The governor of the distant Siberian town was that same man who had been so much talked about in Petersburg at the time Nekhludoff was there.  He was plump, with thin, curly hair, soft blue eyes, carefully-tended white hands, with rings on the fingers, a pleasant smile, and very big in the lower part of his body.  The master of the house valued this governor because of all the officials he was the only one who would not be bribed.  The mistress of the house, who was very fond of music and a very good pianist herself, valued him because he was a good musician and played duets with her.

Nekhludoff was in such good humour that even this man was not unpleasant to him, in spite of what he knew of his vices.  The bright, energetic aide-de-camp, with his bluey grey chin, who was continually offering his services, pleased Nekhludoff by his good nature.  But it was the charming young couple, the General’s daughter and her husband, who pleased Nekhludoff best.  The daughter was a plain-looking, simple-minded young woman, wholly absorbed in her two children.  Her husband, whom she had fallen in love with and married after a long struggle with her parents, was a Liberal, who had taken honours at the Moscow University, a modest and intellectual young man in Government service, who made up statistics and studied chiefly the foreign tribes, which he liked and tried to save from dying out.

All of them were not only kind and attentive to Nekhludoff, but evidently pleased to see him, as a new and interesting acquaintance.  The General, who came in to dinner in uniform and with a white cross round his neck, greeted Nekhludoff as a friend, and asked the visitors to the side table to take a glass of vodka and something to whet their appetites.  The General asked Nekhludoff what he had been doing since he left that morning, and Nekhludoff told him he had been to the post-office and received the news of the mitigation of that person’s sentence that he had spoken of in the morning, and again asked for a permission to visit the prison.

The General, apparently displeased that business should be mentioned at dinner, frowned and said nothing.

“Have a glass of vodka,” he said, addressing the Englishman, who had just come up to the table.  The Englishman drank a glass, and said he had been to see the cathedral and the factory, but would like to visit the great transportation prison.

“Oh, that will just fit in,” said the General to Nekhludoff.  “You will be able to go together.  Give them a pass,” he added, turning to his aide-de-camp.

“When would you like to go?” Nekhludoff asked.

“I prefer visiting the prisons in the evening,” the Englishman answered.  “All are indoors and there is no preparation; you find them all as they are.”