April, at nine o'clock in the morning, three prisoners--two women and
one man. One of the women, as the more dangerous criminal, was to be
brought separately. So, in pursuance of that order, on the 28th day of
April, at eight o'clock in the morning, the jail warden entered the
dingy corridor of the woman's ward. Immediately behind him came a
woman with weary countenance and disheveled gray hair, wearing a
crown-laced jacket, and girdled with a blue-edged sash. She was the
matron.

"You want Maslova?" she asked the warden, as they neared one of the
cells opening into the corridor.

The warden, with a loud clanking of iron, unlocked and opened the door
of the cell, releasing an even fouler odor than permeated the
corridor, and shouted:

"Maslova to the court!" and again closing the door he waited for her
appearance.

The fresh, vivifying air of the fields, carried to the city by the
wind, filled even the court-yard of the jail. But in the corridor the
oppressive air, laden with the smell of tar and putrescence, saddened
and dejected the spirit of every new-comer. The same feeling was
experienced by the jail matron, notwithstanding she was accustomed to
bad air. On entering the corridor she suddenly felt a weariness coming
over her that inclined her to slumber.

There was a bustling in the cell; women's voices and steps of bare
feet were heard.