"Don't they fear the Lord, the cursed soul-slayers?" muttered
Korableva, "sentencing the lass for nothing." At this moment the
sound of loud, coarse laughter came from the women who were still
at the window. The little girl also laughed, and her childish
treble mixed with the hoarse and screeching laughter of the
others. One of the convicts outside had done something that
produced this effect on the onlookers.
"Lawks! see the shaved hound, what he's doing," said the
red-haired woman, her whole fat body shaking with laughter; and
leaning against the grating she shouted meaning less obscene
words.
"Ugh, the fat fright's cackling," said Korableva, who disliked
the red-haired woman. Then, turning to Maslova again, she asked:
"How many years?"
"Four," said Maslova, and the tears ran down her cheeks in such
profusion that one fell on the cigarette. Maslova crumpled it up
angrily and took another.
Though the watchman's wife did not smoke she picked up the
cigarette Maslova had thrown away and began straightening it out,
talking unceasingly.
"There, now, ducky, so it's true," she said. "Truth's gone to the
dogs and they do what they please, and here we were guessing that
you'd go free. Norableva says, 'She'll go free.' I say, 'No,' say
I. 'No, dear, my heart tells me they'll give it her.' And so it's
turned out," she went on, evidently listening with pleasure to
her own voice.
The women who had been standing by the window now also came up to
Maslova, the convicts who had amused them having gone away. The
first to come up were the woman imprisoned for illicit trade in
spirits, and her little girl. "Why such a hard sentence?" asked
the woman, sitting down by Maslova and knitting fast.
"Why so hard? Because there's no money. That's why! Had there
been money, and had a good lawyer that's up to their tricks been
hired, they'd have acquitted her, no fear," said Korableva.
"There's what's-his-name--that hairy one with the long nose. He'd
bring you out clean from pitch, mum, he would. Ah, if we'd only
had him!"
"Him, indeed," said Khoroshavka. "Why, he won't spit at you for
less than a thousand roubles."
"Seems you've been born under an unlucky star," interrupted the
old woman who was imprisoned for incendiarism. "Only think, to
entice the lad's wife and lock him himself up to feed vermin, and
me, too, in my old days--" she began to retell her story for the
hundredth time. "If it isn't the beggar's staff it's the prison.
Yes, the beggar's staff and the prison don't wait for an
invitation."
"Ah, it seems that's the way with all of them," said the spirit
trader; and after looking at her little girl she put down her
knitting, and, drawing the child between her knees, began to
search her head with deft fingers. "Why do you sell spirits?" she
went on. "Why? but what's one to feed the children on?"