These visits were received in the office to which we had first been introduced, but the room on these occasions took on a very different appearance. The old captain sat in his place busy with his ledgers. By the door stood the inspector in full uniform, with revolver and cartridge-bag at his waist and his long sabre at his side; and round the walls would be grouped the prisoners with their visitors. The dim light falling through the grated windows shone on many a characteristic scene. All classes and ages were represented—young and old, men, women, and even children. Here would be a doctor or lawyer accompanied by his wife talking to their brother, a banished student. There an old peasant-woman, who had made the long journey by the Volga from some distant province to bid good-bye to her favourite son, would tell him the village news or bitterly lament her difficulty in living now he had been taken from her. Close by, the scions of a noble race—Prince Volhònsky and his princess—would be chatting with Malyòvany, his uncle; or Senator Shtshulèpnikov would sermonise his young daughter for having allowed herself to be drawn into the revolutionary movement, whereby she had now to suffer the penalty of exile to Siberia. All around would be the babble of voices—condolences, arguments, gossip, even jokes. One woman would furtively wipe away a tear as she bowed a grief-stricken head; while another would break into uncontrollable sobbing, because the sight of some beloved face now pale and haggard from long confinement and anxiety had robbed her of self-command. As everywhere else throughout the world, laughter and weeping, hope and despair, went side by side; only here in prison emotion is more openly avowed, ceremony more easily dispensed with, and franker expression given to the feelings. Those who here sought out their friends or relatives speedily got acquainted with one another and with all the prisoners whom they were accustomed to see. Among the “politicals,” as Socialists, there are no distinctions of rank or privilege; and the prison atmosphere soon exercised its levelling influence on all, and bound together members of every class with the common tie of sorrow and sympathy. Once only was the rule broken, and the announcement of a visitor’s name and position fixed all eyes upon him. A grey-headed man in the garb of the Russian lower middle-class—a long kaftan and broad girdle—had entered the room. “Whom do you want?” asked the captain, looking up from his books. “I should like to speak to a person whom you have here in the prison. Làzarev is his name,” replied the stranger. “Have you a permit?” “Certainly, certainly; here it is,” said the man in the kaftan, and held out the paper.