“If I do give it away, all I can say is that the rest will be theirs, as it is not likely I shall marry; and if I do marry I shall have no children, so that—­”

“Dmitri, don’t talk like that!” said Nathalie.  And yet Nekhludoff noticed that she was glad to hear him say it.

Higher up, by the side of a first-class carriage, there stood a group of people still looking at the carriage into which the Princess Korchagin had been carried.  Most of the passengers were already seated.  Some of the late comers hurriedly clattered along the boards of the platform, the guard was closing the doors and asking the passengers to get in and those who were seeing them off to come out.

Nekhludoff entered the hot, smelling carriage, but at once stepped out again on to the small platform at the back of the carriage.  Nathalie stood opposite the carriage, with her fashionable bonnet and cape, by the side of Agraphena Petrovna, and was evidently trying to find something to say.

She could not even say ecrivez, because they had long ago laughed at this word, habitually spoken by those about to part.  The short conversation about money matters had in a moment destroyed the tender brotherly and sisterly feelings that had taken hold of them.  They felt estranged, so that Nathalie was glad when the train moved; and she could only say, nodding her head with a sad and tender look, “Goodbye, good-bye, Dmitri.”  But as soon as the carriage had passed her she thought of how she should repeat her conversation with her brother to her husband, and her face became serious and troubled.

Nekhludoff, too, though he had nothing but the kindest feelings for his sister, and had hidden nothing from her, now felt depressed and uncomfortable with her, and was glad to part.  He felt that the Nathalie who was once so near to him no longer existed, and in her place was only a slave of that hairy, unpleasant husband, who was so foreign to him.  He saw it clearly when her face lit up with peculiar animation as he spoke of what would peculiarly interest her husband, i.e., the giving up of the land to the peasants and the inheritance.

And this made him sad.

CHAPTER XL.

THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF HUMAN LIFE.

The heat in the large third-class carriage, which had been standing in the burning sun all day, was so great that Nekhludoff did not go in, but stopped on the little platform behind the carriage which formed a passage to the next one.  But there was not a breath of fresh air here either, and Nekhludoff breathed freely only when the train had passed the buildings and the draught blew across the platform.

“Yes, killed,” he repeated to himself, the words he had used to his sister.  And in his imagination in the midst of all other impressions there arose with wonderful clearness the beautiful face of the second dead convict, with the smile of the lips, the severe expression of the brows, and the small, firm ear below the shaved bluish skull.