Nekhludoff pulled his arm away, and without taking leave of any one and without saying a word, he passed through the drawing-room with a dejected look, went down into the hall, past the footman, who sprang towards him, and out at the street door.

“What is the matter with him?  What have you done to him?” asked Anna of her husband.

“This is a la Francaise,” remarked some one.

“A la Francaise, indeed—­it is a la Zoulou.”

“Oh, but he’s always been like that.”

Some one rose, some one came in, and the clatter went on its course.  The company used this episode with Nekhludoff as a convenient topic of conversation for the rest of the “at-home.”

On the day following his visit to Maslennikoff, Nekhludoff received a letter from him, written in a fine, firm hand, on thick, glazed paper, with a coat-of-arms, and sealed with sealing-wax.  Maslennikoff said that he had written to the doctor concerning Maslova’s removal to the hospital, and hoped Nekhludoff’s wish would receive attention.  The letter was signed, “Your affectionate elder comrade,” and the signature ended with a large, firm, and artistic flourish.  “Fool!” Nekhludoff could not refrain from saying, especially because in the word “comrade” he felt Maslennikoff’s condescension towards him, i.e., while Maslennikoff was filling this position, morally most dirty and shameful, he still thought himself a very important man, and wished, if not exactly to flatter Nekhludoff, at least to show that he was not too proud to call him comrade.

CHAPTER LIX.

NEKHLUDOFF’S THIRD INTERVIEW WITH MASLOVA IN PRISON.

One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc.  Men are not like that.  We may say of a man that he is more often kind than cruel, oftener wise than stupid, oftener energetic than apathetic, or the reverse; but it would be false to say of one man that he is kind and wise, of another that he is wicked and foolish.  And yet we always classify mankind in this way.  And this is untrue.  Men are like rivers:  the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm.  It is the same with men.  Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man, In some people these changes are very rapid, and Nekhludoff was such a man.  These changes in him were due to physical and to spiritual causes.  At this time he experienced such a change.

That feeling of triumph and joy at the renewal of life which he had experienced after the trial and after the first interview with Katusha, vanished completely, and after the last interview fear and revulsion took the place of that joy.  He was determined not to leave her, and not to change his decision of marrying her, if she wished it; but it seemed very hard, and made him suffer.