Trying to master his excitement, Mezhenétsky began pacing up and down the corridor. The doors of the cells were left open till the evening roll-call. A tall, fair-haired convict, with a face the kindly expression of which was not destroyed by the shaving of half his head, approached Mezhenétsky.
“There’s a convict here in our cell—he has seen your Honour, and he says to me: ‘Call him here’!”
“What convict?”
“ ‘Snuff-rule’ is what we call him—an old man, a sectarian. He says: ‘Tell that man to come to me.’ He means your Honour.”
“Where is he?”
“Why, here, in our cell. ‘Call that gentleman!’ he says.”
Mezhenétsky followed the convict into a rather small cell, where several prisoners were sitting and lying on the bunks.
There at the edge of the bunk on the bare boards, under his grey prison cloak, lay the same old sectarian who, seven years before, had come to ask Mezhenétsky about Svetlogoúb. The old man’s face was pale, emaciated and quite shrivelled up; his hair was still just as thick; his upturned, thin, short beard quite white; and his blue eyes kindly and attentive. He lay on his back, evidently feverish, and his cheekbones were an unhealthy red.
Mezhenétsky came up to him.
“What do you want?” he asked.