Maslova rose.
"You are excited. If it is possible, I shall come again tomorrow;
you think it over," said Nekhludoff.
She gave him no answer and, without looking up, followed the
jailer out of the room.
"Well, lass, you'll have rare times now," Korableva said, when
Maslova returned to the cell. "Seems he's mighty sweet on you;
make the most of it while he's after you. He'll help you out.
Rich people can do anything."
"Yes, that's so," remarked the watchman's wife, with her musical
voice. "When a poor man thinks of getting married, there's many a
slip 'twixt the cup and the lip; but a rich man need only make up
his mind and it's done. We knew a toff like that duckie. What
d'you think he did?"
"Well, have you spoken about my affairs?" the old woman asked.
But Maslova gave her fellow-prisoners no answer; she lay down on
the shelf bedstead, her squinting eyes fixed on a corner of the
room, and lay there until the evening.
A painful struggle went on in her soul. What Nekhludoff had told
her called up the memory of that world in which she had suffered
and which she had left without having understood, hating it. She
now feared to wake from the trance in which she was living. Not
having arrived at any conclusion when evening came, she again
bought some vodka and drank with her companions.