“What is his wife like?” Nekhludoff asked.
“His wife? Well, I do not wish to judge, but she does not understand him.”
“Is it possible that he, too, was for rejecting the appeal?” Mariette asked with real sympathy. “It is dreadful. How sorry I am for her,” she added with a sigh.
He frowned, and in order to change the subject began to speak about Shoustova, who had been imprisoned in the fortress and was now set free through the influence of Mariette’s husband. He thanked her for her trouble, and was going on to say how dreadful he thought it, that this woman and the whole of her family had suffered merely, because no one had reminded the authorities about them, but Mariette interrupted him and expressed her own indignation.
“Say nothing about it to me,” she said. “When my husband told me she could be set free, it was this that struck me, ‘What was she kept in prison for if she is innocent?’” She went on expressing what Nekhludoff was about to say.
“It is revolting—revolting.”
Countess Katerina Ivanovna noticed that Mariette was coquetting with her nephew, and this amused her. “What do you think?” she said, when they were silent. “Supposing you come to Aline’s to-morrow night. Kiesewetter will be there. And you, too,” she said, turning to Mariette. “Il vous a remarque,” she went on to her nephew. “He told me that what you say (I repeated it all to him) is a very good sign, and that you will certainly come to Christ. You must come absolutely. Tell him to, Mariette, and come yourself.”
“Countess, in the first place, I have no right whatever to give any kind of advice to the Prince,” said Mariette, and gave Nekhludoff a look that somehow established a full comprehension between them of their attitude in relation to the Countess’s words and evangelicalism in general. “Secondly, I do not much care, you know.”
“Yes, I know you always do things the wrong way round, and according to your own ideas.”
“My own ideas? I have faith like the most simple peasant woman,” said Mariette with a smile. “And, thirdly, I am going to the French Theatre to-morrow night.”