In spite of the hard conditions in which they were placed, life among the political prisoners seemed very good to Katusha after the depraved, luxurious and effeminate life she had led in town for the last six years, and after two months' imprisonment with criminal prisoners. The fifteen to twenty miles they did per day, with one day's rest after two days' marching, strengthened her physically, and the fellowship with her new companions opened out to her a life full of interests such as she had never dreamed of. People so wonderful (as she expressed it) as those whom she was now going with she had not only never met but could not even have imagined.
       "There now, and I cried when I was sentenced," she said. "Why, I must thank God for it all the days of my life. I have learned to know what I never should have found out else."
       The motives she understood easily and without effort that guided these people, and, being of the people, fully sympathised with them. She understood that these persons were for the people and against the upper classes, and though themselves belonging to the upper classes had sacrificed their privileges, their liberty and their lives for the people. This especially made her value and admire them. She was charmed with all the new companions, but particularly with Mary Pavlovna, and she was not only charmed with her, but loved her with a peculiar, respectful and rapturous love. She was struck by the fact that this beautiful girl, the daughter of a rich general, who could speak three languages, gave away all that her rich brother sent her, and lived like the simplest working girl, and dressed not only simply, but poorly, paying no heed to her appearance. This trait and a complete absence of coquetry was particularly surprising and therefore attractive to Maslova. Maslova could see that Mary Pavlovna knew, and was even pleased to know, that she was handsome, and yet the effect her appearance had on men was not at all pleasing to her; she was even afraid of it, and felt an absolute disgust to all love affairs. Her men companions knew it, and if they felt attracted by her never permitted themselves to show it to her, but treated her as they would a man; but with strangers, who often molested her, the great physical strength on which she prided herself stood her in good stead.
       "It happened once," she said to Katusha, "that a man followed me in the street and would not leave me on any account. At last I gave him such a shaking that he was frightened and ran away."
       She became a revolutionary, as she said, because she felt a dislike to the life of the well-to-do from childhood up, and loved the life of the common people, and she was always being scolded for spending her time in the servants' hall, in the kitchen or the stables instead of the drawing-room.
       "And I found it amusing to be with cooks and the coachmen, and dull with our gentlemen and ladies," she said. "Then when I came to understand things I saw that our life was altogether wrong; I had no mother and I did not care for my father, and so when I was nineteen I left home, and went with a girl friend to work as a factory hand."
       After she left the factory she lived in the country, then returned to town and lived in a lodging, where they had a secret printing press. There she was arrested and sentenced to hard labour. Mary Pavlovna said nothing about it herself, but Katusha heard from others that Mary Pavlovna was sentenced because, when the lodging was searched by the police and one of the revolutionists fired a shot in the dark, she pleaded guilty.
       As soon as she had learned to know Mary Pavlovna, Katusha noticed that, whatever the conditions she found herself in, Mary Pavlovna never thought of herself, but was always anxious to serve, to help some one, in matters small or great. One of her present companions, Novodvoroff, said of her that she devoted herself to philanthropic amusements. And this was true. The interest of her whole life lay in the search for opportunities of serving others. This kind of amusement had become the habit, the business of her life. And she did it all so naturally that those who knew her no longer valued but simply expected it of her.
       When Maslova first came among them, Mary Pavlovna felt repulsed and disgusted. Katusha noticed this, but she also noticed that, having made an effort to overcome these feelings, Mary Pavlovna became particularly tender and kind to her. The tenderness and kindness of so uncommon a being touched Maslova so much that she gave her whole heart, and unconsciously accepting her views, could not help imitating her in everything.
       This devoted love of Katusha touched Mary Pavlovna in her turn, and she learned to love Katusha.
       These women were also united by the repulsion they both felt to sexual love. The one loathed that kind of love, having experienced all its horrors, the other, never having experienced it, looked on it as something incomprehensible and at the same time as something repugnant and offensive to human dignity.

book i
   Chapter I. Maslova in Prison.
   Chapter II. Maslova's Early Life.
   Chapter III. Nekhludoff.
   Chapter IV. Missy.
   Chapter V. The Jurymen.
   Chapter VI. The Judges.
   Chapter VII. The Officials of the Court.
   Chapter VIII. Swearing in the Jury.
   Chapter IX. The Trial--the Prisoners Questioned.
   Chapter X. The Trial--the Indictment.
   Chapter XI. The Trial--Maslova Cross-Examined.
   Chapter XII. Twelve Years Before.
   Chapter XIII. Life in the Army.
   Chapter XIV. The Second Meeting with Maslova.
   Chapter XV. The Early Mass.
   Chapter XVI. The First Step.
   Chapter XVII. Nekhludoff and Katusha.
   Chapter XVIII. Afterwards.
   Chapter XIX. The Trial--Resumption.
   Chapter XX. . The Trial--the Medical Report.
   Chapter XXI. The Trial--the Prosecutor and the Advocates.
   Chapter XXII. The Trial--the Summing Up.
   Chapter XXIII. The Trial--the Verdict.
   Chapter XXIV. The Trial--the Sentence.
   Chapter XXV. Nekhludoff Consults an Advocate.
   Chapter XXVI. The House of Korchagin.
   Chapter XXVII. Missy's Mother.
   Chapter XXVIII. The Awakening.
   Chapter XXIX. Maslova in Prison.
   Chapter XXX. The Cell.
   Chapter XXXI. The Prisoners.
   Chapter XXXII. A Prison Quarrel.
