“I think so.  But he is away, and the lieutenant is in his place.”

“You mean Maslenikoff?”

“Yes.”

“I know him,” said Nekhludoff, rising to leave.

At that moment the lawyer’s wife, an extremely ugly, pug-nosed and bony woman, rushed into the room.  Not only was her attire unusually original—­she was fairly loaded down with plush and silk things, bright yellow and green—­but her oily hair was done up in curls, and she triumphantly rushed into the reception-room, accompanied by a tall, smiling man with an earth-colored face, in a cut-away coat with silk facings and a white tie.  This was an author.  He knew Nekhludoff by sight.

“Anatal,” she said, opening the door, “come here.  Semion Ivanovitch promised to read to us his poem, and you must read something from Garshin.”

Nekhludoff was preparing to go, but the lawyer’s wife whispered something to her husband and turned to him: 

“I know you, Prince, and consider an introduction unnecessary.  Won’t you please attend our literary breakfast?  It will be very interesting.  Anatal is an excellent reader.”

“You see what variety of duties I have,” said Anatal, smiling and pointing at his wife, thereby expressing the impossibility of resisting that bewitching person.

With a sad and grave face and with the greatest politeness, Nekhludoff thanked the lawyer’s wife for the invitation, pleaded other engagements and went into the reception-room.

“What faces he makes!” the lawyer’s wife said of him, when he had left the room.

In the reception-room the clerk handed him the petition, and in answer to Nekhludoff’s question about the honorarium, said that Anatal Semionovitch set his fee at a thousand rubles; that he really does not take such cases, but does it for Nekhludoff.

“And who is to sign the petition?” asked Nekhludoff.

“The prisoner may sign it herself, and if that be troublesome, she may empower Anatal Semionovitch.”

“No, I will go to the prison and obtain her signature,” said Nekhludoff, rejoicing at the opportunity of seeing Katiousha before the appointed day.

CHAPTER XLIV.

At the usual hour the jailers’ whistles were heard in the corridors of the prison; with a rattling of irons the doors of the corridors and cells opened, and the patter of bare feet and the clatter of prison shoes resounded through the corridors; the men and women prisoners washed and dressed, and after going through the morning inspection, proceeded to brew their tea.