There the same thing occurred.  There prevailed the same dampness and ill-smells.  But in this room, between the windows, an image of the Virgin, before which a small lamp burned dimly, was hung up.  To the left side of the door stood the large vat.  Here the prisoners were stretched out on their berths, and in the same way they rose and placed themselves in a row.  Three of them remained in their places.  Two of these three lifted themselves and sat up, but the third one remained stretched out, and did not even look at the visitors.  These latter ones were sick.  The Englishman addressed them in the same manner, and left two Testaments.

From the cells in which those condemned to hard labor were imprisoned, they passed over to the cells of the exiles, and finally those in which the relatives who escorted the prisoners to Siberia were awaiting the day appointed to start hence.

Everywhere the same cold, hungry, idling, sickly, degraded, brutalized human beings could be seen.

The Englishman distributed his Bibles, and, being tired out, he walked through the rooms saying “All right” to whatever the superintendent told him concerning the prisons.

They went out into the corridor.

The Englishman, pointing to an open door, asked what that room was for.

“This is the prison morgue.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the Englishman, and he expressed a desire to enter.  This room was an ordinary room.  A small lamp, fastened to the wall, lit up the four bodies which were stretched on berths, with their heads toward the wall and the feet protruding toward the door.  The first body, in a plain shirt, was that of a tall young man, with a small, pointed beard and half-shaven head.  The corpse was already chilled, and its blue hands were folded over the breast.  Beside him, in a white dress and jacket, lay a bare-footed old woman, with thin hair and wrinkled, yellowish face.  Beside this old woman lay a corpse, attired in blue.

This color recalled something in Nekhludoff’s memory.

“And who is this third one?” he asked, mistrusting his own eyesight.

“This one is a gentleman who was sent hither from the hospital,” replied the superintendent.

Nekhludoff walked up to the body and touched the icy cold feet of
Kryltzoff.

CHAPTER X.

Nekhludoff, after parting with the Englishman, went straight to his hotel, and walked about his room for a long time.  The affair with Katiousha was at an end.  There was something ugly in the very memory of it.  But it was not that which grieved him.  Some other affair of his was yet unsettled—­an affair which tortured him and required his attention.  In his imagination rose the gloomy scenes of the hundreds and thousands of human beings pent up in the pestiferous air.  The laughter of the prisoners resounded in his ears.  He saw again among the dead bodies the beautiful, angry, waxen face of the dead Kryltzoff; and the question whether he was mad, or all those who commit those evils and think themselves wise were mad, bore in upon his mind with renewed power, and he found no answer to it.  The principal difficulty consisted in finding an answer to the principal question, which was:  What should be done with those who became brutalized in the struggle for life?