“Wait a bit, Mary Pavlovna,” said Maslova, getting a rusk out of her bag; “she will come to me.”

The little girl knew Maslova, and when she saw her face and the rusk she let her take her.  All was quiet.  The gates were opened, and the gang stepped out, the convoy counted the prisoners over again, the bags were packed and tied on to the carts, the weak seated on the top.  Maslova with the child in her arms took her place among the women next to Theodosia.  Simonson, who had all the time been watching what was going on, stepped with large, determined strides up to the officer, who, having given his orders, was just getting into a trap, and said, “You have behaved badly.”

“Get to your place; it is no business of yours.”

“It is my business to tell you that you have behaved badly and I have said it,” said Simonson, looking intently into the officer’s face from under his bushy eyebrows.

“Ready?  March!” the officer called out, paying no heed to Simonson, and, taking hold of the driver’s shoulder, he got into the trap.  The gang started and spread out as it stepped on to the muddy high road with ditches on each side, which passed through a dense forest.

CHAPTER III.

MARY PAVLOVNA.

In spite of the hard conditions in which they were placed, life among the political prisoners seemed very good to Katusha after the depraved, luxurious and effeminate life she had led in town for the last six years, and after two months’ imprisonment with criminal prisoners.  The fifteen to twenty miles they did per day, with one day’s rest after two days’ marching, strengthened her physically, and the fellowship with her new companions opened out to her a life full of interests such as she had never dreamed of.  People so wonderful (as she expressed it) as those whom she was now going with she had not only never met but could not even have imagined.

“There now, and I cried when I was sentenced,” she said.  “Why, I must thank God for it all the days of my life.  I have learned to know what I never should have found out else.”

The motives she understood easily and without effort that guided these people, and, being of the people, fully sympathised with them.  She understood that these persons were for the people and against the upper classes, and though themselves belonging to the upper classes had sacrificed their privileges, their liberty and their lives for the people.  This especially made her value and admire them.  She was charmed with all the new companions, but particularly with Mary Pavlovna, and she was not only charmed with her, but loved her with a peculiar, respectful and rapturous love.  She was struck by the fact that this beautiful girl, the daughter of a rich general, who could speak three languages, gave away all that her rich brother sent her, and lived like the simplest working girl, and dressed not only simply, but poorly,