ce against the grating, her whole massive frame
shaking.

"What is that drum-hide shouting about?" said Korableva, shaking her
head at the red-haired woman, and then again turning to Maslova. "How
many years?"

"Four," said Maslova, and the flow of her tears was so copious that
one of them fell on the cigarette. She angrily crushed it, threw it
away and took another.

The watch-woman, although she was no smoker, immediately picked up the
cigarette-end and began to straighten it, talking at the same time.

"As I said to Matveievna, dear," she said, "it is ill-luck. They do
what they please. And we thought they would discharge you. Matveievna
said you would be discharged, and I said that you would not, I said.
'My heart tells me,' I said, 'that they will condemn her,' and so it
happened," she went on, evidently listening to the sounds of her own
voice with particular pleasure.

The prisoners had now passed through the court-yard, and the four
women left the window and approached Maslova. The larged-eyed illicit
seller of spirits was the first to speak.

"Well, is the sentence very severe?" she asked, seating herself near
Maslova and continuing to knit her stocking.

"It is severe because she has no money. If she had money to hire a
good lawyer, I am sure they would not have held her," said Korableva.
"That lawyer--what's his name?--that clumsy, big-nosed one can, my
dear madam, lead one out of the water dry. That's the man you should
take."

"To hire him!" grinned Miss Dandy. "Why, he would not look at you for
less than a thousand rubles."

"It seems to be your fate," said the old woman who was charged with
incendiarism. "I should say he is severe! He drove my boy's wife from
her; put him in jail, and me, too, in my old age," for the hundredth
time she began to repeat her story. "Prison and poverty are our lot.
If it is not prison, it is poverty."

"Yes, it is always the same with them," said the woman-moonshiner,
and, closely inspecting the girl's head, she put her stocking aside,
drew the girl over between her overhanging legs and with dexterous
fingers began to search in her head. "Why do you deal in wine? But I
have to feed my children," she said, continuing her search.

These words reminded Maslova of wine.

"Oh, for a drop of wine," she said to Korableva, wiping her tears with
the sleeve of her shirt and sobbing from time to time.

"Some booze? Why, of course!" said Korableva.

CHAPTER XXXII