Resurrection - Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (interesting novels in english .TXT) 📗

hanging her head

and looking in front of her at the dirty floor without moving,

only saying: “I don’t bother you, so don’t you bother me. I don’t

bother you, do I?” she repeated this several times, and was

silent again. She did brighten up a little when Botchkova and

Kartinkin were led away and an attendant brought her three

roubles.

 

“Are you Maslova?” he asked. “Here you are; a lady sent it you,”

he said, giving her the money.

 

“A lady—what lady?”

 

“You just take it. I’m not going to talk to you.”

 

This money was sent by Kitaeva, the keeper of the house in which

she used to live. As she was leaving the court she turned to the

usher with the question whether she might give Maslova a little

money. The usher said she might. Having got permission, she

removed the three-buttoned Swedish kid glove from her plump,

white hand, and from an elegant purse brought from the back folds

of her silk skirt took a pile of coupons, [in Russia coupons cut

off interest-bearing papers are often used as money] just cut

off from the interest-bearing papers which she had earned in her

establishment, chose one worth 2 roubles and 50 copecks, added

two 20 and one 10-copeck coins, and gave all this to the usher.

The usher called an attendant, and in his presence gave the

money.

 

“Belease to giff it accurately,” said Carolina Albertovna

Kitaeva.

 

The attendant was hurt by her want of confidence, and that was

why he treated Maslova so brusquely. Maslova was glad of the

money, because it could give her the only thing she now desired.

“If I could but get cigarettes and take a whiff!” she said to

herself, and all her thoughts centred on the one desire to smoke

and drink. She longed for spirits so that she tasted them and

felt the strength they would give her; and she greedily breathed

in the air when the fumes of tobacco reached her from the door of

a room that opened into the corridor. But she had to wait long,

for the secretary, who should have given the order for her to go,

forgot about the prisoners while talking and even disputing with

one of the advocates about the article forbidden by the censor.

 

At last, about five o’clock, she was allowed to go, and was led

away through the back door by her escort, the Nijni man and the

Tchoovash. Then, still within the entrance to the Law Courts, she

gave them 50 copecks, asking them to get her two rolls and some

cigarettes. The Tchoovash laughed, took the money, and said, “All

right; I’ll get ‘em,” and really got her the rolls and the

cigarettes and honestly returned the change. She was not allowed

to smoke on the way, and, with her craving unsatisfied, she

continued her way to the prison. When she was brought to the gate

of the prison, a hundred convicts who had arrived by rail were

being led in. The convicts, bearded, clean-shaven, old, young,

Russians, foreigners, some with their heads shaved and rattling

with the chains on their feet, filled the anteroom with dust,

noise and an acid smell of perspiration. Passing Maslova, all the

convicts looked at her, and some came up to her and brushed her

as they passed.

 

“Ay, here’s a wench—a fine one,” said one.

 

“My respects to you, miss,” said another, winking at her. One

dark man with a moustache, the rest of his face and the back of

his head clean shaved, rattling with his chains and catching her

feet in them, sprang near and embraced her.

 

“What! don’t you know your chum? Come, come; don’t give yourself

airs,” showing his teeth and his eyes glittering when she pushed

him away.

 

“You rascal! what are you up to?” shouted the inspector’s

assistant, coming in from behind. The convict shrank back and

jumped away. The assistant assailed Maslova.

 

“What are you here for?”

 

Maslova was going to say she had been brought back from the Law

Courts, but she was so tired that she did not care to speak.

 

“She has returned from the Law Courts, sir,” said one of the

soldiers, coming forward with his fingers lifted to his cap.

 

“Well, hand her over to the chief warder. I won’t have this sort

of thing.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Sokoloff, take her in!” shouted the assistant inspector.

 

The chief warder came up, gave Maslova a slap on the shoulder,

and making a sign with his head for her to follow led her into

the corridor of the women’s ward. There she was searched, and as

nothing prohibited was found on her (she had hidden her box of

cigarettes inside a roll) she was led to the cell she had left in

the morning.

 

CHAPTER XXX.

 

THE CELL.

 

The cell in which Maslova was imprisoned was a large room 21 feet

long and 10 feet broad; it had two windows and a large stove.

Two-thirds of the space were taken up by shelves used as beds.

The planks they were made of had warped and shrunk. Opposite the

door hung a dark-coloured icon with a wax candle sticking to it

and a bunch of everlastings hanging down from it. By the door to

the right there was a dark spot on the floor on which stood a

stinking tub. The inspection had taken place and the women were

locked up for the night.

