“It is quite possible that what I said was true.  At any rate, he did not refute me.  But it was wrong to speak that way.  Little have I changed if I could insult him and grieve poor Natalie,” he thought.

CHAPTER XXII.

The party of convicts, which included Maslova, was to leave on the three o’clock train, and in order to see them coming out of the prison and follow them to the railroad station Nekhludoff decided to get to the prison before twelve.

While packing his clothes and papers, Nekhludoff came across his diary and began to read the entry he had made before leaving for St. Petersburg.  “Katiusha does not desire my sacrifice, but is willing to sacrifice herself,” it ran.  “She has conquered, and I have conquered.  I am rejoicing at that inner change which she seems to me to be undergoing.  I fear to believe it, but it appears to me that she is awakening.”  Immediately after this was the following entry:  “I have lived through a very painful and very joyous experience.  I was told that she had misbehaved in the hospital.  It was very painful to hear it.  Did not think it would so affect me.  Have spoken to her with contempt and hatred, but suddenly remembered how often I myself have been guilty—­am even now, although only in thought, of that for which I hated her, and suddenly I was seized with disgust for myself and pity for her, and I became very joyful.  If we would only see in time the beam in our own eye, how much kinder we would be.”  Then he made the following entry for the day:  “Have seen Katiusha, and, because of my self-content, was unkind and angry, and departed with a feeling of oppression.  But what can I do?  A new life begins to-morrow.  Farewell to the old life!  My mind is filled with numberless impressions, but I cannot yet reduce them to order.”

On awakening the following morning, Nekhludoff’s first feeling was one of sorrow for the unpleasant incident with his brother-in-law.

“I must go to see them,” he thought, “and smooth it over.”

But, looking at the clock, he saw that there was no time left, and that he must hasten to the prison to see the departure of the convicts.  Hastily packing up his things and sending them to the depot, Nekhludoff hired a trap and drove to the prison.

* * * * *

The hot July days had set in.  The stones of the street, the houses, and the tins of the roofs, failing to cool off during the suffocating night, exhaled their warmth into the hot, still air.  There was no breeze, and such as rose every now and then was laden with dust and the stench of oil paint.  The few people that were on the streets sought shelter in the shade of the houses.  Only sun-burnt street-pavers in bast shoes were sitting in the middle of the street, setting boulders into the hot sand; gloomy policemen in unstarched blouses and carrying revolvers attached to yellow cords, were lazily shuffling about, and tram-cars with drawn blinds on the sides exposed to the sun, and drawn by white-hooded horses, were running up and down the street.