“What!  Is she sentenced?”

“Yes; the day before yesterday she was sentenced,” meekly answered Nekhludoff, fearing to spoil the inspector’s good humour, which seemed to incline in his favour.

“If you want to go to the women’s ward please to step this way,” said the officer, having decided from Nekhludoff’s appearance that he was worthy of attention.  “Sideroff, conduct the gentleman to the women’s ward,” he said, turning to a moustached corporal with medals on his breast.

“Yes, sir.”

At this moment heart-rending sobs were heard coming from some one near the net.

Everything here seemed strange to Nekhludoff; but strangest of all was that he should have to thank and feel obligation towards the inspector and the chief warders, the very men who were performing the cruel deeds that were done in this house.

The corporal showed Nekhludoff through the corridor, out of the men’s into the women’s interviewing-room.

This room, like that of the men, was divided by two wire nets; but it was much smaller, and there were fewer visitors and fewer prisoners, so that there was less shouting than in the men’s room.  Yet the same thing was going on here, only, between the nets instead of soldiers there was a woman warder, dressed in a blue-edged uniform jacket, with gold cords on the sleeves, and a blue belt.  Here also, as in the men’s room, the people were pressing close to the wire netting on both sides; on the nearer side, the townspeople in varied attire; on the further side, the prisoners, some in white prison clothes, others in their own coloured dresses.  The whole length of the net was taken up by the people standing close to it.  Some rose on tiptoe to be heard across the heads of others; some sat talking on the floor.

The most remarkable of the prisoners, both by her piercing screams and her appearance, was a thin, dishevelled gipsy.  Her kerchief had slipped off her curly hair, and she stood near a post in the middle of the prisoner’s division, shouting something, accompanied by quick gestures, to a gipsy man in a blue coat, girdled tightly below the waist.  Next the gipsy man, a soldier sat on the ground talking to prisoner; next the soldier, leaning close to the net, stood a young peasant, with a fair beard and a flushed face, keeping back his tears with difficulty.  A pretty, fair-haired prisoner, with bright blue eyes, was speaking to him.  These two were Theodosia and her husband.  Next to them was a tramp, talking to a broad-faced woman; then two women, then a man, then again a woman, and in front of each a prisoner.  Maslova was not among them.  But some one stood by the window behind the prisoners, and Nekhludoff knew it was she.  His heart began to beat faster, and his breath stopped.  The decisive moment was approaching.  He went up to the part of the net where he could see the prisoner, and recognised her at once.  She stood behind the blue-eyed Theodosia, and smiled, listening to what Theodosia was saying.  She did not wear the prison cloak now, but a white dress, tightly drawn in at the waist by a belt, and very full in the bosom.  From under her kerchief appeared the black ringlets of her fringe, just the same as in the court.