“But could I not see her where she is? Why need she be sent for?” Nekhludoff said.
“In to the political prisoners? It is against the law.”
“I have been allowed to go in several times. If there is any danger of my passing anything in to them I could do it through her just as well.”
“Oh, no; she would be searched,” said the officer, and laughed in an unpleasant manner.
“Well, why not search me?”
“All right; we’ll manage without that,” said the officer, opening the decanter, and holding it out towards Nekhludoff’s tumbler of tea. “May I? No? Well, just as you like. When you are living here in Siberia you are too glad to meet an educated person. Our work, as you know, is the saddest, and when one is used to better things it is very hard. The idea they have of us is that convoy officers are coarse, uneducated men, and no one seems to remember that we may have been born for a very different position.”
This officer’s red face, his scents, his rings, and especially his unpleasant laughter disgusted Nekhludoff very much, but to-day, as during the whole of his journey, he was in that serious, attentive state which did not allow him to behave slightingly or disdainfully towards any man, but made him feel the necessity of speaking to every one “entirely,” as he expressed to himself, this relation to men. When he had heard the officer and understood his state of mind, he said in a serious manner:
“I think that in your position, too, some comfort could be found in helping the suffering people,” he said.
“What are their sufferings? You don’t know what these people are.”
“They are not special people,” said Nekhludoff; “they are just such people as others, and some of them are quite innocent.”