"And I say you sha'n't," she said, and laughed aloud.
"Katusha," he said, touching her hand.
"You go away.
I am a convict and you a prince, and you've no business here," she cried, pulling away her hand, her whole appearance transformed by her wrath. "You've got pleasure out of me in this life, and want to save yourself through me in the life to come.
You are disgusting to me—your spectacles and the whole of your dirty fat mug.
Go, go!" she screamed, starting to her feet.
The jailer came up to them.
"What are you kicking up this row for?'
That won't—"
"Let her alone, please," said Nekhludoff.
"She must not forget herself," said the jailer.
"Please wait a little," said Nekhludoff, and the jailer returned to the window.
Maslova sat down again, dropping her eyes and firmly clasping her small hands.
Nekhludoff stooped over her, not knowing what to do.
"You do not believe me?" he said.
"That you mean to marry me? It will never be.
I'll rather hang myself.
So there!"
"Well, still I shall go on serving you."
"That's your affair, only I don't want anything from you.
I am telling you the plain truth," she said. "Oh, why did I not die then?" she added, and began to cry piteously.
Nekhludoff could not speak; her tears infected him.
She lifted her eyes, looked at him in surprise, and began to wipe her tears with her kerchief.
The jailer came up again and reminded them that it was time to part.
Maslova rose.
"You are excited.
If it is possible, I shall come again tomorrow; you think it over," said Nekhludoff.
She gave him no answer and, without looking up, followed the jailer out of the room.
"Well, lass, you'll have rare times now," Korableva said, when Maslova returned to the cell. "Seems he's mighty sweet on you; make the most of it while he's after you.
He'll help you out.
Rich people can do anything."
"Yes, that's so," remarked the watchman's wife, with her musical voice. "When a poor man thinks of getting married, there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip; but a rich man need only make up his mind and it's done.
We knew a toff like that duckie. What d'you think he did?"
"Well, have you spoken about my affairs?" the old woman asked.
But Maslova gave her fellow-prisoners no answer; she lay down on the shelf bedstead, her squinting eyes fixed on a corner of the room, and lay there until the evening.
A painful struggle went on in her soul.
What Nekhludoff had told her called up the memory of that world in which she had suffered and which she had left without having understood, hating it.
She now feared to wake from the trance in which she was living. Not having arrived at any conclusion when evening came, she again bought some vodka and drank with her companions.
CHAPTER XLIX. VERA DOUKHOVA.
"So this is what it means, this," thought Nekhludoff as he left the prison, only now fully understanding his crime.
If he had not tried to expiate his guilt he would never have found out how great his crime was. Nor was this all; she, too, would never have felt the whole horror of what had been done to her.
He only now saw what he had done to the soul of this woman; only now she saw and understood what had been done to her.
Up to this time Nekhludoff had played with a sensation of self-admiration, had admired his own remorse; now he was simply filled with horror.
He knew he could not throw her up now, and yet he could not imagine what would come of their relations to one another.
Just as he was going out, a jailer, with a disagreeable, insinuating countenance, and a cross and medals on his breast, came up and handed him a note with an air of mystery.
"Here is a note from a certain person, your honour," he said to Nekhludoff as he gave him the envelope.
"What person?"
"You will know when you read it.
A political prisoner.
I am in that ward, so she asked me; and though it is against the rules, still feelings of humanity—" The jailer spoke in an unnatural manner.