On both sides were faces pressed close to the nets, faces of wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, children, trying to see each other’s features and to say what was necessary in such a way as to be understood.

But as each one tried to be heard by the one he was talking to, and his neighbour tried to do the same, they did their best to drown each other’s voices’ and that was the cause of the din and shouting which struck Nekhludoff when he first came in.  It was impossible to understand what was being said and what were the relations between the different people.  Next Nekhludoff an old woman with a kerchief on her head stood trembling, her chin pressed close to the net, and shouting something to a young fellow, half of whose head was shaved, who listened attentively with raised brows.  By the side of the old woman was a young man in a peasant’s coat, who listened, shaking his head, to a boy very like himself.  Next stood a man in rags, who shouted, waving his arm and laughing.  Next to him a woman, with a good woollen shawl on her shoulders, sat on the floor holding a baby in her lap and crying bitterly.  This was apparently the first time she saw the greyheaded man on the other side in prison clothes, and with his head shaved.  Beyond her was the doorkeeper, who had spoken to Nekhludoff outside; he was shouting with all his might to a greyhaired convict on the other side.

When Nekhludoff found that he would have to speak in similar conditions, a feeling of indignation against those who were able to make and enforce these conditions arose in him; he was surprised that, placed in such a dreadful position, no one seemed offended at this outrage on human feelings.  The soldiers, the inspector, the prisoners themselves, acted as if acknowledging all this to be necessary.

Nekhludoff remained in this room for about five minutes, feeling strangely depressed, conscious of how powerless he was, and at variance with all the world.  He was seized with a curious moral sensation like seasickness.

CHAPTER XLII.

VISITING DAY—­THE WOMEN’S WARD.

“Well, but I must do what I came here for,” he said, trying to pick up courage.  “What is to be done now?” He looked round for an official, and seeing a thin little man in the uniform of an officer going up and down behind the people, he approached him.

“Can you tell me, sir,” he said, with exceedingly strained politeness of manner, “where the women are kept, and where one is allowed to interview them?”

“Is it the women’s ward you want to go to?”

“Yes, I should like to see one of the women prisoners,” Nekhludoff said, with the same strained politeness.

“You should have said so when you were in the hall.  Who is it, then, that you want to see?”

“I want to see a prisoner called Katerina Maslova.”

“Is she a political one?”

“No, she is simply . . .”