Resurrection

"He's not been a-rioting, or anything," Korableva said, referring

to Vasiliev, as she bit tiny pieces off a lump of sugar with her

strong teeth. "He only stuck up for a chum, because it's not

lawful to strike prisoners nowadays."

"And he's a fine fellow, I've heard say," said Theodosia, who sat

bareheaded, with her long plaits round her head, on a log of wood

opposite the shelf bedstead on which the teapot stood.

"There, now, if you were to ask _him_," the watchman's wife said

to Maslova (by him she meant Nekhludoff).

"I shall tell him. He'll do anything for me," Maslova said,

tossing her head, and smiling.

"Yes, but when is he coming? and they've already gone to fetch

them," said Theodosia. "It is terrible," she added, with a sigh.

"I once did see how they flogged a peasant in the village.

Father-in-law, he sent me once to the village elder. Well, I

went, and there . . . " The watchman's wife began her long story,

which was interrupted by the sound of voices and steps in the

corridor above them.

The women were silent, and sat listening.

"There they are, hauling him along, the devils!" Khoroshavka

said. "They'll do him to death, they will. The jailers are so

enraged with him because he never would give in to them."

All was quiet again upstairs, and the watchman's wife finished

her story of how she was that frightened when she went into the

barn and saw them flogging a peasant, her inside turned at the

sight, and so on. Khoroshevka related how Schegloff had been

flogged, and never uttered a sound. Then Theodosia put away the

tea things, and Korableva and the watchman's wife took up their

sewing. Maslova sat down on the bedstead, with her arms round her

knees, dull and depressed. She was about to lie down and try to

sleep, when the woman warder called her into the office to see a

visitor.

"Now, mind, and don't forget to tell him about us," the old woman

(Menshova) said, while Maslova was arranging the kerchief on her

head before the dim looking-glass. "We did not set fire to the

house, but he himself, the fiend, did it; his workman saw him do

it, and will not damn his soul by denying it. You just tell to

ask to see my Mitri. Mitri will tell him all about it, as plain

as can be. Just think of our being locked up in prison when we

never dreamt of any ill, while he, the fiend, is enjoying himself

at the pub, with another man's wife."

"That's not the law," remarked Korableva.

"I'll tell him--I'll tell him," answered Maslova. "Suppose I have

another drop, just to keep up courage," she added, with a wink;

and Korableva poured out half a cup of vodka, which Maslova

drank. Then, having wiped her mouth and repeating the words "just

to keep up courage," tossing her head and smiling gaily, she

followed the warder along the corridor.