“Now mind, and when they begin questioning you, just repeat over the same thing, and stick to it; tell nothing that is not wanted.”

“Well, it could not be worse than it is now, anyhow; I only wish it was settled one way or another.”

“Of course, it will be settled one way or another,” said the jailer, with a superior’s self-assured witticism.  “Now, then, get along!  Take your places!”

The old woman’s eyes vanished from the grating, and Maslova stepped out into the middle of the corridor.  The warder in front, they descended the stone stairs, past the still fouler, noisy cells of the men’s ward, where they were followed by eyes looking out of every one of the gratings in the doors, and entered the office, where two soldiers were waiting to escort her.  A clerk who was sitting there gave one of the soldiers a paper reeking of tobacco, and pointing to the prisoner, remarked, “Take her.”

The soldier, a peasant from Nijni Novgorod, with a red, pock-marked face, put the paper into the sleeve of his coat, winked to his companion, a broad-shouldered Tchouvash, and then the prisoner and the soldiers went to the front entrance, out of the prison yard, and through the town up the middle of the roughly-paved street.

Isvostchiks [cabmen], tradespeople, cooks, workmen, and government clerks, stopped and looked curiously at the prisoner; some shook their heads and thought, “This is what evil conduct, conduct unlike ours, leads to.”  The children stopped and gazed at the robber with frightened looks; but the thought that the soldiers were preventing her from doing more harm quieted their fears.  A peasant, who had sold his charcoal, and had had some tea in the town, came up, and, after crossing himself, gave her a copeck.  The prisoner blushed and muttered something; she noticed that she was attracting everybody’s attention, and that pleased her.  The comparatively fresh air also gladdened her, but it was painful to step on the rough stones with the ill-made prison shoes on her feet, which had become unused to walking.  Passing by a corn-dealer’s shop, in front of which a few pigeons were strutting about, unmolested by any one, the prisoner almost touched a grey-blue bird with her foot; it fluttered up and flew close to her car, fanning her with its wings.  She smiled, then sighed deeply as she remembered her present position.

CHAPTER II.

Maslova’s early life.

The story of the prisoner Maslova’s life was a very common one.

Maslova’s mother was the unmarried daughter of a village woman, employed on a dairy farm, which belonged to two maiden ladies who were landowners.  This unmarried woman had a baby every year, and, as often happens among the village people, each one of these undesired babies, after it had been carefully baptised, was neglected by its mother, whom it hindered at her work, and left to starve.  Five children