Book 1 Chapter 32 A Prison Quarrel

"One of the soldiers even says, 'It's all to look at you that
they come.' One would come in, 'Where is such a paper?' or
something, but I see it is not the paper he wants; he just
devours me with his eyes," she said, shaking her head. "Regular
artists."

"Yes, that's so," said the watchman's wife, and ran on in her
musical strain, "they're like flies after sugar."

"And here, too," Maslova interrupted her, "the same thing. They
can do without anything else. But the likes of them will go
without bread sooner than miss that! Hardly had they brought me
back when in comes a gang from the railway. They pestered me so,
I did not know how to rid myself of them. Thanks to the
assistant, he turned them off. One bothered so, I hardly got
away."

"What's he like?" asked Khoroshevka.

"Dark, with moustaches."

"It must be him."

"Him--who?"

"Why, Schegloff; him as has just gone by."

"What's he, this Schegloff?"

"What, she don't know Schegloff? Why, he ran twice from Siberia.
Now they've got him, but he'll run away. The warders themselves
are afraid of him," said Khoroshavka, who managed to exchange
notes with the male prisoners and knew all that went on in the
prison. "He'll run away, that's flat."

"If he does go away you and I'll have to stay," said Korableva,
turning to Maslova, "but you'd better tell us now what the
advocate says about petitioning. Now's the time to hand it in."