed by marriage." "But " "I beg your pardon!
The convoy officer could not be guilty either, for his business was to receive a certain number of persons in a certain place, and to deliver up the same number. He conducted them in the usual manner, and could not foresee that two such strong men as those Nekhludoff saw would not be able to stand it and would die.
Nekhludoff walked into the jury-room and took a seat near the window. Yes, it was Katiousha. The relations of Nekhludoff to Katiousha were the following: Nekhludoff first met Katiousha when he went to stay one summer out at the estate of his aunts in order that he might quietly prepare his thesis on the private ownership of land.
But as soon as the carriage had passed her she thought of how she should repeat her conversation with her brother to her husband, and her face became serious and troubled. Nekhludoff, too, though he had nothing but the kindest feelings for his sister, and had hidden nothing from her, now felt depressed and uncomfortable with her, and was glad to part.
And when at the Englishman's request the hostess went up to the piano with the ex-director of the Government department, and they began to play in well-practised style Beethoven's fifth symphony, Nekhludoff fell into a mental state of perfect self-satisfaction to which he had long been a stranger, as though he had only just found out what a good fellow he was.
The crowd was still pouring out of the church, their hob-nailed shoes clattering against the stone pavement, and spread about the cemetery. An old man, confectioner to Maria Ivanovna, stopped Nekhludoff and kissed him, and his wife, an old woman with a wrinkled Adam's apple under a silk 'kerchief, unrolled a yellow saffron egg from her handkerchief and gave it to him.
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