Resurrection

Listening now to Sophia Vasilievna, now to Kolosoff, Nekhludoff

noticed that neither he nor she cared anything about the play or

each other, and that if they talked it was only to gratify the

physical desire to move the muscles of the throat and tongue

after having eaten; and that Kolosoff, having drunk vodka, wine

and liqueur, was a little tipsy. Not tipsy like the peasants who

drink seldom, but like people to whom drinking wine has become a

habit. He did not reel about or talk nonsense, but he was in a

state that was not normal; excited and self-satisfied.

Nekhludoff also noticed that during the conversation Princess

Sophia Vasilievna kept glancing uneasily at the window, through

which a slanting ray of sunshine, which might vividly light up

her aged face, was beginning to creep up.

"How true," she said in reference to some remark of Kolosoff's,

touching the button of an electric bell by the side of her couch.

The doctor rose, and, like one who is at home, left the room

without saying anything. Sophia Vasilievna followed him with her

eyes and continued the conversation.

"Please, Philip, draw these curtains," she said, pointing to the

window, when the handsome footman came in answer to the bell.

"No; whatever you may say, there is some mysticism in him;

without mysticism there can be no poetry," she said, with one of

her black eyes angrily following the footman's movements as he

was drawing the curtains. "Without poetry, mysticism is

superstition; without mysticism, poetry is--prose," she

continued, with a sorrowful smile, still not losing sight of the

footman and the curtains. "Philip, not that curtain; the one on

the large window," she exclaimed, in a suffering tone. Sophia

Vasilievna was evidently pitying herself for having to make the

effort of saying these words; and, to soothe her feelings, she

raised to her lips a scented, smoking cigarette with her jewel-

bedecked fingers.

The broad-chested, muscular, handsome Philip bowed slightly, as

if begging pardon; and stepping lightly across the carpet with

his broad-calved, strong, legs, obediently and silently went to

the other window, and, looking at the princess, carefully began

to arrange the curtain so that not a single ray dared fall on

her. But again he did not satisfy her, and again she had to

interrupt the conversation about mysticism, and correct in a

martyred tone the unintelligent Philip, who was tormenting her so

pitilessly. For a moment a light flashed in Philip's eyes.

"'The devil take you! What do you want?' was probably what he

said to himself," thought Nekhludoff, who had been observing all

this scene. But the strong, handsome Philip at once managed to

conceal the signs of his impatience, and went on quietly carrying

out the orders of the worn, weak, false Sophia Vasilievna.