“And he’s a fine fellow, I’ve heard say,” said Theodosia, who sat bareheaded, with her long plaits round her head, on a log of wood opposite the shelf bedstead on which the teapot stood.

“There, now, if you were to ask him,” the watchman’s wife said to Maslova (by him she meant Nekhludoff).

“I shall tell him.  He’ll do anything for me,” Maslova said, tossing her head, and smiling.

“Yes, but when is he coming? and they’ve already gone to fetch them,” said Theodosia.  “It is terrible,” she added, with a sigh.

“I once did see how they flogged a peasant in the village.  Father-in-law, he sent me once to the village elder.  Well, I went, and there . . . " The watchman’s wife began her long story, which was interrupted by the sound of voices and steps in the corridor above them.

The women were silent, and sat listening.

“There they are, hauling him along, the devils!” Khoroshavka said.  “They’ll do him to death, they will.  The jailers are so enraged with him because he never would give in to them.”

All was quiet again upstairs, and the watchman’s wife finished her story of how she was that frightened when she went into the barn and saw them flogging a peasant, her inside turned at the sight, and so on.  Khoroshevka related how Schegloff had been flogged, and never uttered a sound.  Then Theodosia put away the tea things, and Korableva and the watchman’s wife took up their sewing.  Maslova sat down on the bedstead, with her arms round her knees, dull and depressed.  She was about to lie down and try to sleep, when the woman warder called her into the office to see a visitor.

“Now, mind, and don’t forget to tell him about us,” the old woman (Menshova) said, while Maslova was arranging the kerchief on her head before the dim looking-glass.  “We did not set fire to the house, but he himself, the fiend, did it; his workman saw him do it, and will not damn his soul by denying it.  You just tell to ask to see my Mitri.  Mitri will tell him all about it, as plain as can be.  Just think of our being locked up in prison when we never dreamt of any ill, while he, the fiend, is enjoying himself at the pub, with another man’s wife.”

“That’s not the law,” remarked Korableva.

“I’ll tell him—­I’ll tell him,” answered Maslova.  “Suppose I have another drop, just to keep up courage,” she added, with a wink; and Korableva poured out half a cup of vodka, which Maslova drank.  Then, having wiped her mouth and repeating the words “just to keep up courage,” tossing her head and smiling gaily, she followed the warder along the corridor.

CHAPTER XLVII.

NEKHLUDOFF AGAIN VISITS MASLOVA.

Nekhludoff had to wait in the hall for a long time.  When he had arrived at the prison and rung at the entrance door, he handed the permission of the Procureur to the jailer on duty who met him.