SUNDAY IN PRISON – PREPARING FOR MASS
ON Sunday morning at five o’clock, when a whistle sounded in the corridor of the women’s ward of the prison, Korableva, who was already awake, roused Maslova.
“Oh, dear! a convict!” thought Maslova with horror, involuntarily breathing in the air that had become terribly noisome towards morning. She wished to fall asleep again, to re-enter the region of oblivion, but the habit of fear overcame sleepiness and she sat up and looked round, drawing her feet under her. The women had all got up; only the elder children were still asleep. The woman imprisoned for trading in spirits was drawing a cloak from under the children carefully, so as not to wake them. The watchman’s wife was hanging up to dry the rags that served the baby as swaddling clothes, while the baby was screaming desperately in the arms of the blue-eyed Theodosia, who was hushing it with a gentle voice. The consumptive woman was coughing, her hands pressed to her chest, the blood rushing to her face, and she sighed loudly, almost screaming, in the intervals of coughing. The fat, red-haired woman was lying on her back with her knees drawn up, loudly and gaily relating a dream. The old woman accused of incendiarism was standing in front of the icon, crossing herself and bowing, and repeating the same words over and over again. The deacon’s daughter sat on the bedstead, looking before her with a dull, sleepy look. Horoshavka was twisting her black, oily, coarse hair round her fingers. The sound of slipshod feet was heard in the passage, and the door opened to let in two convicts, dressed in jackets and grey trousers that did not reach to their ankles. With serious cross faces they lifted the stinking tub and carried it out of the cell. The women went out to the taps in the corridor to wash. There again the red-haired woman began a quarrel with a woman from another cell. Again abuse, screams, and complaints.