TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

Opinions about Tolstoy and his work differ, but on one point there surely might be unanimity.  A writer of world-wide reputation should be at least allowed to know how to spell his own name.  Why should any one insist on spelling it “Tolstoi” (with one, two or three dots over the “i"), when he himself writes it “Tolstoy”?  The only reason I have ever heard suggested is, that in England and America such outlandish views are attributed to him, that an outlandish spelling is desirable to match those views.

This novel, written in the rough by Tolstoy some years ago and founded upon an actual occurrence, was completely rewritten by him during the last year and a half, and all the proceeds have been devoted by him to aiding the Doukhobors, a sect who were persecuted in the Caucasus (especially from 1895 to 1898) for refusing to learn war.  About seven thousand three hundred of them are settled in Canada, and about a hundred of the leaders are exiled to the remote parts of Siberia.

Anything I may receive for my work in translating the book will go to the same cause.  “Prevention is better than cure,” and I would rather help people to abstain from killing and wounding each other than devote the money to patch up their wounds after the battle.

LOUISE MAUDE

RESURRECTION

CHAPTER I.

Maslova in prison.

Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to disfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded together, by paying the ground with stones, scraping away every vestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds and beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and coal, still spring was spring, even in the town.

The sun shone warm, the air was balmy; everywhere, where it did not get scraped away, the grass revived and sprang up between the paving-stones as well as on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards.  The birches, the poplars, and the wild cherry unfolded their gummy and fragrant leaves, the limes were expanding their opening buds; crows, sparrows, and pigeons, filled with the joy of spring, were getting their nests ready; the flies were buzzing along the walls, warmed by the sunshine.  All were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the children.  But men, grown-up men and women, did not leave off cheating and tormenting themselves and each other.  It was not this spring morning men thought sacred and worthy of consideration not the beauty of God’s world, given for a joy to all creatures, this beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony, and to love, but only their own devices for enslaving one another.