Resurrection (en Inglés) - Leo graf

MASLOVA MAKES NEW FRIENDS.

T

he gang of prisoners to which Maslova belonged had walked about three

thousand three hundred miles. She and the other prisoners condemned

for criminal offences had travelled by rail and by steamboats as far as the

town of Perm. It was only here that Nekhludoff succeeded in obtaining a

permission for her to continue the journey with the political prisoners, as

Vera Doukhova, who was among the latter, advised him to do. The journey

up to Perm had been very trying to Maslova both morally and physically.

Physically, because of the overcrowding, the dirt, and the disgusting vermin,

which gave her no peace; morally, because of the equally disgusting men.

The men, like the vermin, though they changed at each halting-place, were

everywhere alike importunate; they swarmed round her, giving her no rest.

Among the women prisoners and the men prisoners, the jailers and the con-

voy soldiers, the habit of a kind of cynical debauch was so firmly established

that unless a female prisoner was willing to utilise her position as a woman

she had to be constantly on the watch. To be continually in a state of fear

and strife was very trying. And Maslova was specially exposed to attacks, her

appearance being attractive and her past known to every one. The decided

3 LEO TOLSTOY, GRAF

resistance with which she now met the importunity of all the men seemed

offensive to them, and awakened another feeling, that of ill-will towards

her. But her position was made a little easier by her intimacy with Theo-

dosia, and Theodosia’s husband, who, having heard of the molestations his

wife was subject to, had in Nijni been arrested at his own desire in order to

be able to protect her, and was now travelling with the gang as a prisoner.

Maslova’s position became much more bearable when she was allowed to

join the political prisoners, who were provided with better accomodations,

better food, and were treated less rudely, but besides all this Maslova’s con-

dition was much improved because among the political prisoners she was

no longer molested by the men, and could live without being reminded of

that past which she was so anxious to forget. But the chief advantage of the

change lay in the fact that she made the acquaintance of several persons who

exercised a decided and most beneficial influence on her character. Maslova

was allowed to stop with the political prisoners at all the halting-places, but

being a strong and healthy woman she was obliged to march with the crim-

inal convicts. In this way she walked all the way from Tomsk. Two political

prisoners also marched with the gang, Mary Pavlovna Schetinina, the girl

with the hazel eyes who had attracted Nekhludoff’s attention when he had

been to visit Doukhova in prison, and one Simonson, who was on his way

to the Takoutsk district, the dishevelled dark young fellow with deep-lying

eyes, whom Nekhludoff had also noticed during that visit. Mary Pavlovna

was walking because she had given her place on the cart to one of the crim-

inals, a woman expecting to be confined, and Simonson because he did not

dare to avail himself of a class privilege.

These three always started early in the morning before the rest of the political

prisoners, who followed later on in the carts.

They were ready to start in this way just outside a large town, where a new

convoy officer had taken charge of the gang.

It was early on a dull September morning. It kept raining and snowing alter-

nately, and the cold wind blew in sudden gusts. The whole