as walking behind the crowd.

"Sir, could you not tell me where the women are kept, and where it is
permitted to see them?" he asked, making a particular effort to be
polite.

"You wish to go to the women's ward?"

"Yes; I would like to see one of the women prisoners," Nekhludoff
said, with the same strained politeness.

"You should have said so in the meeting-room. Whom do you wish to see,
then?"

"I wish to see Katherine Maslova."

"Has she been sentenced?"

"Yes, she was sentenced the other day," he said humbly, as if fearing
to ruffle the temper of the officer, who seemed to be interested in
him.

"Then this way, please," said the inspector, who had evidently
decided from Nekhludoff's appearance that he deserved attention.
"Sidoroff!" he turned to a warrant-officer wearing a mustache, and
medals on his breast. "Show this gentleman to the women's ward."

"All right, sir."

At that moment heart-rending cries came from the direction of the
grating.

All this seemed strange to Nekhludoff, and strangest of all was that
he was obliged to thank and feel himself under obligation to the
inspector and warden.

The warden led Nekhludoff from the men's ward into the corridor, and
through the open door opposite admitted him to the women's
meeting-room.

CHAPTER XL.

This room, like the one in the men's ward, was also divided in three,
by two nets, but it was considerably smaller. There were also fewer
visitors and fewer prisoners, but the noise was as great as in the
men's room. Here, also, the authorities stood guard between the nets.
The authorities were here represented by a matron in uniform with
crown-laced sleeves and fringed with blue braid and a belt of the same
color. Here, too, people pressed against the nets--in the
passage--city folks in divers dresses; behind the nets, female
prisoners, some in white, others in their own dresses. The whole net
was lined with people. Some stood on tip-toe, speaking over the heads
of others; others, again, sat on the floor and conversed.

The most remarkable of the women prisoners, both in her shouting and
appearance, was a thin, ragged gipsy, with a 'kerchief which had
slipped from her head, who stood almost in the middle of the room,
near a post, behind the net, gesticulating and shouting to a short and
tightly belted gipsy in a blue coat. A soldier sat beside him on the
floor, talking to a prisoner. Beyond stood a young peasant with a
light beard and