Book 1 Chapter 50 The Vice-Governor of the Prison

"Halloo, old fellow! How good of you to come! Let us go and see
my wife. I have just ten minutes to spare before the meeting. My
chief is away, you know. I am at the head of the Government
administration," he said, unable to disguise his satisfaction.

"I have come on business."

"What is it?" said Maslennikoff, in an anxious and severe tone,
putting himself at once on his guard.

"There is a person, whom I am very much interested in, in prison"
(at the word "prison" Maslennikoff's face grew stern); "and I
should like to have an interview in the office, and not in the
common visiting-room. I have been told it depended on you."

"Certainly, mon cher," said Maslennikoff, putting both hands on
Nekhludoff's knees, as if to tone down his grandeur; "but
remember, I am monarch only for an hour."

"Then will you give me an order that will enable me to see her?"

"It's a woman?"

"Yes."

"What is she there for?"

"Poisoning, but she has been unjustly condemned."

"Yes, there you have it, your justice administered by jury, ils
n'en font point d'autres," he said, for some unknown reason, in
French. "I know you do not agree with me, but it can't be helped,
c'est mon opinion bien arretee," he added, giving utterance to an
opinion he had for the last twelve months been reading in the
retrograde Conservative paper. "I know you are a Liberal."

"I don't know whether I am a Liberal or something else,"
Nekhludoff said, smiling; it always surprised him to find himself
ranked with a political party and called a Liberal, when he
maintained that a man should be heard before he was judged, that
before being tried all men were equal, that nobody at all ought
to be ill-treated and beaten, but especially those who had not
yet been condemned by law. "I don't know whether I am a Liberal
or not; but I do know that however had the present way of
conducting a trial is, it is better than the old."