Book 1 Chapter 53 Victims of Government

"What! For no other reason than that?" Nekhludoff exclaimed,
stopping at the door.

A crowd of about forty men, all dressed in prison clothes,
surrounded him and the assistant, and several began talking at
once. The assistant stopped them.

"Let some one of you speak."

A tall, good-looking peasant, a stone-mason, of about fifty,
stepped out from the rest. He told Nekhludoff that all of them
had been ordered back to their homes and were now being kept in
prison because they had no passports, yet they had passports
which were only a fortnight overdue. The same thing had happened
every year; they had many times omitted to renew their passports
till they were overdue, and nobody had ever said anything; but
this year they had been taken up and were being kept in prison
the second month, as if they were criminals.

"We are all masons, and belong to the same artel. We are told
that the prison in our government is burnt, but this is not our
fault. Do help us."

Nekhludoff listened, but hardly understood what the good-looking
old man was saying, because his attention was riveted to a large,
dark-grey, many-legged louse that was creeping along the
good-looking man's cheek.

"How's that? Is it possible for such a reason?" Nekhludoff said,
turning to the assistant.

"Yes, they should have been sent off and taken back to their
homes," calmly said the assistant, "but they seem to have been
forgotten or something."

Before the assistant had finished, a small, nervous man, also in
prison dress, came out of the crowd, and, strangely contorting
his mouth, began to say that they were being ill-used for
nothing.