NEVEROFF’S FATE
When, following Katusha, Nekhlyudov returned to the men’s room he found every one in a state of excitement. Nabatov, who went about everywhere, got to know everybody, and noticed everything, had just brought news which staggered them all. The news was that he had discovered, on one of the walls, a note written by the revolutionist Petlin, who had been sentenced to hard labour, and who every one thought had long since reached the Kara; and now it turned out that he had passed this way quite recently, the only political prisoner among criminal convicts.
“On the 17th of August,” so ran the note, “I was sent off alone with criminals. Neverov was with me, but hanged himself in the lunatic asylum in Kazan. I am well and in good spirits and hope for the best.”
All were discussing Petlin’s position and the possible reasons of Neverov’s suicide. Only Kriltsov sat silent and preoccupied, his glistening eyes gazing fixedly in front of him.
“My husband told me that Neverov had a vision while still in the Petropavlovsky,” said Rantseva.
“Yes, he was a poet, a dreamer; these people cannot stand solitary confinement,” said Novodvorov. “Now when I was in solitary confinement I never let my imagination run away with me, but arranged my days most systematically, and therefore always bore it very well.”
“One can bear pretty nearly anything. Why! I used to be quite glad when they locked me up,” said Nabatov cheerfully, wishing to dispel the general depression. “A fellow’s afraid of everything: of being arrested himself and of entangling others and spoiling the whole business, and then he gets locked up, and all responsibility ends and he can rest – he can just sit and smoke.”
“You knew him well?” asked Mary Pavlovna, glancing anxiously at the altered, haggard expression of Kriltsov’s face.
“Neverov a dreamer?” Kriltsov suddenly began, panting for breath as if he had been shouting or singing for a long time. “Neverov was a man ‘such as the earth bears few of,’ as our doorkeeper used to express it. Yes…he had a nature like crystal; you could see right through him. He could not lie; he could not even dissemble. Not merely thin-skinned, but with all his nerves laid bare, as if he were flayed. Yes…his was a complex, rich nature, not such a…But what is the use of talking?” He paused, and then added, with an angry frown: “We dispute whether we must first educate the people and then alter the forms of social life, or first alter the forms of life; and then we dispute how we are to struggle: by peaceful propaganda or by terrorism? We dispute. But they do not dispute, they know their business: they do not care whether dozens, hundreds of men perish. And what men! No, that the best should perish is just what they want. Yes, Herzen said that when the Decembrists were withdrawn from circulation the average level of our society sank. I should think so, indeed. Then Herzen himself and his fellows were withdrawn, and now the Neverovs…”