Without listening to the inspector’s assistant, or looking round, he hurriedly left the corridor, and went to the office.  The inspector was in the office, occupied with other business, and had forgotten to send for Doukhova.  He only remembered his promise to have her called when Nekhludoff entered the office.

“Sit down, please.  I’ll send for her at once,” said the inspector.

CHAPTER LIV.

PRISONERS AND FRIENDS.

The office consisted of two rooms.  The first room, with a large, dilapidated stove and two dirty windows, had a black measure for measuring the prisoners in one corner, and in another corner hung a large image of Christ, as is usual in places where they torture people.  In this room stood several jailers.  In the next room sat about twenty persons, men and women in groups and in pairs, talking in low voices.  There was a writing table by the window.

The inspector sat down by the table, and offered Nekhludoff a chair beside him.  Nekhludoff sat down, and looked at the people in the room.

The first who drew his attention was a young man with a pleasant face, dressed in a short jacket, standing in front of a middle-aged woman with dark eyebrows, and he was eagerly telling her something and gesticulating with his hands.  Beside them sat an old man, with blue spectacles, holding the hand of a young woman in prisoner’s clothes, who was telling him something.  A schoolboy, with a fixed, frightened look on his face, was gazing at the old man.  In one corner sat a pair of lovers.  She was quite young and pretty, and had short, fair hair, looked energetic, and was elegantly dressed; he had fine features, wavy hair, and wore a rubber jacket.  They sat in their corner and seemed stupefied with love.  Nearest to the table sat a grey-haired woman dressed in black, evidently the mother of a young, consumptive-looking fellow, in the same kind of jacket.  Her head lay on his shoulder.  She was trying to say something, but the tears prevented her from speaking; she began several times, but had to stop.  The young man held a paper in his hand, and, apparently not knowing what to do, kept folding and pressing it with an angry look on his face.

Beside them was a short-haired, stout, rosy girl, with very prominent eyes, dressed in a grey dress and a cape; she sat beside the weeping mother, tenderly stroking her.  Everything about this girl was beautiful; her large, white hands, her short, wavy hair, her firm nose and lips, but the chief charm of her face lay in her kind, truthful hazel eyes.  The beautiful eyes turned away from the mother for a moment when Nekhludoff came in, and met his look.  But she turned back at once and said something to the mother.

Not far from the lovers a dark, dishevelled man, with a gloomy face, sat angrily talking to a beardless visitor, who looked as if he belonged to the Scoptsy sect.