CHAPTER VII.


It was late and the distance to the prison was long, so Nekhludoff
hired a trap. On one of the streets the driver, who was a middle-aged
man with an intelligent and good-natured face, turned to Nekhludoff
and pointed to an immense building going up.

"What a huge building there is going up!" he said with pride, as if he
had a part in the building of it.

It was really a huge structure, built in a complex, unusual style. A
scaffolding of heavy pine logs surrounded the structure, which was
fenced in by deal boards. It was as busy a scene as an ant hill.

Nekhludoff wondered that these people, while their wives were killing
themselves with work at home, and their children starving, should
think it necessary to build that foolish and unnecessary house for
some foolish and unnecessary man.

"Yes, a foolish building," he spoke his thought aloud.

"How foolish?" retorted the offended driver. "Thanks to them, the
people get work. It is not foolish."

"But the work is unnecessary."