Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy

On the day when the convoy officer had the encounter with the prisoners at the halting station about the child, Nekhlúdoff, who had spent the night at the village inn, woke up late, and was some time writing letters to post at the next Government town, so that he left the inn later than usual, and did not catch up with the gang on the road as he had done previously, but came to the village where the next halting station was as it was growing dusk.

Having dried himself at the inn, which was kept by an elderly woman who had an extraordinarily fat, white neck, he had his tea in a clean room decorated with a great number of icons and pictures and then hurried away to the halting station to ask the officer for an interview with Katúsha. At the last six halting stations he could not get the permission for an interview from any of the officers. Though they had been changed several times, not one of them would allow Nekhlúdoff inside the halting stations, so that he had not seen Katúsha for more than a week. This strictness was occasioned by the fact that an important prison official was expected to pass that way. Now this official had passed without looking in at the gang, after all, and Nekhlúdoff hoped that the officer who had taken charge of the gang in the morning would allow him an interview with the prisoners, as former officers had done.