"I am not the commander. I do not know anything."
"No matter. Tell them, the authorities, or somebody," said an indignant voice, "to look into our case. We are guilty of no offense, and have been in prison the second month now."
"How so? Why?" asked Nekhludoff.
"We don"t know ourselves why, but we have been here the second month."
"That is true," said the a.s.sistant inspector. "They were taken because they had no pa.s.sports, and they were to be transported to their district, but the prison had burned down there, and the authorities asked us to keep them here. Those belonging to other districts were transported, but these we keep here."
"Is that the only reason?" asked Nekhludoff, stopping in the doorway.
The crowd, consisting of about forty men, all in prison garb, surrounded Nekhludoff and the a.s.sistant. Several voices began talking at once. The a.s.sistant stopped them.
"Let one of you speak."
A tall old man of good mien came forward. He told Nekhludoff that they were all imprisoned on the ground that they had no pa.s.sports, but that, as a matter of fact, they had pa.s.sports which had expired and were not renewed for about two weeks. It happened every year, but they were never even fined. And now they were imprisoned like criminals.
"We are all masons and belong to the same a.s.sociation. They say that the prison has burned down, but that isn"t our fault. For G.o.d"s sake, help us!"
Nekhludoff listened, but scarcely understood what the old man was saying.
"How is that? Can it be possible that they are kept in prison for that sole reason?" said Nekhludoff, turning to the a.s.sistant.
"Yes, they ought to be sent to their homes," said the a.s.sistant.
At that moment a small-sized man, also in prison attire, pushed his way through the crowd and began to complain excitedly that they were being tortured without any cause.
"Worse than dogs----" he began.
"Tut, tut! do not talk too much, or else you know----"
"Know what?" said the little man desperately. "Are we guilty of anything?"
"Silence!" shouted the a.s.sistant, and the little man subsided.
"What a peculiar state of things!" Nekhludoff said to himself as he ran the gauntlet, as it were, of a hundred eyes that followed him through the corridor.
"Is it possible that innocent people are held in durance here?"
Nekhludoff said, when they emerged from the corridor.
"What can we do? However, many of them are lying. If you ask them, they all claim to be innocent," said the a.s.sistant inspector; "although some are there really without any cause whatever."
"But these masons don"t seem to be guilty of any offense."
"That is true so far as the masons are concerned. But those people are spoiled. Some measure of severity is necessary. They are not all as innocent as they look. Only yesterday we were obliged to punish two of them."
"Punish, how?" asked Nekhludoff.
"By flogging. It was ordered----"
"But corporal punishment has been abolished."
"Not for those that have been deprived of civil rights."
Nekhludoff recalled what he had seen the other day while waiting in the vestibule, and understood that the punishment had then been taking place, and with peculiar force came upon him that mingled feeling of curiosity, sadness, doubt, and moral, almost pa.s.sing over into physical, nausea which he had felt before, but never with such force.
Without listening to the a.s.sistant or looking around him, he hastily pa.s.sed through the corridor and ascended to the office. The inspector was in the corridor, and, busying himself with some affair, had forgot to send for BoG.o.dukhovskaia. He only called it to mind when Nekhludoff entered the office.
"I will send for her immediately. Take a seat," he said.
CHAPTER LII.
The office consisted of two rooms. In the first room, which had two dirty windows and the plastering on the walls peeled off, a black measuring rod, for determining the height of prisoners, stood in one corner, while in another hung a picture of Christ. A few wardens stood around in this room. In the second room, in groups and pairs, about twenty men and women were sitting along the walls, talking in low voices. A writing table stood near one of the windows.
The inspector seated himself at the writing table and offered Nekhludoff a chair standing near by. Nekhludoff seated himself and began to examine the people in the room.
His attention was first of all attracted by a young man with a pleasant face, wearing a short jacket, who was standing before a man prisoner and a girl, gesticulating and talking to them in a heated manner. Beside them sat an old man in blue eye-gla.s.ses, immovably holding the hand of a woman in prison garb and listening to her. A boy in high-school uniform, with an expression of fright on his face, stood gazing on the old man. Not far from them, in the corner, a pair of lovers were sitting. She was a very young, pretty, stylishly-dressed girl with short-cropped, flaxen hair and an energetic face; he was a fine-featured, handsome youth, with wavy hair, and in a prison coat.
They occupied the corner, whispering to each other, apparently wrapped in their love. Nearest of all to the table was a gray-haired woman in black, evidently the mother of a consumptive young man in a rubber jacket, who stood before her. Her eyes were fixed on him, and her tears prevented her speaking, which she several times attempted to do, but was forced to desist. The young man held a piece of paper in his hand, and, evidently not knowing what to do, with an angry expression on his face was folding and crumpling it. Sitting beside the weeping mother, and patting her on the shoulder, was a stout, pretty girl with red cheeks, in a gray dress and cape. Everything in this girl was beautiful--the white hands, the wavy, short hair, the strong nose and lips; but the princ.i.p.al charm of her face were her hazel, kindly, truthful, sheep eyes. Her beautiful eyes turned on Nekhludoff at the moment he entered, and met his. But she immediately turned them again on her mother, and whispered to her something. Not far from the lovers a dark man with gloomy face sat talking angrily to a clean-shaven visitor resembling a Skopetz (a sect of castrates). At the very door stood a young man in a rubber jacket, evidently more concerned about the impression he was making on the visitors than what he was saying.
Nekhludoff sat down beside the inspector and looked around him with intense curiosity. He was amused by a short-haired boy coming near him and asking him in a shrill voice:
"And whom are you waiting for?"
The question surprised Nekhludoff, but, seeing the boy"s serious, intelligent face, with bright, attentive eyes, gravely answered that he was awaiting a woman acquaintance.
"Well, is she your sister?" asked the boy.
"No, she is not my sister," Nekhludoff answered with surprise. "And with whom are you?"
"I am with mamma. She is a political," said the boy.
"Maria Pavlovna, take away Kolia!" said the inspector, evidently finding Nekhludoff"s conversation with the boy contrary to the law.
Maria Pavlovna, the same beautiful woman who had attracted Nekhludoff"s attention, rose and with heavy, long strides approached him.
"What is he asking you? Who you are?" she asked, slightly smiling with her beautifully curved lips, and confidingly looking at him with her prominent, kindly eyes, as though expecting Nekhludoff to know that her relations to everybody always have been, are and ought to be simple, affable, and brotherly. "He must know everything," she said, and smiled into the face of the boy with such a kindly, charming smile that both the boy and Nekhludoff involuntarily also smiled.
"Yes, he asked me whom I came to see."
"Maria Pavlovna, you know that it is not permitted to speak to strangers," said the inspector.
"All right," she said, and, taking the little hand of the boy into her own white hand, she returned to the consumptive"s mother.
"Whose boy is that?" Nekhludoff asked the inspector.