CHAPTER XXX.

THE CELL.

The cell in which Maslova was imprisoned was a large room 21 feet long and 10 feet broad; it had two windows and a large stove.  Two-thirds of the space were taken up by shelves used as beds.  The planks they were made of had warped and shrunk.  Opposite the door hung a dark-coloured icon with a wax candle sticking to it and a bunch of everlastings hanging down from it.  By the door to the right there was a dark spot on the floor on which stood a stinking tub.  The inspection had taken place and the women were locked up for the night.

The occupants of this room were 15 persons, including three children.  It was still quite light.  Only two of the women were lying down:  a consumptive woman imprisoned for theft, and an idiot who spent most of her time in sleep and who was arrested because she had no passport.  The consumptive woman was not asleep, but lay with wide open eyes, her cloak folded under her head, trying to keep back the phlegm that irritated her throat, and not to cough.

Some of the other women, most of whom had nothing on but coarse brown holland chemises, stood looking out of the window at the convicts down in the yard, and some sat sewing.  Among the latter was the old woman, Korableva, who had seen Maslova off in the morning.  She was a tall, strong, gloomy-looking woman; her fair hair, which had begun to turn grey on the temples, hung down in a short plait.  She was sentenced to hard labour in Siberia because she had killed her husband with an axe for making up to their daughter.  She was at the head of the women in the cell, and found means of carrying on a trade in spirits with them.  Beside her sat another woman sewing a coarse canvas sack.  This was the wife of a railway watchman, [There are small watchmen’s cottages at distances of about one mile from each other along the Russian railways, and the watchmen or their wives have to meet every train.] imprisoned for three months because she did not come out with the flags to meet a train that was passing, and an accident had occurred.  She was a short, snub-nosed woman, with small, black eyes; kind and talkative.  The third of the women who were sewing was Theodosia, a quiet young girl, white and rosy, very pretty, with bright child’s eyes, and long fair plaits which she wore twisted round her head.  She was in prison for attempting to poison her husband.  She had done this immediately after her wedding (she had been given in marriage without her consent at the age of 16) because her husband would give her no peace.  But in the eight months during which she had been let out on bail, she had not only made it up with her husband, but come to love him, so that when her trial came they were heart and soul to one another.  Although her husband, her father-in-law, but especially her mother-in-law, who had grown very fond of her, did all they could to get her acquitted, she was sentenced