Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/300

288 the prison hospital, the coming of the women had another and more desirable effect, that of cleaning up the atmosphere of the place, as the awful oaths and curses were no longer heard through all the day and the night as well. The men began speaking in low and well-controlled voices, they stopped singing their far from refined songs and gave up their equally questionable stories. Nor did the cleansing and ennobling influence stop here, for the men also began to spruce up their appearance in every way possible, so that one rarely met anyone unwashed, half-clad or with unkempt hair. The prison veritably looked regenerated.

In this unusual atmosphere some love dramas were enacted before my very eyes. One rainy day, when I was sitting in my cell, I heard the following conversation:

"We have told each other everything, Katerina," came in a sonorous, serious voice from the upper cell. "We know each other as well as if we had lived together for years."

"It is true, it is true, indeed," came the answer in a woman's voice. "You have a good heart, that understands the pain of others."

"Listen, Katerina, I was condemned for a term of three years, of which only two months remain."

"You are fortunate," sighed Katerina; "I have still to sit here for two years and have a long road of suffering ahead of me."

"For us two years are nothing. I shall go out and begin to work at once, for I am a carpenter and am skilled at my trade. Now that I have come to know you, I shall not return to my former life with its attempt to get a great deal of money without regard for the consequences. I am a changed man and I want to work honestly."