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And they were really tears of injured pride. Rogozhinsky went up to the window, got out his handkerchief, coughed and rubbed his spectacles, took them off, and wiped his eyes. When he returned to the sofa he lit a cigar, and did not speak any more.
"The shortcomings of the penitentiary system in nowise invalidate the law itself," Rogozhinsky continued again, without heeding his brother-in-law. "There is no remedy for these shortcomings," said Nekhludoff, raising his voice. "What of that? Shall we therefore go and kill, or, as a certain statesman proposed, go putting out people's eyes?" Rogozhinsky remarked.
Rogozhinsky felt that Nekhludoff condemned him and despised his activity, and he wished to show him the injustice of his opinions. Nekhludoff, on the other hand, felt provoked by his brother-in-law's interference in his affairs concerning the land.
Two men sat at another table with tea-things and a white bottle in front of them, mopping their foreheads, and calculating something in a friendly manner. One of them was dark and bald, and had just such a border of hair at the back as Rogozhinsky. This sight again reminded Nekhludoff of yesterday's talk with his brother-in-law and his wish to see him and Nathalie.
"Yes, I hold that we who are placed in special circumstances should bear the responsibilities which spring from those circumstances, should uphold the conditions in which we were born, and which we have inherited from our predecessors, and which we ought to pass on to our descendants." "I consider it my duty " "Wait a bit," said Rogozhinsky, not permitting the interruption.
"Well, if the Senate has rejected it, there cannot have been sufficient reasons for an appeal," said Rogozhinsky, evidently sharing the prevailing opinion that truth is the product of judicial decrees. "The Senate cannot enter into the question on its merits. If there is a real mistake, the Emperor should be petitioned." "That has been done, but there is no probability of success.
"Or removing," Rogozhinsky went on, persistently, "the perverted and brutalised persons that threaten society." "That's just what it doesn't do. Society has not the means of doing either the one thing or the other." "How is that? I don't understand," said Rogozhinsky with a forced smile. "I mean that only two reasonable kinds of punishment exist.
The land must be somebody's property," began Rogozhinsky quietly, and, convinced that Nekhludoff was a Socialist, and that Socialism demands that all the land should be divided equally, that such a division would be very foolish, and that he could easily prove it to be so, he said. "If you divided it equally to-day, it would to-morrow be again in the hands of the most industrious and clever."
"In the first place, the Department of the Ministry won't consult the Senate," said Rogozhinsky, with a condescending smile; "it will give orders for the original deeds to be sent from the Law Court, and if it discovers a mistake it will decide accordingly. And, secondly, the innocent are never punished, or at least in very rare, exceptional cases.
At that moment Rogozhinsky entered the room, with head thrown back and expanded chest, and stepping lightly and softly in his usual manner, his spectacles, his bald patch, and his black beard all glistening. "How do you do? How do you do?" he said, laying an unnatural and intentional stress on his words. They shook hands, and Rogozhinsky sank softly into an easy-chair.
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