Resurrection

The first apartment behind the entrance doors was a large vaulted

room with iron bars to the small windows. In this room, which was

called the meeting-room, Nekhludoff was startled by the sight of

a large picture of the Crucifixion.

"What's that for?" he thought, his mind involuntarily connecting

the subject of the picture with liberation and not with

imprisonment.

He went on, slowly letting the hurrying visitors pass before, and

experiencing a mingled feeling of horror at the evil-doers locked

up in this building, compassion for those who, like Katusha and

the boy they tried the day before, must be here though guiltless,

and shyness and tender emotion at the thought of the interview

before him. The warder at the other end of the meeting-room said

something as they passed, but Nekhludoff, absorbed by his own

thoughts, paid no attention to him, and continued to follow the

majority of the visitors, and so got into the men's part of the

prison instead of the women's.

Letting the hurrying visitors pass before him, he was the last to

get into the interviewing-room. As soon as Nekhludoff opened the

door of this room, he was struck by the deafening roar of a

hundred voices shouting at once, the reason of which he did not

at once understand. But when he came nearer to the people, he saw

that they were all pressing against a net that divided the room

in two, like flies settling on sugar, and he understood what it

meant. The two halves of the room, the windows of which were

opposite the door he had come in by, were separated, not by one,

but by two nets reaching from the floor to the ceiling. The wire

nets were stretched 7 feet apart, and soldiers were walking up

and down the space between them. On the further side of the nets

were the prisoners, on the nearer, the visitors. Between them was

a double row of nets and a space of 7 feet wide, so that they

could not hand anything to one another, and any one whose sight

was not very good could not even distinguish the face on the

other side. It was also difficult to talk; one had to scream in

order to be heard.

On both sides were faces pressed close to the nets, faces of

wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, children, trying to see each

other's features and to say what was necessary in such a way as

to be understood.

But as each one tried to be heard by the one he was talking to,

and his neighbour tried to do the same, they did their best to

drown each other's voices' and that was the cause of the din and

shouting which struck Nekhludoff when he first came in. It was

impossible to understand what was being said and what were the

relations between the different people. Next Nekhludoff an old

woman with a kerchief on her head stood trembling, her chin

pressed close to the net, and shouting something to a young

fellow, half of whose head was shaved, who listened attentively

with raised brows. By the side of the old woman was a young man

in a peasant's coat, who listened, shaking his head, to a boy

very like himself. Next stood a man in rags, who shouted, waving

his arm and laughing. Next to him a woman, with a good woollen

shawl on her shoulders, sat on the floor holding a baby in her

lap and crying bitterly. This was apparently the first time she

saw the greyheaded man on the other side in prison clothes, and

with his head shaved. Beyond her was the doorkeeper, who had

spoken to Nekhludoff outside; he was shouting with all his might

to a greyhaired convict on the other side.