Resurrection

The president, having looked through some papers and put a few

questions to the usher and the secretary, gave the order for the

prisoners to be brought in.

The door behind the grating was instantly opened, and two

gendarmes, with caps on their heads, and holding naked swords in

their hands, came in, followed by the prisoners, a red-haired,

freckled man, and two women. The man wore a prison cloak, which

was too long and too wide for him. He stuck out his thumbs, and

held his arms close to his sides, thus keeping the sleeves, which

were also too long, from slipping over his hands. Without looking

at the judges he gazed steadfastly at the form, and passing to

the other side of it, he sat down carefully at the very edge,

leaving plenty of room for the others. He fixed his eyes on the

president, and began moving the muscles of his cheeks, as if

whispering something. The woman who came next was also dressed in

a prison cloak, and had a prison kerchief round her head. She had

a sallow complexion, no eyebrows or lashes, and very red eyes.

This woman appeared perfectly calm. Having caught her cloak

against something, she detached it carefully, without any haste,

and sat down.

The third prisoner was Maslova.

As soon as she appeared, the eyes of all the men in the court

turned her way, and remained fixed on her white face, her

sparklingly-brilliant black eyes and the swelling bosom under the

prison cloak. Even the gendarme whom she passed on her way to her

seat looked at her fixedly till she sat down, and then, as if

feeling guilty, hurriedly turned away, shook himself, and began

staring at the window in front of him.

The president paused until the prisoners had taken their seats,

and when Maslova was seated, turned to the secretary.

Then the usual procedure commenced; the counting of the jury,

remarks about those who had not come, the fixing of the fines to

be exacted from them, the decisions concerning those who claimed

exemption, the appointing of reserve jurymen.

Having folded up some bits of paper and put them in one of the

glass vases, the president turned up the gold-embroidered cuffs

of his uniform a little way, and began drawing the lots, one by

one, and opening them. Nekhludoff was among the jurymen thus

drawn. Then, having let down his sleeves, the president requested

the priest to swear in the jury.

The old priest, with his puffy, red face, his brown gown, and his

gold cross and little order, laboriously moving his stiff legs,

came up to the lectern beneath the icon.

The jurymen got up, and crowded towards the lectern.

"Come up, please," said the priest, pulling at the cross on his

breast with his plump hand, and waiting till all the jury had

drawn near. When they had all come up the steps of the platform,

the priest passed his bald, grey head sideways through the greasy

opening of the stole, and, having rearranged his thin hair, he

again turned to the jury. "Now, raise your right arms in this

way, and put your fingers together, thus," he said, with his

tremulous old voice, lifting his fat, dimpled hand, and putting

the thumb and two first fingers together, as if taking a pinch of

something. "Now, repeat after me, 'I promise and swear, by the

Almighty God, by His holy gospels, and by the life-giving cross

of our Lord, that in this work which,'" he said, pausing between

each sentence--"don't let your arm down; hold it like this," he

remarked to a young man who had lowered his arm--"'that in this

work which . . . '"