“What Frenchman?”

“Dufar, the Frenchman—­you may have heard.  He is making wigs for the actors.  He is now our master, and does what he pleases with us.  He is a good man himself, but his wife is Russian—­and what a cur!  She is robbing the people—­simply awful!  But here is the prison.  Shall I drive up to the front?  I think they don’t admit through the front.”

CHAPTER VIII.

With a faint heart and with horror at the thought that he might find Maslova in an inebriate condition and persistently antagonistic, and at the mystery which she was to him, Nekhludoff rang the bell and inquired of the inspector about Maslova.  She was in the hospital.

A young physician, impregnated with carbolic acid, came out into the corridor and sternly asked Nekhludoff what he wanted.  The physician indulged the prisoners’ shortcomings and often relaxed the rules in their favor, for which he often ran afoul of the prison officials and even the head physician.  Fearing that Nekhludoff might ask something not permitted by the rules, and, moreover, desiring to show that he made no exceptions in favor of anybody, he feigned anger.

“There are no women here; this is the children’s ward,” he said.

“I know it, but there is a nurse here who had been transferred from the prison.”

“Yes, there are two.  What do you wish, then?”

“I am closely related to one of them, Maslova,” said Nekhludoff, “and would like to see her.  I am going to St. Petersburg to enter an appeal in her case.  I would like to hand her this; it is only a photograph,” and he produced an envelope from his pocket.

“Yes, you may do that,” said the softened physician, and turning to an old nurse in a white apron, told her to call Maslova.  “Won’t you take a seat, or come into the reception-room?”

“Thank you,” said Nekhludoff, and taking advantage of the favorable change in the physician’s demeanor, asked him what they thought of Maslova in the hospital.

“Her work is fair, considering the conditions amid which she had lived,” answered the physician.  “But there she comes.”

The old nurse appeared at one of the doors, and behind her came Maslova.  She wore a white apron over a striped skirt; a white cap on her head hid her hair.  Seeing Nekhludoff she flushed, stopped waveringly, then frowned, and with downcast eyes approached him with quick step.  Coming near him she stood for a moment without offering her hand, then she did offer her hand and became even more flushed.  Nekhludoff had not seen her since the conversation in which she excused herself for her impetuosity, and he expected to find her in a similar mood.  But she was entirely different to-day; there was something new in the expression of her face; something timid and reserved, and, as it seemed to him, malevolent toward him.  He repeated the words he had said to the physician and handed her the envelope with the photograph which he had brought from Panov.