Chapter 59 Part One - Fifty Six

The warden stood up and announced that it was time for visiting and that they must part.Nekhludoff's conversation with Vera was thus interrupted.Nekhludoff got up to say good-bye to Vera, and stopped at the door, observing the scene before him. "Gentlemen, the time has come, the time has come," said the warden, standing up and sitting down again. The warden's request only made the inmates in the house and the visitors more nervous, and neither of them wanted to break up.Some stood up, but kept talking.Some are still sitting and talking.Some were there saying goodbye, crying.The meeting of the consumptive young man with his mother was particularly touching.He kept fiddling with the paper, but his expression became more and more angry.He tried to restrain his emotions so as not to be affected by his mother's emotions.As soon as his mother heard that they were going to break up, she fell on his shoulder, wept bitterly, and kept sniffling.The girl with the sheep's eyes--and Nekhludoff could not help noticing her--was standing next to the weeping mother, trying to comfort her.The old man with blue glasses stood holding his daughter's hand, listening to her and nodding his head.The young lovers stood up, joined hands, and silently looked into each other's eyes.

"See, they're the only ones who are happy," said the young man in the jacket, who stood beside Nekhludoff and looked on just as coldly as he did.Confucianism in the Song Dynasty promoted Confucianism, but there were many theories about how to develop its mind and nature. The lovers—the boy in the rubber jacket and the fair-haired, fair-looking girl—noticing that Nekhludoff and the young man were looking at them, held hands, stretched out their arms, and leaning back, smiling, One side danced. "Here they are tonight, married in prison, and she's going to Siberia with him," said the young man.

"Who is he?" "He's a convict. Let them both have fun, or it's too hard to hear those voices here," the youth in the jacket continued, listening to the cries of the consumptive youth's mother. "Gentlemen! Please, please! Don't force me to take drastic measures," repeated the warden. "Please, yes, please!" he said feebly. "What are you doing? The time has come. This is not going to work. I say to you for the last time," he repeated listlessly, lighting and putting out the Maryland cigarette. No matter how high-sounding, long-standing, and commonplace the reasons that allow some to bully others without being responsible, the warden obviously cannot but admit that he is one of the culprits in causing the suffering of the people in this room, so My heart is very heavy.

In the end, the prisoners and the visitors separated one after another: the prisoners went inside, and the visitors went to the outer door.The men, the ones in rubber jackets, the consumptive and the swarthy and tousled, were gone; so was Marya Pavlovna with the boy born in prison. The prison visitors also left.The old man in blue spectacles went out with heavy steps, and Nekhludoff followed him. "Yes, it's a strange situation here," said the talkative young man, going downstairs with Nekhludoff, and continued as if he had just been interrupted. "I also have to thank the captain, he is really a kind person, and he never insists on the rules and regulations. Let everyone talk about it, and I will feel better."

"Is it not possible to visit like this in other prisons?" "Hey, it doesn't work at all. We have to talk about each of them separately, and we have to separate them with an iron fence." Nekhludoff went downstairs talking with the talkative young man who called himself Metyntsev.At this moment the warden came up to them with a weary look. "You want to see Maslova, please come tomorrow," he said, evidently wanting to show Nekhludoff courteousness. "Very well," said Nekhludoff, and hurried out. Minshov suffered for no reason, it was terrible.But the most terrible thing was not so much the physical pain as the perplexity caused by the cruelty of those who tormented him without reason, so that he no longer believed in goodness and God.The terrible thing is that those hundreds of people have no crime at all, but just because there are a few wrong words on their ID cards, they have suffered humiliation and suffering.Terrible is the insensitivity of the guards, who torment their fellow men, thinking they are doing a great and useful work.However, what Nekhludoff found most frightening was the old, frail, kind-hearted warden who had to separate mother and son from father and daughter, and they were all of the same blood, just like him and his children. Same.

"Why on earth is that?" Nekhludoff asked himself, feeling extremely sick mentally, which gradually developed into physical nausea.He felt this way every time he came to prison, but the answer to the question was never found.