The Awakening | Page 6

to serve as juror
to-day, the 28th of April, and that, therefore, you cannot accompany us
and Kolosoff to the art exhibition, as you promised yesterday in your
customary forgetfulness; à moins que vous ne soyez disposé à payer à
la cour d'assises les 300 rubles d'amende que vous vous refusez pour
votre cheval, for your failure to appear in time. I remembered it
yesterday, when you had left. So keep it in mind.
"PRINCESS M. KORCHAGIN."
On the other side was a postscript:
"Maman vous fait dire que votre couvert vous attendra jusqu' à la nuit.
Venez absolument à quelle heure que cela soit. M. K."
Nekhludoff knit his brows. The note was the continuation of a skillful
strategem whereby the Princess sought, for the last two months, to
fasten him with invisible bonds. But Nekhludoff, besides the usual
irresoluteness before marriage of people of his age, and who are not

passionately in love, had an important reason for withholding his offer
of marriage for the time being. The reason was not that ten years before
he had ruined and abandoned Katiousha, which incident he had entirely
forgotten, but that at this very time he was sustaining relations with a
married woman, and though he now considered them at an end, they
were not so considered by her.
In the presence of women, Nekhludoff was very shy, but it was this
very shyness that determined the married woman to conquer him. This
woman was the wife of the commander of the district in which
Nekhludoff was one of the electors. She led him into relations with her
which held him fast, and at the same time grew more and more
repulsive to him. At first Nekhludoff could not resist her wiles, then,
feeling himself at fault, he could not break off the relations against her
will. This was the reason why Nekhludoff considered that he had no
right, even if he desired, to ask for the hand of Korchagin. A letter from
the husband of that woman happened to lay on the table. Recognizing
the handwriting and the stamp, Nekhludoff flushed and immediately
felt an influx of that energy which he always experienced in the face of
danger. But there was no cause for his agitation; the husband, as
commander of the district where Nekhludoff's estates were situated,
informed the latter of a special meeting of the local governing body,
and asked him to be present without fail, and donner un coup d'épaule
in the important measures to be submitted concerning the schools and
roads, and that the reactionary party was expected to offer strong
opposition.
The commander was a liberal-minded man, entirely absorbed with the
struggles, and knew nothing about his wretched family life.
Nekhludoff recalled all the tortures this man had occasioned him; how
on one occasion he thought that the husband had discovered all, and he
was preparing to fight a duel with him, intending to use a blank
cartridge, and the ensuing scene where she, in despair, ran to the pond,
intending to drown herself, while he ran to search for her. "I cannot go
now, and can undertake nothing until I have heard from her," thought
Nekhludoff. The preceding week he had written to her a decisive letter,

acknowledging his guilt, and expressing his readiness to redeem it in
any manner she should suggest, but for her own good, considered their
relations ended. It is to this letter that he expected a reply. He
considered it a favorable sign that no reply came. If she had not
consented to a separation, she would have answered long ago, or would
have come personally, as she often did before. Nekhludoff had heard
that an army officer was courting her, and while he was tormented by
jealousy, he was at the same time gladdened by the hope of release
from the oppressive lie.
The other letter was from the steward in charge of his estates.
Nekhludoff was requested to return and establish his right to the
inheritance and also to decide on the future management of the estates;
whether the same system of letting out to the peasants, which prevailed
during the lifetime of his mother, was to be continued, or, as the
steward had strongly advised the deceased Princess, and now advised
the young Prince, to augment the stock and work all the land himself.
The steward wrote that the land could thus best be exploited. He also
apologized for his failure to send the three thousand rubles due on the
first of the month, which he would send by the next mail, explaining it
by the difficulty of collecting the rents from the peasants whose bad
faith had reached a point where it became necessary to resort to the
courts to collect them. This letter was partly