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, child-like 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 red-haired 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 red-haired 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."
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"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 red-haired 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 red-haired 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 red-haired one.
"Go away, I tell you," said Korableva gloomily, but the red-haired one came nearer and Korableva struck her in the chest. The red-haired 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 red-haired 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 red-haired 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 noise brought the woman warder and a jailer. The fighting women were separated; and Korableva, taking out the bits of torn hair from her head, and the red-haired one, holding her torn chemise together over her yellow breast, began loudly to complain.
"I know, it's all the vodka. Wait a bit; I'll tell the inspector tomorrow. He'll give it you. Can't I smell it? Mind, get it all out of the way, or it will be the worse for you," said the warder. "We've no time to settle your disputes. Get to your places and be quiet."
But quiet was not soon re-established. For a long time the women went on disputing and explaining to one another whose fault it all was. At last the warder and the jailer left the cell, the women grew quieter and began going to bed, and the old woman went to the icon and commenced praying.
"The two jailbirds have met," the red-haired woman suddenly called out in a hoarse voice from the other end of the shelf beds, accompanying every word with frightfully vile abuse.
"Mind you don't get it again," Korableva replied, also adding words of abuse, and both were quiet again.
"Had I not been stopped I'd have pulled your damned eyes out," again began the red-haired one, and an answer of the same kind followed from Korableva. Then again a short interval and more abuse. But the intervals became longer and longer, as when a thunder-cloud is passing, and at last all was quiet.
All were in bed, some began to snore; and only the old woman, who always prayed a long time, went on bowing before the icon and the deacon's daughter, who had got up after the warder left, was pacing up and down the room again. Maslova kept thinking that she was now a convict condemned to hard labour, and had twice been reminded of this--once by Botchkova and once by the red-haired woman--and she could not reconcile herself to the thought. Korableva, who lay next to her, turned over in her bed.
"There now," said Maslova in a low voice; "who would have thought it? See what others do and get nothing for it."
"Never mind, girl. People manage to live in Siberia. As for you, you'll not be lost there either," Korableva said, trying to comfort her.
"I know I'll not be lost; still it is hard. It's not such a fate
I want--I, who am used to a comfortable life."
"Ah, one can't go against God," said Korableva, with a sigh.
"One can't, my dear."
"I know, granny. Still, it's hard."
They were silent for a while.
"Do you hear that baggage?" whispered Korableva, drawing Maslova's attention to a strange sound proceeding from the other end of the room.
This sound was the smothered sobbing of the red-haired woman. The red-haired woman was crying because she had been abused and had not got any of the vodka she wanted so badly; also because she remembered how all her life she had been abused, mocked at, offended, beaten. Remembering this, she pitied herself, and, thinking no one heard her, began crying as children cry, sniffing with her nose and swallowing the salt tears.
"I'm sorry for her," said Maslova.
"Of course one is sorry," said Korableva, "but she shouldn't come bothering."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE LEAVEN AT WORK--NEKHLUDOFF'S DOMESTIC CHANGES.
The next morning Nekhludoff awoke, conscious that something had happened to him, and even before he had remembered what it was he knew it to be something important and good.