Book 1 Chapter 56 Nekhludoff and the Prisoners

"What is he?"

"A convict, condemned to penal servitude. Let those two at least
have a little joy, or else it is too painful," the young man
added, listening to the sobs of the consumptive lad's mother.

"Now, my good people! Please, please do not oblige me to have
recourse to severe measures," the inspector said, repeating the
same words several times over. "Do, please," he went on in a
weak, hesitating manner. "It is high time. What do you mean by
it? This sort of thing is quite impossible. I am now asking you
for the last time," he repeated wearily, now putting out his
cigarette and then lighting another.

It was evident that, artful, old, and common as were the devices
enabling men to do evil to others without feeling responsible for
it, the inspector could not but feel conscious that he was one of
those who were guilty of causing the sorrow which manifested
itself in this room. And it was apparent that this troubled him
sorely. At length the prisoners and their visitors began to
go--the first out of the inner, the latter out of the outer door.
The man with the rubber jacket passed out among them, and the
consumptive youth and the dishevelled man. Mary Pavlovna went out
with the boy born in prison.

The visitors went out too. The old man with the blue spectacles,
stepping heavily, went out, followed by Nekhludoff.

"Yes, a strange state of things this," said the talkative young
man, as if continuing an interrupted conversation, as he
descended the stairs side by side with Nekhludoff. "Yet we have
reason to be grateful to the inspector who does not keep strictly
to the rules, kind-hearted fellow. If they can get a talk it does
relieve their hearts a bit, after all!"