Resurrection | Page 4

all creatures, this beauty
which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony, and to love, but only
their own devices for enslaving one another.
Thus, in the prison office of the Government town, it was not the fact
that men and animals had received the grace and gladness of spring that
was considered sacred and important, but that a notice, numbered and
with a superscription, had come the day before, ordering that on this
28th day of April, at 9 a.m., three prisoners at present detained in the

prison, a man and two women (one of these women, as the chief
criminal, to be conducted separately), had to appear at Court. So now,
on the 28th of April, at 8 o'clock, a jailer and soon after him a woman
warder with curly grey hair, dressed in a jacket with sleeves trimmed
with gold, with a blue-edged belt round her waist, and having a look of
suffering on her face, came into the corridor.
"You want Maslova?" she asked, coming up to the cell with the jailer
who was on duty.
The jailer, rattling the iron padlock, opened the door of the cell, from
which there came a whiff of air fouler even than that in the corridor,
and called out, "Maslova! to the Court," and closed the door again.
Even into the prison yard the breeze had brought the fresh vivifying air
from the fields. But in the corridor the air was laden with the germs of
typhoid, the smell of sewage, putrefaction, and tar; every newcomer felt
sad and dejected in it. The woman warder felt this, though she was used
to bad air. She had just come in from outside, and entering the corridor,
she at once became sleepy.
From inside the cell came the sound of bustle and women's voices, and
the patter of bare feet on the floor.
"Now, then, hurry up, Maslova, I say!" called out the jailer, and in a
minute or two a small young woman with a very full bust came briskly
out of the door and went up to the jailer. She had on a grey cloak over a
white jacket and petticoat. On her feet she wore linen stockings and
prison shoes, and round her head was tied a white kerchief, from under
which a few locks of black hair were brushed over the forehead with
evident intent. The face of the woman was of that whiteness peculiar to
people who have lived long in confinement, and which puts one in
mind of shoots of potatoes that spring up in a cellar. Her small broad
hands and full neck, which showed from under the broad collar of her
cloak, were of the same hue. Her black, sparkling eyes, one with a
slight squint, appeared in striking contrast to the dull pallor of her face.
She carried herself very straight, expanding her full bosom.
With her head slightly thrown back, she stood in the corridor, looking
straight into the eyes of the jailer, ready to comply with any order.
The jailer was about to lock the door when a wrinkled and
severe-looking old woman put out her grey head and began speaking to
Maslova. But the jailer closed the door, pushing the old woman's head

with it. A woman's laughter was heard from the cell, and Maslova
smiled, turning to the little grated opening in the cell door. The old
woman pressed her face to the grating from the other side, and said, in
a hoarse voice:
"Now mind, and when they begin questioning you, just repeat over the
same thing, and stick to it; tell nothing that is not wanted."
"Well, it could not be worse than it is now, anyhow; I only wish it was
settled one way or another."
"Of course, it will be settled one way or another," said the jailer, with a
superior's self-assured witticism. "Now, then, get along! Take your
places!"
The old woman's eyes vanished from the grating, and Maslova stepped
out into the middle of the corridor. The warder in front, they descended
the stone stairs, past the still fouler, noisy cells of the men's ward,
where they were followed by eyes looking out of every one of the
gratings in the doors, and entered the office, where two soldiers were
waiting to escort her. A clerk who was sitting there gave one of the
soldiers a paper reeking of tobacco, and pointing to the prisoner,
remarked, "Take her."
The soldier, a peasant from Nijni Novgorod, with a red, pock-marked
face, put the paper into the sleeve of his coat, winked to his companion,
a broad-shouldered Tchouvash, and then the prisoner and the soldiers
went to the front entrance, out of the prison yard, and through the town
up the middle of the roughly-paved street.