The state of mind called forth in him by his last interview with Maslova still filled his soul with quiet joy and good will to all men.
"It is not her but myself I wish to reform," he replied.
Nathalie sighed.
"There are other means besides marriage to do that."
"But I think it is the best. Besides, it leads me into that world in which I can be of use."
"I cannot believe you will be happy," said Nathalie.
"It's not my happiness that is the point."
"Of course, but if she has a heart she cannot be happy—cannot even wish it."
"She does not wish it."
"I understand; but life—"
"Yes—life?"
"Demands something different."
"It demands nothing but that we should do what is right," said Nekhludoff, looking into her face, still handsome, though slightly wrinkled round eyes and mouth.
"I do not understand," she said, and sighed.
"Poor darling; how could she change so?" he thought, calling back to his mind Nathalie as she had been before her marriage, and feeling towards her a tenderness woven out of innumerable memories of childhood.
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. (Though, soon after the marriage, they had tried to be more familiar with each other, they had never succeeded.)
They shook hands, and Rogozhinsky sank softly into an easy-chair.
"Am I not interrupting your conversation?"
"No, I do not wish to hide what I am saying or doing from any one."
As soon as Nekhludoff saw the hairy hands, and heard the patronising, self-assured tones, his meekness left him in a moment.
"Yes, we were talking about his intentions," said Nathalie. "Shall I give you a cup of tea?" she added, taking the teapot.
"Yes, please. What particular intentions do you mean?"
"That of going to Siberia with the gang of prisoners, among whom is the woman I consider myself to have wronged," uttered Nekhludoff.
"I hear not only to accompany her, but more than that."
"Yes, and to marry her if she wishes it."
"Dear me!
But if you do not object I should like to ask you to explain your motives.
I do not understand them."
"My motives are that this woman—that this woman's first step on her way to degradation—" Nekhludoff got angry with himself, and was unable to find the right expression. "My motives are that I am the guilty one, and she gets the punishment."
"If she is being punished she cannot be innocent, either."
"She is quite innocent."
And Nekhludoff related the whole incident with unnecessary warmth.
"Yes, that was a case of carelessness on the part of the president, the result of which was a thoughtless answer on the part of the jury; but there is the Senate for cases like that."
"The Senate has rejected the appeal."
"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.
They will apply to the Department of the Ministry, the Department will consult the Senate, the Senate will repeat its decision, and, as usual, the innocent will get punished."
"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.
It is the guilty who are punished," Rogozhinsky said deliberately, and smiled self-complacently.
"And I have become fully convinced that most of those condemned by law are innocent."
"How's that?"
"Innocent in the literal sense. Just as this woman is innocent of poisoning any one; as innocent as a peasant I have just come to know, of the murder he never committed; as a mother and son who were on the point of being condemned for incendiarism, which was committed by the owner of the house that was set on fire."
"Well, of course there always have been and always will be judicial errors.
Human institutions cannot be perfect."
"And, besides, there are a great many people convicted who are innocent of doing anything considered wrong by the society they have grown up in."
"Excuse me, this is not so; every thief knows that stealing is wrong, and that we should not steal; that it is immoral," said Rogozhinsky, with his quiet, self-assured, slightly contemptuous smile, which specially irritated Nekhludoff.
"No, he does not know it; they say to him 'don't steal,' and he knows that the master of the factory steals his labour by keeping back his wages; that the Government, with its officials, robs him continually by taxation."
"Why, this is anarchism," Rogozhinsky said, quietly defining his brother-in-law's words.