THE VICE-GOVERNOR’S “AT-HOME”
THE next day Nekhlyudov went to see the advocate, and spoke to him about the Menshovs’ case, begging him to undertake their defence. The advocate promised to look into the case, and if it turned out to be as Nekhlyudov said, which was very probable, he would undertake their defence free of charge. Then Nekhlyudov told him of the hundred and thirty men who were kept in prison owing to a mistake. “On whom did it depend? Whose fault was it?”
The advocate was silent for a moment, evidently anxious to give a correct reply.
“Whose fault is it? No one’s,” he said decidedly. “Ask the Procureur, he’ll say it is the governor’s fault; ask the governor, he’ll blame the Procureur. No one is at fault.”
“I am just going to see the vice-governor. I will tell him.”
“Oh, that’s quite useless,” said the advocate, with a smile. “He is such a – he is not a relation or friend of yours? – such a blockhead, if I may say so, and yet a crafty animal at the same time.”
Nekhlyudov remembered what Maslennikov had said about the advocate, and did not answer, but took leave and went on to Maslennikov’s. He had to ask him two things: about Maslova’s removal to the prison hospital, and about the hundred and thirty passportless men innocently imprisoned. It was very hard to ask favours of a man whom he did not respect, but it was the only means of attaining his end, and he had to go through with it.
As he drove up to Maslennikov’s house Nekhlyudov saw a number of carriages by the front door, and remembered that it was the vice-governor’s wife’s ‘at-home’ day, to which he had been invited. At the moment Nekhlyudov drove up a carriage stood in front of the door, and a footman in livery with a cockade in his hat, was helping a lady down the doorsteps. She was holding up her train, showing her thin ankles, black stockings, and slippered feet. Among the carriages was a closed landau, which he knew to be the Korchagins’. Their grey-haired, red-checked coachman took off his hat and bowed in a respectful yet friendly manner to Nekhlyudov, as to a gentleman he knew well. Nekhlyudov had not had time to inquire for Maslennikov when the latter appeared on the carpeted stairs, accompanying a very important guest not only to the first landing but to the bottom of the stairs. This very important visitor, a military man, was speaking in French about a lottery for the benefit of some children’s homes to be founded in the city, and was expressing the opinion that this was a good occupation for the ladies. “It amuses them, and the money comes. Qu’elles s’amusent et que le bon Dieu les bénisse.”