Resurrection

The mortuary was an ordinary cell, not very large. A small lamp hung on the wall and dimly lit up sacks and logs of wood that were piled up in one corner, and four dead bodies lay on the bedshelves to the right. The first body had a coarse linen shirt and trousers on; it was that of a tall man with a small beard and half his head shaved. The body was quite rigid; the bluish hands, that had evidently been folded on the breast, had separated; the legs were also apart and the bare feet were sticking out. Next to him lay a bare-footed old woman in a white petticoat, her head, with its thin plait of hair, uncovered, with a little, pinched yellow face and a sharp nose. Beyond her was another man with something lilac on. This colour reminded Nekhludoff of something. He came nearer and looked at the body. The small, pointed beard sticking upwards, the firm, well-shaped nose, the high, white forehead, the thin, curly hair; he recognised the familiar features and could hardly believe his eyes. Yesterday he had seen this face, angry, excited, and full of suffering; now it was quiet, motionless, and terribly beautiful. Yes, it was Kryltzoff, or at any rate the trace that his material existence had left behind. "Why had he suffered? Why had he lived? Does he now understand?" Nekhludoff thought, and there seemed to be no answer, seemed to be nothing but death, and he felt faint. Without taking leave of the Englishman, Nekhludoff asked the inspector to lead him out into the yard, and feeling the absolute necessity of being alone to think over all that had happened that evening, he drove back to his hotel.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A NEW LIFE DAWNS FOR NEKHLUDOFF.

Nekhludoff did not go to bed, but went up and down his room for a long time. His business with Katusha was at an end. He was not wanted, and this made him sad and ashamed. His other business was not only unfinished, but troubled him more than ever and demanded his activity. All this horrible evil that he had seen and learned to know lately, and especially to-day in that awful prison, this evil, which had killed that dear Kryltzoff, ruled and was triumphant, and he could foreseen possibility of conquering or even knowing how to conquer it. Those hundreds and thousands of degraded human beings locked up in the noisome prisons by indifferent generals, procureurs, inspectors, rose up in his imagination; he remembered the strange, free old man accusing the officials, and therefore considered mad, and among the corpses the beautiful, waxen face of Kryltzoff, who had died in anger. And again the question as to whether he was mad or those who considered they were in their right minds while they committed all these deeds stood before him with renewed force and demanded an answer.

Tired of pacing up and down, tired of thinking, he sat down on the sofa near the lamp and mechanically opened the Testament which the Englishman had given him as a remembrance, and which he had thrown on the table when he emptied his pockets on coming in.

"It is said one can find an answer to everything here," he thought, and opened the Testament at random and began reading Matt. xviii. 1-4: "In that hour came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who then is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven? And He called to Him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in nowise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child the same is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven."

"Yes, yes, that is true," he said, remembering that he had known the peace and joy of life only when he had humbled himself.

"And whosoever shall receive one such little child in My name receiveth Me, but whoso shall cause one of these little ones to stumble, it is more profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea." (Matt. xviii. 5, 6.)

"What is this for, 'Whosoever shall receive?' Receive where? And what does 'in my name' mean?" he asked, feeling that these words did not tell him anything. "And why 'the millstone round his neck and the depths of the sea?' No, that is not it: it is not clear," and he remembered how more than once in his life he had taken to reading the Gospels, and how want of clearness in these passages had repulsed him. He went on to read the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth verses about the occasions of stumbling, and that they must come, and about punishment by casting men into hell fire, and some kind of angels who see the face of the Father in Heaven. "What a pity that this is so incoherent," he thought, "yet one feels that there is something good in it."

"For the Son of Man came to save that which was lost," he continued to read.