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.