In the spring of 1887 Maria Kovalèvskaya was brought from Irkutsk to Kara. She arrived just at a time when the disputes in the women’s prison had become unbearable; and shortly afterwards Sophia Löschern von Herzfeld, Anna Korba, Anna Yakimova, and Paraskova Ivanòvskaya petitioned the commandant to separate them from the others, their request being granted. At the same time, in consequence of some squabble with the staff, Sophia Bogomoletz and Elena Rossikòva were removed to another prison; there were, therefore, for some time only four women in the prison at Ust-Kara—Kovàlskaya, Kovalèvskaya, Kalyùshnaya, and Smirnitskaya. Early in 1888 the Governor-General, Baron Korf, came to visit the prisons of Kara. When he arrived with his suite at the women’s prison Elizabeth Kovàlskaya was sitting on a bench out in the open air, and as the Governor-General came up to her she remained quietly seated, vouchsafing him not a glance. He addressed her harshly, saying that in his presence she ought to stand up, that he was the highest official in the district. “I did not elect you to that position,” replied Kovàlskaya calmly, and remained as before. The functionary was beside himself with rage, and informed the commandant that he would send written instructions how to deal with this refractory prisoner; so shortly afterwards there came an order to send Kovàlskaya to the central prison in Verkhny-Udinsk, “because by her unruly behaviour she had a demoralising influence on the other prisoners in Ust-Kara.” Kovàlskaya’s friends asserted that she had purposely provoked the conflict in order to effect her removal to another prison, so hateful had the sojourn in Kara become to her. The Governor-General’s order would therefore have been most welcome to her; but the stupid, cowardly commandant Masyukov supposed otherwise, and took it into his head that she and her companions would offer resistance. He thereupon came to the idiotic and inhuman decision that the delinquent should be conveyed away secretly. Early one morning, while the prisoners still slept, gendarmes accompanied by ordinary convicts burst into her cell, seized on the sleeping Kovàlskaya, and dragged her, clad only in her nightdress, to the office, where she was ordered to dress and make ready to start for her new place of confinement. Naturally the unfortunate lady screamed when aroused so rudely from her sleep, and the other prisoners waking up sprang from their beds and were witnesses of the inexplicable and insulting treatment to which their comrade was subjected. They could imagine nothing else but that a common assault on her honour was meditated, and their fury against the commandant knew no bounds.