Book 3 Chapter 7 Nekhludoff Seeks an Interview with Maslova

On the day when the convoy officer had the encounter with the
prisoners at the halting station about the child, Nekhludoff, who
had spent the night at the village inn, woke up late, and was
some time writing letters to post at the next Government town, so
that he left the inn later than usual, and did not catch up with
the gang on the road as he had done previously, but came to the
village where the next halting station was as it was growing
dusk.

Having dried himself at the inn, which was kept by an elderly
woman who had an extraordinarily fat, white neck, he had his tea
in a clean room decorated with a great number of icons and
pictures and then hurried away to the halting station to ask the
officer for an interview with Katusha. At the last six halting
stations he could not get the permission for an interview from
any of the officers. Though they had been changed several times,
not one of them would allow Nekhludoff inside the halting
stations, so that he had not seen Katusha for more than a week.
This strictness was occasioned by the fact that an important
prison official was expected to pass that way. Now this official
had passed without looking in at the gang, after all, and
Nekhludoff hoped that the officer who had taken charge of the
gang in the morning would allow him an interview with the
prisoners, as former officers had done.

The landlady offered Nekhludoff a trap to drive him to the
halting station, situated at the farther end of the village, but
Nekhludoff preferred to walk. A young labourer, a
broad-shouldered young fellow of herculean dimensions, with
enormous top-boots freshly blackened with strongly smelling tar,
offered himself as a guide.