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

had drowned her baby in a well. She

went about with bare feet, wearing only a dirty chemise. The

thick, short plait of her fair hair had come undone and hung down

dishevelled, and she paced up and down the free space of the

cell, not looking at any one, turning abruptly every time she

came up to the wall.

 

CHAPTER XXXI.

 

THE PRISONERS.

 

When the padlock rattled and the door opened to let Maslova into

the cell, all turned towards her. Even the deacon’s daughter

stopped for a moment and looked at her with lifted brows before

resuming her steady striding up and down.

 

Korableva stuck her needle into the brown sacking and looked

questioningly at Maslova through her spectacles. “Eh, eh, deary

me, so you have come back. And I felt sure they’d acquit you. So

you’ve got it?” She took off her spectacles and put her work down

beside her on the shelf bed.

 

“And here have I and the old lady been saying, ‘Why, it may well

be they’ll let her go free at once.’ Why, it happens, ducky,

they’ll even give you a heap of money sometimes, that’s sure,”

the watchman’s wife began, in her singing voice: “Yes, we were

wondering, ‘Why’s she so long?’ And now just see what it is.

Well, our guessing was no use. The Lord willed otherwise,” she

went on in musical tones.

 

“Is it possible? Have they sentenced you?” asked Theodosia, with

concern, looking at Maslova with her bright blue, childlike

eyes; and her merry young face changed as if she were going to

cry.

 

Maslova did not answer, but went on to her place, the second from

the end, and sat down beside Korableva.

 

“Have you eaten anything?” said Theodosia, rising and coming up

to Maslova.

 

Maslova gave no reply, but putting the rolls on the bedstead,

took off her dusty cloak, the kerchief off her curly black head,

and began pulling off her shoes. The old woman who had been

playing with the boy came up and stood in front of Maslova. “Tz,

tz, tz,” she clicked with her tongue, shaking her head pityingly.

The boy also came up with her, and, putting out his upper lip,

stared with wide open eyes at the roll Maslova had brought. When

Maslova saw the sympathetic faces of her fellow-prisoners, her

lips trembled and she felt inclined to cry, but she succeeded in

restraining herself until the old woman and the boy came up.

When she heard the kind, pitying clicking of the old woman’s

tongue, and met the boy’s serious eyes turned from the roll to

her face, she could bear it no longer; her face quivered and she

burst into sobs.

 

“Didn’t I tell you to insist on having a proper advocate?” said

Norableva. “Well, what is it? Exile?”

 

Maslova could not answer, but took from inside the roll a box of

cigarettes, on which was a picture of a lady with hair done up

very high and dress cut low in front, and passed the box to

Korableva. Korableva looked at it and shook her head, chiefly

because see did not approve of Maslova’s putting her money to

such bad use; but still she took out a cigarette, lit it at the

lamp, took a puff, and almost forced it into Maslova’s hand.

Maslova, still crying, began greedily to inhale the tobacco

smoke. “Penal servitude,” she muttered, blowing out the smoke and

sobbing.

 

“Don’t they fear the Lord, the cursed soul-slayers?” muttered

Korableva, “sentencing the lass for nothing.” At this moment the

sound of loud, coarse laughter came from the women who were still

at the window. The little girl also laughed, and her childish

treble mixed with the hoarse and screeching laughter of the

others. One of the convicts outside had done something that

produced this effect on the onlookers.

 

“Lawks! see the shaved hound, what he’s doing,” said the

redhaired woman, her whole fat body shaking with laughter; and

leaning against the grating she shouted meaning less obscene

words.

 

“Ugh, the fat fright’s cackling,” said Korableva, who disliked

the redhaired woman. Then, turning to Maslova again, she asked:

“How many years?”

 

“Four,” said Maslova, and the tears ran down her cheeks in such

profusion that one fell on the cigarette. Maslova crumpled it up

angrily and took another.

 

Though the watchman’s wife did not smoke she picked up the

cigarette Maslova had thrown away and began straightening it out,

talking unceasingly.

 

“There, now, ducky, so it’s true,” she said. “Truth’s gone to the

dogs and they do what they please, and here we were guessing that

you’d go free. Norableva says, ‘She’ll go free.’ I say, ‘No,’ say

I. ‘No, dear, my heart tells me they’ll give it her.’ And so it’s

turned out,” she went on, evidently listening with pleasure to

her own voice.

 

The women who had been standing by the window now also came up to

Maslova, the convicts who had amused them having gone away. The

first to come up were the woman imprisoned for illicit trade in

spirits, and her little girl. “Why such a hard sentence?” asked

the woman, sitting down by Maslova and knitting fast.

 

“Why so hard? Because there’s no money. That’s why! Had there

been money, and had a good lawyer that’s up to their tricks been

hired, they’d have acquitted her, no fear,” said Korableva.

“There’s what’s-his-name—that hairy one with the long nose. He’d

bring you out clean from pitch, mum, he would. Ah, if we’d only

had him!”

 

“Him, indeed,” said Khoroshavka. “Why, he won’t spit at you for

less than a thousand roubles.”

 

“Seems you’ve been born under an unlucky star,” interrupted the

old woman who was imprisoned for incendiarism. “Only think, to

entice the lad’s wife and lock him himself up to feed vermin, and

me, too, in my old days—” she began to retell her story for the

hundredth time. “If it isn’t the beggar’s staff it’s the prison.

