Book 1 Chapter 54 Prisoners and Friends

The office consisted of two rooms. The first room, with a large,
dilapidated stove and two dirty windows, had a black measure for
measuring the prisoners in one corner, and in another corner hung
a large image of Christ, as is usual in places where they torture
people. In this room stood several jailers. In the next room sat
about twenty persons, men and women in groups and in pairs,
talking in low voices. There was a writing table by the window.

The inspector sat down by the table, and offered Nekhludoff a
chair beside him. Nekhludoff sat down, and looked at the people
in the room.

The first who drew his attention was a young man with a pleasant
face, dressed in a short jacket, standing in front of a
middle-aged woman with dark eyebrows, and he was eagerly telling
her something and gesticulating with his hands. Beside them sat
an old man, with blue spectacles, holding the hand of a young
woman in prisoner's clothes, who was telling him something. A
schoolboy, with a fixed, frightened look on his face, was gazing
at the old man. In one corner sat a pair of lovers. She was quite
young and pretty, and had short, fair hair, looked energetic, and
was elegantly dressed; he had fine features, wavy hair, and wore
a rubber jacket. They sat in their corner and seemed stupefied
with love. Nearest to the table sat a grey-haired woman dressed
in black, evidently the mother of a young, consumptive-looking
fellow, in the same kind of jacket. Her head lay on his shoulder.
She was trying to say something, but the tears prevented her from
speaking; she began several times, but had to stop. The young man
held a paper in his hand, and, apparently not knowing what to do,
kept folding and pressing it with an angry look on his face.