SUNDAY IN PRISON--PREPARING FOR MASS.
On Sunday morning at five o’clock, when a whistle sounded in the
corridor of the women’s ward of the prison, Korableva, who was already
awake, called Maslova.
“Oh, dear! life again,” thought Maslova, with horror, involuntarily
breathing in the air that had become terribly noisome towards the
morning. She wished to fall asleep again, to enter into the region of
oblivion, but the habit of fear overcame sleepiness, and she sat up and
looked round, drawing her feet under her. The women had all got up; only
the elder children were still asleep. The spirit-trader was carefully
drawing a cloak from under the children, so as not to wake them. The
watchman’s wife was hanging up the rags to dry that served the baby
as swaddling clothes, while the baby was screaming desperately in
Theodosia’s arms, who was trying to quiet it. The consumptive woman was
coughing with her hands pressed to her chest, while the blood rushed to
her face, and she sighed loudly, almost screaming, in the intervals of
coughing. The fat, red-haired woman was lying on her back, with
knees drawn up, and loudly relating a dream. The old woman accused of
incendiarism was standing in front of the image, crossing herself and
bowing, and repeating the same words over and over again. The deacon’s
daughter sat on the bedstead, looking before her, with a dull, sleepy
face. Khoroshavka was twisting her black, oily, coarse hair round her
fingers. The sound of slipshod feet was heard in the passage, and the
door opened to let in two convicts, dressed in jackets and grey trousers
that did not reach to their ankles. With serious, cross faces they
lifted the stinking tub and carried it out of the cell. The women went
out to the taps in the corridor to wash. There the red-haired woman
again began a quarrel with a woman from another cell.
“Is it the solitary cell you want?” shouted an old jailer, slapping the
red-haired woman on her bare, fat back, so that it sounded through the
corridor. “You be quiet.”
“Lawks! the old one’s playful,” said the woman, taking his action for a
caress.
“Now, then, be quick; get ready for the mass.” Maslova had hardly time
to do her hair and dress when the inspector came with his assistants.
“Come out for inspection,” cried a jailer.
Some more prisoners came out of other cells and stood in two rows along
the corridor; each woman had to place her hand on the shoulder of the
woman in front of her. They were all counted.
After the inspection the woman warder led the prisoners to church.
Maslova and Theodosia were in the middle of a column of over a hundred
women, who had come out of different cells. All were dressed in white
skirts, white jackets, and wore white kerchiefs on their heads, except
a few who had their own coloured clothes on. These were wives who, with
their children, were following their convict husbands to Siberia. The
whole flight of stairs was filled by the procession. The patter of
softly-shod feet mingled with the voices and now and then a laugh. When
turning, on the landing, Maslova saw her enemy, Botchkova, in front, and
pointed out her angry face to Theodosia. At the bottom of the stairs the
women stopped talking. Bowing and crossing themselves, they entered the
empty church, which glistened with gilding. Crowding and pushing one
another, they took their places on the right.
After the women came the men condemned to banishment, those serving
their term in the prison, and those exiled by their Communes; and,
coughing loudly, they took their stand, crowding the left side and the
middle of the church.
On one side of the gallery above stood the men sentenced to penal
servitude in Siberia, who had been let into the church before the
others. Each of them had half his head shaved, and their presence was
indicated by the clanking of the chains on their feet. On the other side
of the gallery stood those in preliminary confinement, without chains,
their heads not shaved.
The prison church had been rebuilt and ornamented by a rich merchant,
who spent several tens of thousands of roubles on it, and it glittered
with gay colours and gold. For a time there was silence in the church,
and only coughing, blowing of noses, the crying of babies, and now and
then the rattling of chains, was heard. But at last the convicts that
stood in the middle moved, pressed against each other, leaving a passage
in the centre of the church, down which the prison inspector passed to
take his place in front of every one in the nave.