Yes, the beggar’s staff and the prison don’t wait for an

invitation.”

 

“Ah, it seems that’s the way with all of them,” said the spirit

trader; and after looking at her little girl she put down her

knitting, and, drawing the child between her knees, began to

search her head with deft fingers. “Why do you sell spirits?” she

went on. “Why? but what’s one to feed the children on?”

 

These words brought back to Maslova’s mind her craving for drink.

 

“A little vodka,” she said to Korableva, wiping the tears with

her sleeve and sobbing less frequently.

 

“All right, fork out,” said Korableva.

 

CHAPTER XXXII.

 

A PRISON QUARREL.

 

Maslova got the money, which she had also hidden in a roll, and

passed the coupon to Korableva. Korableva accepted it, though she

could not read, trusting to Khoroshavka, who knew everything, and

who said that the slip of paper was worth 2 roubles 50 copecks,

then climbed up to the ventilator, where she had hidden a small

flask of vodka. Seeing this, the women whose places were further

off went away. Meanwhile Maslova shook the dust out of her cloak

and kerchief, got up on the bedstead, and began eating a roll.

 

“I kept your tea for you,” said Theodosia, getting down from the

shelf a mug and a tin teapot wrapped in a rag, “but I’m afraid it

is quite cold.” The liquid was quite cold and tasted more of tin

than of tea, yet Maslova filled the mug and began drinking it

with her roll. “Finashka, here you are,” she said, breaking off a

bit of the roll and giving it to the boy, who stood looking at

her mouth.

 

Meanwhile Korableva handed the flask of vodka and a mug to

Maslova, who offered some to her and to Khoroshavka. These

prisoners were considered the aristocracy of the cell because

they had some money, and shared what they possessed with the

others.

 

In a few moments Maslova brightened up and related merrily what

had happened at the court, and what had struck her most, i.e.,

how all the men had followed her wherever she went. In the court

they all looked at her, she said, and kept coming into the

prisoners’ room while she was there.

 

“One of the soldiers even says, ‘It’s all to look at you that

they come.’ One would come in, ‘Where is such a paper?’ or

something, but I see it is not the paper he wants; he just

devours me with his eyes,” she said, shaking her head. “Regular

artists.”

 

“Yes, that’s so,” said the watchman’s wife, and ran on in her

musical strain, “they’re like flies after sugar.”

 

“And here, too,” Maslova interrupted her, “the same thing. They

can do without anything else. But the likes of them will go

without bread sooner than miss that! Hardly had they brought me

back when in comes a gang from the railway. They pestered me so,

I did not know how to rid myself of them. Thanks to the

assistant, he turned them off. One bothered so, I hardly got

away.”

 

“What’s he like?” asked Khoroshevka.

 

“Dark, with moustaches.”

 

“It must be him.”

 

“Him—who?”

 

“Why, Schegloff; him as has just gone by.”

 

“What’s he, this Schegloff?”

 

“What, she don’t know Schegloff? Why, he ran twice from Siberia.

Now they’ve got him, but he’ll run away. The warders themselves

are afraid of him,” said Khoroshavka, who managed to exchange

notes with the male prisoners and knew all that went on in the

prison. “He’ll run away, that’s flat.”

 

“If he does go away you and I’ll have to stay,” said Korableva,

turning to Maslova, “but you’d better tell us now what the

advocate says about petitioning. Now’s the time to hand it in.”

 

Maslova answered that she knew nothing about it.

 

At that moment the redhaired woman came up to the “aristocracy”

with both freckled hands in her thick hair, scratching her head

with her nails.

 

“I’ll tell you all about it, Katerina,” she began. “First and

foremost, you’ll have to write down you’re dissatisfied with the

sentence, then give notice to the Procureur.”

 

“What do you want here?” said Korableva angrily; “smell the

vodka, do you? Your chatter’s not wanted. We know what to do

without your advice.”

 

“No one’s speaking to you; what do you stick your nose in for?”

 

“It’s vodka you want; that’s why you come wriggling yourself in

here.”

 

“Well, offer her some,” said Maslova, always ready to share

anything she possessed with anybody.

 

“I’ll offer her something.”

 

“Come on then,” said the redhaired one, advancing towards

Korableva. “Ah! think I’m afraid of such as you?”

 

“Convict fright!”

 

“That’s her as says it.”

 

“Slut!”

 

“I? A slut? Convict! Murderess!” screamed the redhaired one.

 

“Go away, I tell you,” said Korableva gloomily, but the

redhaired one came nearer and Korableva struck her in the chest.

The redhaired woman seemed only to have waited for this, and

with a sudden movement caught hold of Korableva’s hair with one

hand and with the other struck her in the face. Korableva seized

this hand, and Maslova and Khoroshavka caught the redhaired

woman by her arms, trying to pull her away, but she let go the

old woman’s hair with her hand only to twist it round her fist.

Korableva, with her head bent to one side, was dealing out blows

with one arm and trying to catch the redhaired woman’s hand with

her teeth, while the rest of the women crowded round, screaming

and trying to separate the fighters; even the consumptive one

came up and stood coughing and watching the fight. The children

cried and huddled together. The