   Chapter XXXIII. The Leaven at Work--Nekhludoff's Domestic Changes.
   Chapter XXXIV. The Absurdity of Law--Reflections of a Juryman.
   Chapter XXXV. The Procureur--Nekhludoff Refuses to Serve.
   Chapter XXXVI. Nekhludoff Endeavours to Visit Maslova.
   Chapter XXXVII. Maslova Recalls the Past.
   Chapter XXXVIII. Sunday in Prison--Preparing for Mass.
   Chapter XXXIX. The Prison Church--Blind Leaders of the Blind.
   Chapter XL. The Husks of Religion.
   Chapter XLI. Visiting Day--the Men's Ward.
   Chapter XLII. Visiting Day--the Women's Ward.
   Chapter XLIII. Nekhludoff Visits Maslova.
   Chapter XLIV. Maslova's View of Life.
   Chapter XLV. Fanarin, the Advocate--the Petition.
   Chapter XLVI. A Prison Flogging.
   Chapter XLVII. Nekhludoff Again Visits Maslova.
   Chapter XLVIII. Maslova Refuses to Marry.
   Chapter XLIX. Vera Doukhova.
   Chapter L. The Vice-Governor of the Prison.
   Chapter LI. The Cells.
   Chapter LII. No. 21.
   Chapter LIII. Victims of Government.
   Chapter LIV. Prisoners and Friends.
   Chapter LV. Vera Doukhova Explains.
   Chapter LVI. Nekhludoff and the Prisoners.
   Chapter LVII. The Vice-Governor's "At-Home".
   Chapter LVIII. The Vice-Governor Suspicious.
   Chapter LIX. Nekhludoff's Third Interview with Maslova in Prison.
book ii
   Chapter I. Property in Land.
   Chapter II. Efforts at Land Restoration.
   Chapter III. Old Associations.
   Chapter IV. The Peasants' Lot.
   Chapter V. Maslova's Aunt.
   Chapter VI. Reflections of a Landlord.
   Chapter VII. The Disinherited.
   Chapter VIII. God's Peace in the Heart.
   Chapter IX. The Land Settlement.
   Chapter X. Nekhludoff Returns to Town.
   Chapter XI. An Advocate's Views on Judges and Prosecutors.
   Chapter XII. Why the Peasants Flock to Town.
   Chapter XIII. Nurse Maslova.
   Chapter XIV. An Aristocratic Circle.
   Chapter XV. An Average Statesman.
   Chapter XVI. An Up-to-Date Senator.
   Chapter XVII. Countess Katerina Ivanovna's Dinner Party.
   Chapter XVIII. Officialdom.
   Chapter XIX. An Old General of Repute.
   Chapter XX. Maslova's Appeal.
   Chapter XXI. The Appeal Dismissed.
   Chapter XXII. An Old Friend.
   Chapter XXIII. The Public Prosecutor.
   Chapter XXIV. Mariette Tempts Nekhludoff.
   Chapter XXV. Lydia Shoustova's Home.
   Chapter XXVI. Lydia's Aunt.
   Chapter XXVII. The State Church and the People.
   Chapter XXVIII. The Meaning of Mariette's Attraction.
   Chapter XXIX. For Her Sake and for God's.
   Chapter XXX. The Astonishing Institution Called Criminal Law.
   Chapter XXXI. Nekhludoff's Sister and Her Husband.
   Chapter XXXII. Nekhludoff's Anarchism.
   Chapter XXXIII. The Aim of the Law.
   Chapter XXXIV. The Prisoners Start for Siberia.
   Chapter XXXV. Not Men but Strange and Terrible Creatures?
   Chapter XXXVI. The Tender Mercies of the Lord.
   Chapter XXXVII. Spilled Like Water on the Ground.
   Chapter XXXVIII. The Convict Train.
   Chapter XXXIX. Brother and Sister.
   Chapter XL. The Fundamental Law of Human Life.
   Chapter XLI. Taras's Story.
   Chapter XLII. Le Vrai Grand Monde.
book iii
   Chapter I. Maslova Makes New Friends.
   Chapter II. An Incident of the March.
   Chapter III. Mary Pavlovna.
   Chapter IV. Simonson.
   Chapter V. The Political Prisoners.
   Chapter VI. Kryltzoff's Story.
   Chapter VII. Nekhludoff Seeks an Interview with Maslova.
   Chapter VIII. Nekhludoff and the Officer.
   Chapter IX. The Political Prisoners.
   Chapter X. Makar Devkin.
   Chapter XI. Maslova and her Companions.
   Chapter XII. Nabatoff and Markel.
   Chapter XIII. Love Affairs of the Exiles.
   Chapter XIV. Conversations in Prison.
   Chapter XV. Novodvoroff.
   Chapter XVI. Simonson Speaks to Nekhludoff.
   Chapter XVII. "I Have Nothing More to Say."
   Chapter XVIII. Neveroff's Fate.
   Chapter XIX. Why is it Done?
   Chapter XX. The Journey Resumed.
   Chapter XXI. "Just a Worthless Tramp."
   Chapter XXII. Nekhludoff Sees the General.
   Chapter XXIII. The Sentence Commuted.
   Chapter XXIV. The General's Household.
   Chapter XXV. Maslova's Decision.
   Chapter XXVI. The English Visitor.
   Chapter XXVII. Kryltzoff at Rest.
   Chapter XXVIII. A New Life Dawns for Nekhludoff.