NABATOFF AND MARKEL
One of the new-comers was a short, thin young man, wearing a cloth-covered sheepskin coat and high boots. He stepped lightly and quickly, carrying two steaming teapots, and holding under his arm a loaf wrapped in a cloth.
“Well, so our Prince has put in an appearance again,” he said, as he placed the teapots beside the cups and handed the bread to Rantseva. “We have bought wonderful things,” he continued, as he took off his sheepskin and flung it over the heads of the others on to the bed-shelf. “Markel has bought milk and eggs; why, we’ll have a regular ball to-night. And Rantseva is diffusing her ?sthetic cleanliness,” he said, and looked with a smile at Rantseva; “and now she will make tea.”
The whole presence of this man: his movements, his voice, his look, seemed to breathe vigour and merriment. The other new-comer was just the reverse; he looked despondent and sad. He was short and bony and had very prominent cheek-bones, a sallow complexion, thin lips, and beautiful light hazel eyes, rather far apart. He wore an old wadded coat, long boots and galoshes, and was carrying two pots of milk and two round boxes made of birch bark, which he placed in front of Rantseva. He bowed to Nekhlyudov, bending only his neck and keeping his eyes fixed on him. Then having reluctantly given him his damp hand to shake he began to take out the provisions.
Both these political prisoners were of the people. The first was Nabatov, a peasant; the second, Markel Kondratyev, a factory hand. Markel did not get among the revolutionists till he was quite a man; Nabatov joined them when only eighteen. After leaving the village school Nabatov gained a place at the high school, owing to his exceptional talents, earned his living by giving lessons all the time he studied there, and on finishing won the gold medal. He did not go to the university because, while still in the top class of the high school, he made up his mind to go among the people and enlighten his neglected brethren. This he did, first getting the place as a Government clerk in a large village. He was soon arrested, because he read to the peasants and arranged a co-operative industrial association among them. The authorities kept him imprisoned for eight months, and then set him free, but he remained under police supervision. As soon as he was liberated he went to another village, got a place as schoolmaster, and did the same as he had done in the first village. He was again taken up, and kept fourteen months in prison, where his political convictions became yet stronger.
After that he was exiled to the Perm Government, from whence he escaped. Then he was put in prison for seven months, and after that he was exiled to Archangel. Again he tried to escape, but was re-arrested and condemned to be exiled to the Yakutsk Government; so that half his life since he reached manhood had been passed in prison and in exile. All these adventures did not embitter him and did not weaken his energy, but rather stimulated it. He was a lively young fellow, with a splendid digestion; always active, gay, and vigorous. He never repented of anything, never looked far ahead, and used all his powers, his cleverness, and his practical knowledge to act in the present. When free, he worked towards the aim he had set himself – the enlightening and the uniting of the working-men, especially the country labourers. When in prison he was just as energetic and practical in finding means to come in contact with the outer world, and in arranging his own life and the life of his group as comfortably as circumstances permitted. Above all things he was social – a member of a Commune. He wanted, as it seemed to him, nothing for himself, and contented himself with very little, but demanded very much for the group of his comrades, and could work for it either physically or mentally, day and night, without sleep or food. As a peasant he was industrious, observant, and clever at his work; he was also naturally self-controlled, polite without any effort, and attentive not only to the wishes but also to the opinions of others. His widowed mother, an illiterate superstitious old peasant woman, was still living, and Nabatov helped her, and used to visit her while he was free. During the time he spent at home he entered into all the interests of his mother’s life, helped her in her work, continued his intercourse with former playfellows, smoked in their company cheap tobacco in “dog’s-foot cigarettes,” took part in their fistcuffs, and explained to them how they were all being deceived by the State, and how they ought to disentangle themselves from the deception they were kept in. When he thought or spoke of what a revolution would do, he always imagined the people, from whom he had himself sprung, left in very nearly the same condition as before, only with sufficient land and without the gentry and officials. The revolution, according to him – and in this he differed from Novodvorov and Novodvorov’s follower, Markel Kondratyev – should not alter the fundamental forms of the life of the people, should not break down the whole edifice, but should only alter the inner walls of the beautiful, strong, colossal old structure he loved so dearly.