Book 3 Chapter 1 Maslova Makes New Friends

The gang of prisoners to which Maslova belonged had walked about
three thousand three hundred miles. She and the other prisoners
condemned for criminal offences had travelled by rail and by
steamboats as far as the town of Perm. It was only here that
Nekhludoff succeeded in obtaining a permission for her to
continue the journey with the political prisoners, as Vera
Doukhova, who was among the latter, advised him to do. The
journey up to Perm had been very trying to Maslova both morally
and physically. Physically, because of the overcrowding, the
dirt, and the disgusting vermin, which gave her no peace;
morally, because of the equally disgusting men. The men, like the
vermin, though they changed at each halting-place, were
everywhere alike importunate; they swarmed round her, giving her
no rest. Among the women prisoners and the men prisoners, the
jailers and the convoy soldiers, the habit of a kind of cynical
debauch was so firmly established that unless a female prisoner
was willing to utilise her position as a woman she had to be
constantly on the watch. To be continually in a state of fear and
strife was very trying. And Maslova was specially exposed to
attacks, her appearance being attractive and her past known to
every one. The decided resistance with which she now met the
importunity of all the men seemed offensive to them, and awakened
another feeling, that of ill-will towards her. But her position
was made a little easier by her intimacy with Theodosia, and
Theodosia's husband, who, having heard of the molestations his
wife was subject to, had in Nijni been arrested at his own desire
in order to be able to protect her, and was now travelling with
the gang as a prisoner. Maslova's position became much more
bearable when she was allowed to join the political prisoners,
who were provided with better accomodations, better food, and
were treated less rudely, but besides all this Maslova's
condition was much improved because among the political prisoners
she was no longer molested by the men, and could live without
being reminded of that past which she was so anxious to forget.
But the chief advantage of the change lay in the fact that she
made the acquaintance of several persons who exercised a decided
and most beneficial influence on her character. Maslova was
allowed to stop with the political prisoners at all the
halting-places, but being a strong and healthy woman she was
obliged to march with the criminal convicts. In this way she
walked all the way from Tomsk. Two political prisoners also
marched with the gang, Mary Pavlovna Schetinina, the girl with
the hazel eyes who had attracted Nekhludoff's attention when he
had been to visit Doukhova in prison, and one Simonson, who was
on his way to the Takoutsk district, the dishevelled dark young
fellow with deep-lying eyes, whom Nekhludoff had also noticed
during that visit. Mary Pavlovna was walking because she had
given her place on the cart to one of the criminals, a woman
expecting to be confined, and Simonson because he did not dare to
avail himself of a class privilege.