Nekhludoff remained in this room for about five minutes, feeling strangely depressed, conscious of how powerless he was, and at variance with all the world. He was seized with a curious moral sensation like seasickness.
CHAPTER XLII. VISITING DAY—THE WOMEN’S WARD.
“Well, but I must do what I came here for,” he said, trying to pick up courage. “What is to be done now?” He looked round for an official, and seeing a thin little man in the uniform of an officer going up and down behind the people, he approached him.
“Can you tell me, sir,” he said, with exceedingly strained politeness of manner, “where the women are kept, and where one is allowed to interview them?”
“Is it the women’s ward you want to go to?”
“Yes, I should like to see one of the women prisoners,” Nekhludoff said, with the same strained politeness.
“You should have said so when you were in the hall. Who is it, then, that you want to see?”
“I want to see a prisoner called Katerina Maslova.”
“Is she a political one?”