We are accustomed to sentimentalising over the courtesan who at last conceives a "pure" love, but {86} Tolstoy does not write in the spirit of a Dumas or a Victor Hugo. Máslova is sick of passion; she and Nekhlúdof redeem each other, but, in the ordinary sense, they do not love. Máslova throughout the book is one of the most real women in fiction; we see every detail of her appearance--the white skin, the black curls over her forehead, the eyes black as sloes and slightly squinting, the expression of willingness with which she turns to anyone who addresses her. It is strange how Tolstoy insists on that detail of the "slightly squinting" eyes; it haunts us as it must have haunted Nekhlúdof. And her mind and heart are as real as her bodily personality. Tolstoy, as we have seen, always did possess a marvellous power of maintaining a consistent personality while permitting his characters to change and develop, but nowhere else has he shown it in a manner quite so magical. From the pure romantic young girl to the prostitute, from the prostitute to the woman redeemed and sweetened and saved--his heroine is still herself throughout. It is in the hero that Tolstoy's talent for once fails him, since Nekhlúdof is too obviously only a mouthpiece for Tolstoy's own reflections. We could understand him if the change in him were essentially a spiritual one similar to that in Máslova, but what Tolstoy has portrayed is rather a profound intellectual dissatisfaction, so deep and so far-reaching that it could only have been experienced by a man of the greatest intellectual and moral power, a man of genius, while there is nothing in Nekhlúdof's previous life to suggest that he was in any way out of the ordinary. He is too slight to undergo the tremendous mental experiences of a Tolstoy, and we cannot believe that he does; nevertheless, the experiences remain, and tremendous they are. _Resurrection_ is an indictment of the whole of society as we know it now, and it is impossible to read it without the gravest searchings of the heart. It is true that some of the most serious counts in the indictment apply mainly to Russia. More than with the West, Russian society is divided into two great {87} classes--the rich who have everything and are idle, and the poor, who have nothing and labour; in England we have--in the professional classes and the better artisans--numbers who possess a very fair share of the amenities of life and also do valuable work. Again, it is impossible to say of any large class in our prisons, what Tolstoy says of the Russian political prisoners: that they get there because they are the best members of the community, more intelligent, more unselfish, and more courageous than their fellows.