She had resolutely made up her mind that she would not accept his sacrifice, and yet the thought that he despised her and believed that she still was what she had been, and did not notice the change that had taken place in her, was very painful.  That he could still think she had done wrong while in the hospital tormented her more than the news that her sentence was confirmed.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE ASTONISHING INSTITUTION CALLED CRIMINAL LAW.

Maslova might be sent off with the first gang of prisoners, therefore Nekhludoff got ready for his departure.  But there was so much to be done that he felt that he could not finish it, however much time he might have.  It was quite different now from what it had been.  Formerly he used to be obliged to look for an occupation, the interest of which always centred in one person, i.e., Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff, and yet, though every interest of his life was thus centred, all these occupations were very wearisome.  Now all his occupations related to other people and not to Dmitri Ivanovitch, and they were all interesting and attractive, and there was no end to them.  Nor was this all.  Formerly Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff’s occupations always made him feel vexed and irritable; now they produced a joyful state of mind.  The business at present occupying Nekhludoff could be divided under three headings.  He himself, with his usual pedantry, divided it in that way, and accordingly kept the papers referring to it in three different portfolios.  The first referred to Maslova, and was chiefly that of taking steps to get her petition to the Emperor attended to, and preparing for her probable journey to Siberia.

The second was about his estates.  In Panovo he had given the land to the peasants on condition of their paying rent to be put to their own communal use.  But he had to confirm this transaction by a legal deed, and to make his will, in accordance with it.  In Kousminski the state of things was still as he had first arranged it, i.e., he was to receive the rent; but the terms had to be fixed, and also how much of the money he would use to live on, and how much he would leave for the peasants’ use.  As he did not know what his journey to Siberia would cost him, he could not decide to lose this revenue altogether, though he reduced the income from it by half.

The third part of his business was to help the convicts, who applied more and more often to him.  At first when he came in contact with the prisoners, and they appealed to him for help, he at once began interceding for them, hoping to lighten their fate, but he soon had so many applications that he felt the impossibility of attending to all of them, and that naturally led him to take up another piece of work, which at last roused his interest even more than the three first.  This new part of his business was finding an answer to the following questions:  What was this astonishing institution called criminal law, of which the results were that in the prison, with some of the inmates of which he had lately become acquainted, and in all those other places of confinement, from the Peter and Paul Fortress in Petersburg to the island of Sakhalin, hundreds and thousands of victims were pining?  What did this strange criminal law exist for?  How had it originated?