“My dear Nathalie,—­I cannot go away with the heavy impression that yesterday’s talk with your husband has left,” he began.  “What next?  Shall I ask him to forgive me what I said yesterday?  But I only said what I felt, and he will think that I am taking it back.  Besides, this interference of his in my private matters. . . .  No, I cannot,” and again he felt hatred rising in his heart towards that man so foreign to him.  He folded the unfinished letter and put it in his pocket, paid, went out, and again got into the trap to catch up the gang.  It had grown still hotter.  The stones and the walls seemed to be breathing out hot air.  The pavement seemed to scorch the feet, and Nekhludoff felt a burning sensation in his hand when he touched the lacquered splashguard of his trap.

The horse was jogging along at a weary trot, beating the uneven, dusty road monotonously with its hoofs, the isvostchik kept falling into a doze, Nekhludoff sat without thinking of anything.

At the bottom of a street, in front of a large house, a group of people had collected, and a convoy soldier stood by.

“What has happened?” Nekhludoff asked of a porter.

“Something the matter with a convict.”

Nekhludoff got down and came up to the group.  On the rough stones, where the pavement slanted down to the gutter, lay a broadly-built, red-bearded, elderly convict, with his head lower than his feet, and very red in the face.  He had a grey cloak and grey trousers on, and lay on his back with the palms of his freckled hands downwards, and at long intervals his broad, high chest heaved, and he groaned, while his bloodshot eyes were fixed on the sky.  By him stood a cross-looking policeman, a pedlar, a postman, a clerk, an old woman with a parasol, and a short-haired boy with an empty basket.

“They are weak.  Having been locked up in prison they’ve got weak, and then they lead them through the most broiling heat,” said the clerk, addressing Nekhludoff, who had just come up.

“He’ll die, most likely,” said the woman with the parasol, in a doleful tone.

“His shirt should be untied,” said the postman.

The policeman began, with his thick, trembling fingers, clumsily to untie the tapes that fastened the shirt round the red, sinewy neck.  He was evidently excited and confused, but still thought it necessary to address the crowd.

“What have you collected here for?  It is hot enough without your keeping the wind off.”

“They should have been examined by a doctor, and the weak ones left behind,” said the clerk, showing off his knowledge of the law.

The policeman, having undone the tapes of the shirt, rose and looked round.

“Move on, I tell you.  It is not your business, is it?  What’s there to stare at?” he said, and turned to Nekhludoff for sympathy, but not finding any in his face he turned to the convoy soldier.

But the soldier stood aside, examining the trodden-down heel of his boot, and was quite indifferent to the policeman’s perplexity.