VISITING DAY--THE WOMEN’S WARD.
“Well, but I must do what I came here for,” he said, trying to pick up
courage. “What is to be done now?” He looked round for an official, and
seeing a thin little man in the uniform of an officer going up and down
behind the people, he approached him.
“Can you tell me, sir,” he said, with exceedingly strained politeness of
manner, “where the women are kept, and where one is allowed to interview
them?”
“Is it the women’s ward you want to go to?”
“Yes, I should like to see one of the women prisoners,” Nekhludoff said,
with the same strained politeness.
“You should have said so when you were in the hall. Who is it, then,
that you want to see?”
“I want to see a prisoner called Katerina Maslova.”
“Is she a political one?”
“No, she is simply . . .”
“What! Is she sentenced?”
“Yes; the day before yesterday she was sentenced,” meekly answered
Nekhludoff, fearing to spoil the inspector’s good humour, which seemed
to incline in his favour.
“If you want to go to the women’s ward please to step this way,” said
the officer, having decided from Nekhludoff’s appearance that he was
worthy of attention. “Sideroff, conduct the gentleman to the women’s
ward,” he said, turning to a moustached corporal with medals on his
breast.
“Yes, sir.”
At this moment heart-rending sobs were heard coming from some one near
the net.
Everything here seemed strange to Nekhludoff; but strangest of all was
that he should have to thank and feel obligation towards the inspector
and the chief warders, the very men who were performing the cruel deeds
that were done in this house.
The corporal showed Nekhludoff through the corridor, out of the men’s
into the women’s interviewing-room.
This room, like that of the men, was divided by two wire nets; but it
was much smaller, and there were fewer visitors and fewer prisoners, so
that there was less shouting than in the men’s room. Yet the same thing
was going on here, only, between the nets instead of soldiers there was
a woman warder, dressed in a blue-edged uniform jacket, with gold cords
on the sleeves, and a blue belt. Here also, as in the men’s room, the
people were pressing close to the wire netting on both sides; on the
nearer side, the townspeople in varied attire; on the further side, the
prisoners, some in white prison clothes, others in their own coloured
dresses. The whole length of the net was taken up by the people standing
close to it. Some rose on tiptoe to be heard across the heads of others;
some sat talking on the floor.
The most remarkable of the prisoners, both by her piercing screams and
her appearance, was a thin, dishevelled gipsy. Her kerchief had slipped
off her curly hair, and she stood near a post in the middle of the
prisoner’s division, shouting something, accompanied by quick gestures,
to a gipsy man in a blue coat, girdled tightly below the waist. Next
the gipsy man, a soldier sat on the ground talking to prisoner; next the
soldier, leaning close to the net, stood a young peasant, with a fair
beard and a flushed face, keeping back his tears with difficulty. A
pretty, fair-haired prisoner, with bright blue eyes, was speaking to
him. These two were Theodosia and her husband. Next to them was a tramp,
talking to a broad-faced woman; then two women, then a man, then again a
woman, and in front of each a prisoner. Maslova was not among them. But
some one stood by the window behind the prisoners, and Nekhludoff knew
it was she. His heart began to beat faster, and his breath stopped. The
decisive moment was approaching. He went up to the part of the net where
he could see the prisoner, and recognised her at once. She stood behind
the blue-eyed Theodosia, and smiled, listening to what Theodosia was
saying. She did not wear the prison cloak now, but a white dress,
tightly drawn in at the waist by a belt, and very full in the bosom.
From under her kerchief appeared the black ringlets of her fringe, just
the same as in the court.
“Now, in a moment it will be decided,” he thought.
“How shall I call her? Or will she come herself?”
She was expecting Bertha; that this man had come to see her never
entered her head.
“Whom do you want?” said the warder who was walking between the nets,
coming up to Nekhludoff.
“Katerina Maslova,” Nekhludoff uttered, with difficulty.
“Katerina Maslova, some one to see you,” cried the warder.