“Thank you; I should like to see—­”

“The night is long.  You’ll have plenty of time.  I shall order her to be sent out to you.”

“But could I not see her where she is?  Why need she be sent for?” Nekhludoff said.

“In to the political prisoners?  It is against the law.”

“I have been allowed to go in several times.  If there is any danger of my passing anything in to them I could do it through her just as well.”

“Oh, no; she would be searched,” said the officer, and laughed in an unpleasant manner.

“Well, why not search me?”

“All right; we’ll manage without that,” said the officer, opening the decanter, and holding it out towards Nekhludoff’s tumbler of tea.  “May I?  No?  Well, just as you like.  When you are living here in Siberia you are too glad to meet an educated person.  Our work, as you know, is the saddest, and when one is used to better things it is very hard.  The idea they have of us is that convoy officers are coarse, uneducated men, and no one seems to remember that we may have been born for a very different position.”

This officer’s red face, his scents, his rings, and especially his unpleasant laughter disgusted Nekhludoff very much, but to-day, as during the whole of his journey, he was in that serious, attentive state which did not allow him to behave slightingly or disdainfully towards any man, but made him feel the necessity of speaking to every one “entirely,” as he expressed to himself, this relation to men.  When he had heard the officer and understood his state of mind, he said in a serious manner: 

“I think that in your position, too, some comfort could be found in helping the suffering people,” he said.

“What are their sufferings?  You don’t know what these people are.”

“They are not special people,” said Nekhludoff; “they are just such people as others, and some of them are quite innocent.”

“Of course, there are all sorts among them, and naturally one pities them.  Others won’t let anything off, but I try to lighten their condition where I can.  It’s better that I should suffer, but not they.  Others keep to the law in every detail, even as far as to shoot, but I show pity.  May I?—­Take another,” he said, and poured out another tumbler of tea for Nekhludoff.

“And who is she, this woman that you want to see?” he asked.

“It is an unfortunate woman who got into a brothel, and was there falsely accused of poisoning, and she is a very good woman,” Nekhludoff answered.

The officer shook his head.  “Yes, it does happen.  I can tell you about a certain Emma who lived in Kasan.  She was a Hungarian by birth, but she had quite Persian eyes,” he continued, unable to restrain a smile at the recollection; “there was so much chic about her that a countess—­”

Nekhludoff interrupted the officer and returned to the former topic of conversation.