Resurrection

Maslova reached her cell only at six in the evening, tired and

footsore, having, unaccustomed as she was to walking, gone 10

miles on the stony road that day. She was crushed by the

unexpectedly severe sentence and tormented by hunger. During the

first interval of her trial, when the soldiers were eating bread

and hard-boiled eggs in her presence, her mouth watered and she

realised she was hungry, but considered it beneath her dignity to

beg of them. Three hours later the desire to eat had passed, and

she felt only weak. It was then she received the unexpected

sentence. At first she thought she had made a mistake; she could

not imagine herself as a convict in Siberia, and could not

believe what she heard. But seeing the quiet, business-like faces

of judges and jury, who heard this news as if it were perfectly

natural and expected, she grew indignant, and proclaimed loudly

to the whole Court that she was not guilty. Finding that her cry

was also taken as something natural and expected, and feeling

incapable of altering matters, she was horror-struck and began to

weep in despair, knowing that she must submit to the cruel and

surprising injustice that had been done her. What astonished her

most was that young men--or, at any rate, not old men--the same

men who always looked so approvingly at her (one of them, the

public prosecutor, she had seen in quite a different humour) had

condemned her. While she was sitting in the prisoners' room

before the trial and during the intervals, she saw these men

looking in at the open door pretending they had to pass there on

some business, or enter the room and gaze on her with approval.

And then, for some unknown reason, these same men had condemned

her to hard labour, though she was innocent of the charge laid

against her. At first she cried, but then quieted down and sat

perfectly stunned in the prisoners' room, waiting to be led back.

She wanted only two things now--tobacco and strong drink. In this

state Botchkova and Kartinkin found her when they were led into

the same room after being sentenced. Botchkova began at once to

scold her, and call her a "convict."

"Well! What have you gained? justified yourself, have you? What

you have deserved, that you've got. Out in Siberia you'll give up

your finery, no fear!"

Maslova sat with her hands inside her sleeves, hanging her head

and looking in front of her at the dirty floor without moving,

only saying: "I don't bother you, so don't you bother me. I don't

bother you, do I?" she repeated this several times, and was

silent again. She did brighten up a little when Botchkova and

Kartinkin were led away and an attendant brought her three

roubles.

"Are you Maslova?" he asked. "Here you are; a lady sent it you,"

he said, giving her the money.