Mitigation of Maslova's sentence

The mitigation of Katerina Maslova's sentence from four years' hard labor in Siberia to exile in a less distant district of the same region arrives as a formal document from the office of His Imperial Majesty, delivered to Nekhludoff in a registered letter from his old friend Selenin. This legal reversal, which Selenin had helped to secure after re-examining the case and recognizing the shocking injustice done to her, transforms the entire moral landscape of the novel. It releases Maslova from the worst physical torments of penal servitude and simultaneously dissolves the sacrificial framework within which Nekhludoff had been operating, forcing both characters to confront what they truly want from each other and from life itself.

The Arrival of the News

Nekhludoff receives the news at the post-office in a Siberian town, where a registered letter in a fine envelope with a bright red seal contains both Selenin's personal note and the official copy of the commutation order. Selenin writes that he looked carefully through the case and saw that shocking injustice had been done to Maslova, and that he managed to assist at the examination of the petition before the Committee of Petitions. The document itself, bearing the date and the authority of the Emperor's office, informs Maslova that His Imperial Majesty, condescending to her request, deigns to order that her sentence to hard labor be commuted to one of exile to the less distant districts of Siberia. The original document has been sent to the place where she was imprisoned before her trial and will from there be forwarded to the principal Government office in Siberia. Nekhludoff's heart stands still as he reads, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

The Confrontation in the Prison Office

Nekhludoff immediately drives to the prison to bring Maslova the joyful news, but the new inspector, a tall, imposing man with moustaches and whiskers, refuses him entry without a special order from his chief. The inspector is particularly strict because an epidemic of typhus has broken out in the overcrowded prison, with as many as twenty bodies buried in a single day. Nekhludoff is only able to see Maslova later that evening, after dining with the General and accompanying an English visitor on a tour of the cells. When she enters the office, her face appears hard and unpleasant to him, as it had been at the time when she reproached him. She flushes and turns pale, her fingers nervously twisting a corner of her jacket. Nekhludoff tells her that a mitigation has come and that as soon as the original document arrives she may come away and settle where she likes. She interrupts him hurriedly, saying that she will follow wherever Valdemar Simonson goes. Nekhludoff asks if she loves him, and she replies that loving or not loving does not matter, that she has given up all that, and that Simonson is quite an exceptional man. She tells Nekhludoff that he must forgive her if she is not doing what he wishes, and that he must live, too. Her black eyes glisten with tears, and a pathetic smile lights up her face. She presses his hand, turns quickly, and leaves the room.

The Meaning of Her Choice

Maslova's decision to bind herself to Simonson rather than accept Nekhludoff's offer of marriage is the culmination of a long inner transformation. From the moment she first saw Nekhludoff in the courtroom, she had buried the memories of her childhood and youth and her love for him, because those memories were too painful. She had driven from her mind the recollection of that terrible dark night when she ran to the railway station in the autumn rain and saw him sitting in a velvet arm-chair in a brightly lit carriage while she stood in the mud and darkness, weeping. After that night she ceased believing in God and in goodness, convinced that everyone lived only for pleasure and that all talk of God and righteousness was deception. But Nekhludoff's persistent efforts to atone for his sin, his visits to the prison, his arrangement for her to join the political prisoners, and his offer of marriage had gradually awakened something in her. She had stopped drinking, smoking, and coquetting, and had entered the hospital because she knew he wished it. She loved him again, and loved him so much that she did all he wished her to do. Yet she refused his sacrifice because she knew that a marriage with her would be a misfortune for him, and she liked repeating the proud words she had once uttered. Now, by choosing Simonson, she is setting Nekhludoff free while also finding a protector who loves her for what she is, not out of a sense of duty or guilt.

The Aftermath and Nekhludoff's New Direction

The mitigation of the sentence, combined with Maslova's definitive refusal, closes one chapter of Nekhludoff's life and opens another. He feels that his business with Katusha is at an end, that he is not wanted, and this makes him sad and ashamed. But the other business that has occupied him during the journey—the terrible evil he has seen in the prisons, the suffering of the innocent, the corruption of the legal system, the death of Kryltzoff—troubles him more than ever and demands his activity. That night, unable to sleep, he opens the Testament the Englishman gave him and reads the Sermon on the Mount. For the first time he sees in it not beautiful abstract thoughts but simple, clear, practical laws that, if carried out, would establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and put an end to the violence that fills him with indignation. He realizes that the only certain means of salvation from the terrible evil from which men are suffering is that they should always acknowledge themselves to be sinning against God and therefore unable to punish or correct others. A perfectly new life dawns for him that night, not because he has entered into new conditions of life, but because everything he does after that night has a new and quite different significance.