in which Maslova was confined was an oblong room, twenty feet
by fifteen. The kalsomining of the walls was peeled off, and the dry
boards of the cots occupied two-thirds of the space. In the middle of
the room, opposite the door, was a dark iron, with a wax candle stuck
on it, and a dusty bouquet of immortelles hanging under it. To the
left, behind the door, on a darkened spot of the floor, stood an
ill-smelling vat. The women had been locked up for the night.

There were fifteen inmates of this cell, twelve women and three
children.

It was not dark yet, and only two women lay in their cots; one a
foolish little woman--she was constantly crying--who had been arrested
because she had no written evidence of her identity, had her head
covered with her coat; the other, a consumptive, was serving a
sentence for theft. She was not sleeping, but lay, her coat under her
head, with wide-open eyes, and with difficulty retaining in her throat
the tickling, gurgling phlegm, so as not to cough. The other women
were with bare heads and skirts of coarse linen; some sat on their
cots sewing; others stood at the window gazing on the passing
prisoners. Of the three women who were sewing, one, Korableva, was the
one who had given Maslova the instructions when the latter left the
cell. She was a tall, strong woman, with a frowning, gloomy face, all
wrinkled, a bag of skin hanging under her chin, a short braid of light
hair, turning gray at the temples, and a hairy wart on her cheek. This
old woman was sentenced to penal servitude for killing her husband
with an axe. The killing was committed because he annoyed her daughter
with improper advances. She was the overseer of the cell, and also
sold wine to the inmates. She was sewing with eye-glasses, and held
the needle, after the fashion of the peasants, with three fingers,
the sharp point turned toward her breast. Beside her, also sewing, sat
a little woman, good-natured and talkative, dark, snub-nosed and with
little black eyes. She was the watch-woman at a flag-station, and was
sentenced to three months' imprisonment for negligently causing an
accident on the railroad. The third of the women who were occupied
with sewing was Theodosia--called Fenichka by her fellow-prisoners--of
light complexion, and with rosy cheeks; young, lovely, with bright,
childish blue eyes, and two long, flaxen braids rolled up on her small
head. She was imprisoned for attempting to poison her husband. She was
s