ng a
certain point, it came to a stand-still and a voice from within was
heard.

"Tell him that he is not home, and will not come to-day. He is
visiting--why do they bother us?" a woman's voice was heard to say,
and the rhapsody continued, then ceased, and the sound of a chair
moved back was heard. The angry pianist herself evidently wished to
reprimand the importunate visitor who came at such a late hour.

"Papa is not home," angrily said a pale, wretched looking girl with
puffed-up hair and blue spots under her eyes, who came to the door.
Seeing a young man in a good overcoat, she became calm. "Walk in,
please. What do you wish to see him for?"

"I would like to see a prisoner. I hold a pass from the prosecutor."

"Well, I don't know; papa is not in. Why, walk in, please," she again
called from the entrance hall. "Or apply to his assistant, who is now
in the office. You may talk to him. And what is your name?"

"Thank you," said Nekhludoff, without answering the question, and went
away.

Scarcely had the door closed when the same vigorous, merry sound, so
inappropriate to the place and so persistently rehearsed by the
wretched girl, was heard. In the court-yard Nekhludoff met a young
officer with a stiff, dyed mustache, of whom he inquired for the
assistant. He himself was the assistant. He took the pass, looked at
it, and said that he could not admit any one to the prison on a pass
for the detention-house. Besides, it was late.

"At ten o'clock to-morrow the prison is open to all visitors, and the
inspector will be here. You could then see her in the common
reception-room, or, if the inspector permits it, in the office."

So, without gaining an interview, Nekhludoff returned home. Agitated
by the expectation of seeing her, he walked along the streets,
thinking not of the court, but of his conversations with the
prosecutor and the inspectors. That he was seeking an interview with
her, and told the prosecutor of his intention, and visited two prisons
preparing for the ordeal, had so excited him that he could not calm
down. On returning home he immediately brought forth his unused diary,
read some parts and made the following entry: "For two years I have
kept no diary, and thought that I should never again return to this
childishness. But it was no childishness, but a discourse with myself,
with that true, divine _I_ which lives in every man. All this time
this _I_ was slumbering and I had no one to discourse