The prosecuting attorney was the only man whose glances were other than kind.  While she was sitting in the prisoners’ room, and during recesses she saw these men passing by her and entering the room under various pretexts, but with the obvious intention of looking at her.  And now these same men, for some reason, sentenced her to hard labor, although she was innocent of the crime.  For some time she wept, then became calm, and in a condition of complete exhaustion she waited to be taken away.  She desired but one thing now—­a cigarette.  She was in this frame of mind when Bochkova and Kartinkin were brought into the room.  Bochkova immediately began to curse her.

“You are innocent, aren’t you?  Why weren’t you discharged, you vile thing?  You got your deserts!  You will drop your fineries in Siberia!”

Maslova sat with lowered head, her hands folded in the sleeves of her coat, and gazed on the smoothly trampled ground.

“I am not interfering with you, so leave me in peace,” she repeated several times, then became silent.  She became enlivened again when, after Bochkova and Kartinkin had been removed from the room, the guard entered, bringing her three rubles.

“Are you Maslova?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Here is some money which a lady sent you,” he said.

“What lady?”

“Take it, and ask no questions.”

The money was sent by Kitaeva.  When leaving the court she asked the usher if she could send some money to Maslova, and, receiving an affirmative answer, she removed a chamois glove, and, from the back folds of her silk dress, produced a stylish pocket-book, and counted out the money into the hands of the usher who, in her presence, handed it to the guard.

“Please be sure to give it to her,” said Karolina Albertoona to the guard.

The guard was offended by this distrust shown to him, which was the cause of his speaking angrily to Maslova.

Maslova was overjoyed by the receipt of the money, for it could give her the one thing she wished for now.

All her thoughts were now centered on her desire to inhale the smoke of a cigarette.  So strong was this desire that she greedily inhaled the smoke-laden air which was wafted in from the corridor and through the cabinet door.  But there was a long wait before her, for the secretary, who was to deliver to the guard the order for her removal, forgetting the prisoners, engaged one of the lawyers in the discussion of an editorial that had appeared in a newspaper.

At five o’clock she was finally led down through the rear door.  While in the waiting-room she gave one of the guards twenty kopecks, asking him to buy for her two lunch rolls and some cigarettes.  The guard laughed, took the money, honestly made the purchase and returned the change to her.  She could not smoke on the road, so Maslova arrived at the jail with the same unsatisfied craving for a cigarette.  At that moment about a hundred prisoners were brought from the railroad station.  Maslova met them in the passageway.