 

The occupants of this room were 15 persons, including three

children. It was still quite light. Only two of the women were

lying down: a consumptive woman imprisoned for theft, and an

idiot who spent most of her time in sleep and who was arrested

because she had no passport. The consumptive woman was not

asleep, but lay with wide open eyes, her cloak folded under her

head, trying to keep back the phlegm that irritated her throat,

and not to cough.

 

Some of the other women, most of whom had nothing on but coarse

brown holland chemises, stood looking out of the window at the

convicts down in the yard, and some sat sewing. Among the latter

was the old woman, Korableva, who had seen Maslova off in the

morning. She was a tall, strong, gloomy-looking woman; her fair

hair, which had begun to turn grey on the temples, hung down in a

short plait. She was sentenced to hard labour in Siberia because

she had killed her husband with an axe for making up to their

daughter. She was at the head of the women in the cell, and found

means of carrying on a trade in spirits with them. Beside her sat

another woman sewing a coarse canvas sack. This was the wife of a

railway watchman, [There are small watchmen’s cottages at

distances of about one mile from each other along the Russian

railways, and the watchmen or their wives have to meet every

train.] imprisoned for three months because she did not come out

with the flags to meet a train that was passing, and an accident

had occurred. She was a short, snub-nosed woman, with small,

black eyes; kind and talkative. The third of the women who were

sewing was Theodosia, a quiet young girl, white and rosy, very

pretty, with bright child’s eyes, and long fair plaits which she

wore twisted round her head. She was in prison for attempting to

poison her husband. She had done this immediately after her

wedding (she had been given in marriage without her consent at

the age of 16) because her husband would give her no peace. But

in the eight months during which she had been let out on bail,

she had not only made it up with her husband, but come to love

him, so that when her trial came they were heart and soul to one

another. Although her husband, her father-in-law, but especially

her mother-in-law, who had grown very fond of her, did all they

could to get her acquitted, she was sentenced to hard labour in

Siberia. The kind, merry, ever-smiling Theodosia had a place next

Maslova’s on the shelf bed, and had grown so fond of her that she

took it upon herself as a duty to attend and wait on her. Two

other women were sitting without any work at the other end of the

shelf bedstead. One was a woman of about 40, with a pale, thin

face, who once probably had been very handsome. She sat with her

baby at her thin, white breast. The crime she had committed was

that when a recruit was, according to the peasants’ view,

unlawfully taken from their village, and the people stopped the

police officer and took the recruit away from him, she (an aunt

of the lad unlawfully taken) was the first to catch hold of the

bridle of the horse on which he was being carried off. The other,

who sat doing nothing, was a kindly, greyhaired old woman,

hunchbacked and with a flat bosom. She sat behind the stove on

the bedshelf, and pretended to catch a fat four-year-old boy, who

ran backwards and forwards in front of her, laughing gaily. This

boy had only a little shirt on and his hair was cut short. As he

ran past the old woman he kept repeating, “There, haven’t caught

me!” This old woman and her son were accused of incendiarism.

She bore her imprisonment with perfect cheerfulness, but was

concerned about her son, and chiefly about her “old man,” who she

feared would get into a terrible state with no one to wash for

him. Besides these seven women, there were four standing at one

of the open windows, holding on to the iron bars. They were

making signs and shouting to the convicts whom Maslova had met

when returning to prison, and who were now passing through the

yard. One of these women was big and heavy, with a flabby body,

red hair, and freckled on her pale yellow face, her hands, and

her fat neck. She shouted something in a loud, raucous voice, and

laughed hoarsely. This woman was serving her term for theft.

Beside her stood an awkward, dark little woman, no bigger than a

child of ten, with a long waist and very short legs, a red,

blotchy face, thick lips which did not hide her long teeth, and

eyes too far apart. She broke by fits and starts into screeching

laughter at what was going on in the yard. She was to be tried

for stealing and incendiarism. They called her Khoroshavka.

Behind her, in a very dirty grey chemise, stood a thin,

miserable-looking pregnant woman, who was to be tried for

concealment of theft. This woman stood silent, but kept smiling

with pleasure and approval at what was going on below. With these

stood a peasant woman of medium height, the mother of the boy who

was playing with the old woman and of a seven-year-old girl.

These were in prison with her because she had no one to leave

them with. She was serving her term of imprisonment for illicit

sale of spirits. She stood a little further from the window

knitting a stocking, and though she listened to the other

prisoners’ words she shook her head disapprovingly, frowned, and

closed her eyes. But her seven-year-old daughter stood in her

little chemise, her flaxen hair done up in a little pigtail, her

blue eyes fixed, and, holding the redhaired woman by the skirt,

attentively listened to the words of abuse that the women and the

convicts flung at each other, and repeated them softly, as if

learning them by heart. The twelfth prisoner, who paid no

attention to what was going on, was a very tall, stately girl,

the daughter of a deacon, who