When with a rattling of chains the cell door was unlocked and Maslova
admitted, all eyes were turned toward her. Even the chanter's daughter
stopped for a moment and looked at her with raised eyebrows, but
immediately resumed walking with long, resolute strides. Korableva
stuck her needle into the sack she was sewing and gazed inquiringly
through her glasses at Maslova.
"Ah me! So she has returned," she said in a hoarse basso voice. "And I
was sure she would be set right. She must have got it."
She removed her glasses and placed them with her sewing beside her.
"I have been talking with auntie, dear, and we thought that they might
discharge you at once. They say it happens. And they sometimes give
you money, if you strike the right time," the watch-woman started in a
singing voice. "What ill-luck! It seems we were wrong. God has His own
way, dear," she went on in her caressing and melodious voice.
"It is possible that they convicted you?" asked Theodosia, with gentle
compassion, looking at Maslova with her childish, light-blue eyes, and
her cheerful, young face changed, and she seemed to be ready to cry.
Maslova made no answer, but silently went to her place, next to
Korableva's, and sat down.
"You have probably not eaten anything," said Theodosia, rising and
going over to Maslova.
Again Maslova did not answer, but placed the two lunch-rolls at the
head of the cot and began to undress. She took off the dusty coat, and
the 'kerchief from her curling black hair and sat down.
The hunch-backed old woman also came and stopped in front of Maslova,
compassionately shaking her head.
The boy came behind the old woman, and, with a protruding corner of
the upper lip and wide-open eyes, gazed on the rolls brought by
Maslova. Seeing all these compassionate faces, after what had
happened, Maslova almost cried and her lips began to twitch. She
tried to and did restrain herself until the old woman and the child
approached. When, however, she heard the kind, compassionate
exclamation of pity from the old woman, and, especially, when her eyes
met the serious eyes of the boy who looked now at her, now at the
rolls, she could restrain herself no longer. Her whole face began to
twitch and she burst into sobs.
"I told her to take a good lawyer," said Korableva. "Well? To
Siberia?" she asked.
Maslova wished to answer but could not, and, crying, she produced from
the roll the box of cigarettes, on which a picture of a red lady with
a high chignon and triangle-shaped, low cut neck was printed, and gave
it to Korableva. The latter looked at the picture, disapprovingly
shook her head, chiefly because Maslova spent money so foolishly, and,
lighting a cigarette over the lamp, inhaled the smoke several times,
then thrust it at Maslova. Maslova, without ceasing to cry, eagerly
began to inhale the smoke.
"Penal servitude," she murmured, sobbing.
"They have no fear of God, these cursed blood-suckers!" said
Korableva. "They have condemned an innocent girl."
At this moment there was a loud outburst of laughter among those
standing near the window. The delicate laughter of the little girl
mingled with the hoarse and shrill laughter of the women. This
merriment was caused by some act of a prisoner without.
"Oh, the scoundrel! See what he is doing!" said the red-headed woman,
pressing her face against the grating, her whole massive frame
shaking.
"What is that drum-hide shouting about?" said Korableva, shaking her
head at the red-haired woman, and then again turning to Maslova. "How
many years?"
"Four," said Maslova, and the flow of her tears was so copious that
one of them fell on the cigarette. She angrily crushed it, threw it
away and took another.
The watch-woman, although she was no smoker, immediately picked up the
cigarette-end and began to straighten it, talking at the same time.
"As I said to Matveievna, dear," she said, "it is ill-luck. They do
what they please. And we thought they would discharge you. Matveievna
said you would be discharged, and I said that you would not, I said.
'My heart tells me,' I said, 'that they will condemn her,' and so it
happened," she went on, evidently listening to the sounds of her own
voice with particular pleasure.
The prisoners had now passed through the court-yard, and the four
women left the window and approached Maslova. The larged-eyed illicit
seller of spirits was the first to speak.
"Well, is the sentence very severe?" she asked, seating herself near
Maslova and continuing to knit her stocking.
"It is severe because she has no money. If she had money to hire a
good lawyer, I am sure they would not have held her," said Korableva.
"That lawyer--what's his name?--that clumsy, big-nosed one can, my
dear madam, lead one out of the water dry. That's the man you should
take."
"To hire him!" grinned Miss Dandy. "Why, he would not look at you for
less than a thousand rubles."
"It seems to be your fate," said the old woman who was charged with
incendiarism. "I should say he is severe! He drove my boy's wife from
her; put him in jail, and me, too, in my old age," for the hundredth
time she began to repeat her story. "Prison and poverty are our lot.
If it is not prison, it is poverty."
"Yes, it is always the same with them," said the woman-moonshiner,
and, closely inspecting the girl's head, she put her stocking aside,
drew the girl over between her overhanging legs and with dexterous
fingers began to search in her head. "Why do you deal in wine? But I
have to feed my children," she said, continuing her search.
These words reminded Maslova of wine.
"Oh, for a drop of wine," she said to Korableva, wiping her tears with
the sleeve of her shirt and sobbing from time to time.
"Some booze? Why, of course!" said Korableva.