Chapter 33 Part One - Thirty

Maslova's cell was nine by seven arshins, with two windows, a fireplace with peeling plaster against the wall, and a couple of beds with cracked planks that occupied two-thirds of the room.In the center of the cell, facing the door, hung a black icon, with a candle beside it, and a dusty bouquet of immortelles hanging below.On the blackened floor to the left of the door stood a foul-smelling wooden barrel.As soon as the guards called their names, the female prisoners were locked in their cells for the night. There were fifteen people in all: twelve women and three children. It was still very light, and there were only two women lying on the bunk: one was a stupid woman who had been arrested for not having an ID card, and she slept with her prison robe covered her head almost all the time, and the other had consumption and was arrested for theft. sentencing.The woman was lying with her prison robe on her head, her eyes wide open, not asleep, trying to hold back a cough, suppressing the itchy phlegm welling up her throat.The rest of the women had their hair down and wore only a coarse blouse.Some sat on the bunk and mended, some stood by the window and watched the male prisoners passing by in the yard.One of the three women who sewed was the old woman who had seen Maslova off this morning when she went to the trial, and her name was Korabreva.She looked sad, frowning, and wrinkled, and the flesh under her chin hung loose like a bag.She was tall, with hazel hair in a short braid, gray temples, and a wart on her cheek that was covered with downy hairs.The old woman was sentenced to hard labor for beating her husband to death with an axe.She killed him because he pestered her daughter.She is the head prisoner in this cell, but she also sells bootleg alcohol.She wears glasses to do needlework, and her big hands used to doing rough work hold the needle with three fingers like ordinary peasant women, with the needle point facing her body.Sitting next to her was a dark, short woman.She had a snub nose and small black eyes, and was kindly looking, garrulous, and sewing a canvas sack.She was a crossing worker on the railway and was sentenced to three months in prison for not raising the flag when the train came, which resulted in an accident.The third woman who sewed was Fedosya, who was called Fenichka by her companions.She was a rosy-cheeked, lovely-looking young woman, with the pure light blue eyes of a child, and two long hazel braids coiled around her small head.She was detained for deliberately poisoning her husband.She was a sixteen-year-old girl when she got married, and after she got married she wanted to poison her husband to death.During the eight months she was released on bail and awaiting trial, she not only reconciled with her husband, but fell deeply in love with him.When the court opened, she and her husband were already very affectionate.Although her husband and father-in-law, especially her mother-in-law, who loved her very much, tried their best to excuse her in court, she was sentenced to exile in Siberia to serve hard labor.The good-natured, cheerful, always smiling Fedosya slept next to Maslova.She not only loves Maslova very much, but also thinks it is her duty to care about her and do things for her.There were two other women sitting on the bunk, not working.A man in his forties, with a yellow and thin complexion, must have looked beautiful when he was young, but now he has become yellow and thin.She held a doll in her arms and showed her long white breasts to nurse him.The crime she committed was: a recruit was taken away in her village, and the common people thought it was illegal, so they stopped the chief of police and took the recruit back.She was the aunt of the young man who had been taken illegally, and took the lead in grabbing the reins of the recruit's horse.Sitting idly on the bunk was a little old woman with a kind appearance, wrinkled face, gray hair, and a little hunchback.The old woman was sitting on a bunk by the fire.A short-haired, pot-bellied four-year-old boy ran past her, giggling, and she pretended to grab him.The child was wearing only a small shirt, running around in front of her, yelling all the time: "Haha, old woman, you can't catch mine, you can't catch mine!" The old woman and her The son was charged with arson.She endured the prison life calmly, only feeling sorry for her son who was also in prison, but she was most worried about her old man, lest she be away, he would be covered with lice, because his daughter-in-law ran away and no one called him bath.

Besides these seven, there were four other women standing in front of an open window, holding the iron bars with both hands, and talking to the male prisoner who had just met Maslova at the door and who was passing through the yard at this moment, and it was a bit of a comparison. Gesture fatalism believes that the development of history is determined by some unknowable force (that is, fate), which is another cry.Among them was a woman sentenced for theft, a tall, heavy, fleshy woman with fiery red hair, freckles on her sallow face and hands, and a thick neck protruding from her open collar. come out.She was hoarsely yelling obscenities at the window.Next to her stood a black-skinned, ugly female prisoner, with a long upper body and surprisingly short legs. She looked like a ten-year-old girl.Her face was red and blistered, her dark eyes were set wide apart, and her lips were too thick and short to hide her protruding white teeth.She saw the scene in the yard and let out bursts of shrill laughter.This female prisoner likes to dress up, and everyone calls her "pretty girl".She was on trial for theft and arson.Behind them stood a poor looking pregnant woman.She was wearing a dirty gray shirt, with a big belly, gaunt and bruised.She was charged with harboring stolen property.The woman was silent, but she kept smiling approvingly and kindly when she saw the scene in the yard.A fourth woman at the window was sentenced for bootlegging.She was a stocky country woman with round, protruding eyes and a very kindly face.This woman was the mother of the little boy whom the old woman was playing with.She also has a seven-year-old girl who is also in prison with her because she is left alone.She also looked out the window, but she kept knitting socks.Hearing the words of the male prisoners passing by in the yard, she frowned disapprovingly and closed her eyes.Her seven-year-old daughter, with light-colored hair and only a shirt, stood beside the fiery red-haired woman, holding her skirt with a small thin hand, with dull eyes, listening attentively to men and women The prisoners scolded each other and said in low voices, as if to remember them.The twelfth prisoner was the daughter of a church lectern.She drowned her illegitimate son in a well.She was a slender girl with light brown hair tied in a thick braid that was not long but was loose and loose.Her sharp eyes were glassy and lifeless.Indifferent to everything around her, she paced up and down the cell floor, wearing only a dirty gray shirt and bare feet, turning abruptly every time she came up to the wall.