Resurrection
serve the ladies in a half-hearted and negligent way, but once, without
knowing how it happened, was very rude to them, and gave them notice,
a thing she repented of later, and the ladies let her go, noticing
something wrong and very dissatisfied with her. Then she got a
housemaid’s place in a police-officer’s house, but stayed there only
three months, for the police officer, a man of fifty, began to torment
her, and once, when he was in a specially enterprising mood, she fired
up, called him “a fool and old devil,” and gave him such a knock in the
chest that he fell. She was turned out for her rudeness. It was useless
to look for another situation, for the time of her confinement was
drawing near, so she went to the house of a village midwife, who also
sold wine. The confinement was easy; but the midwife, who had a case of
fever in the village, infected Katusha, and her baby boy had to be sent
to the foundlings’ hospital, where, according to the words of the old
woman who took him there, he at once died. When Katusha went to the
midwife she had 127 roubles in all, 27 which she had earned and 100
given her by her betrayer. When she left she had but six roubles; she
did not know how to keep money, but spent it on herself, and gave to
all who asked. The midwife took 40 roubles for two months’ board and
attendance, 25 went to get the baby into the foundlings’ hospital, and
40 the midwife borrowed to buy a cow with. Twenty roubles went just for
clothes and dainties. Having nothing left to live on, Katusha had to
look out for a place again, and found one in the house of a forester.
The forester was a married man, but he, too, began to annoy her from the
first day. He disgusted her, and she tried to avoid him. But he, more
experienced and cunning, besides being her master, who could send her
wherever he liked, managed to accomplish his object. His wife found it
out, and, catching Katusha and her husband in a room all by themselves,
began beating her. Katusha defended herself, and they had a fight, and
Katusha got turned out of the house without being paid her wages.
Then Katusha went to live with her aunt in town. The aunt’s husband,
a bookbinder, had once been comfortably off, but had lost all his
customers, and had taken to drink, and spent all he could lay hands
on at the public-house. The aunt kept a little laundry, and managed to
support herself, her children, and her wretched husband. She offered
Katusha the place of an assistant laundress; but seeing what a life of
misery and hardship her aunt’s assistants led, Katusha hesitated, and
applied to a registry office for a place. One was found for her with a
lady who lived with her two sons, pupils at a public day school. A
week after Katusha had entered the house the elder, a big fellow with
moustaches, threw up his studies and made love to her, continually
following her about. His mother laid all the blame on Katusha, and gave
her notice.
It so happened that, after many fruitless attempts to find a situation,
Katusha again went to the registry office, and there met a woman with
bracelets on her bare, plump arms and rings on most of her fingers.
Hearing that Katusha was badly in want of a place, the woman gave her
her address, and invited her to come to her house. Katusha went. The
woman received her very kindly, set cake and sweet wine before her,
then wrote a note and gave it to a servant to take to somebody. In the
evening a tall man, with long, grey hair and a white beard, entered the
room, and sat down at once near Katusha, smiling and gazing at her with
glistening eyes. He began joking with her. The hostess called him away
into the next room, and Katusha heard her say, “A fresh one from the
country,” Then the hostess called Katusha aside and told her that the
man was an author, and that he had a great deal of money, and that if
he liked her he would not grudge her anything. He did like her, and gave
her 25 roubles, promising to see her often. The 25 roubles soon went;
some she paid to her aunt for board and lodging; the rest was spent on
a hat, ribbons, and such like. A few days later the author sent for her,
and she went. He gave her another 25 roubles, and offered her a separate
lodging.
Next door to the lodging rented for her by the author there lived a
jolly young shopman, with whom Katusha soon fell in love. She told
the author, and moved to a little lodging of her own. The shopman, who
promised to marry her, went to Nijni on business without mentioning it
to her, having evidently thrown her up, and Katusha remained alone. She
meant to continue living in the lodging by herself, but was informed
by the police that in this case she would have to get a license. She
returned to her aunt. Seeing her fine dress, her hat, and mantle, her
aunt no longer offered her laundry work. As she understood things, her
niece had risen above that sort of thing. The question as to whether she
was to become a laundress or not did not occur to Katusha, either. She
looked with pity at the thin, hard-worked laundresses, some already in
consumption, who stood washing or ironing with their thin arms in the
fearfully hot front room, which was always full of soapy steam and
draughts from the windows, and thought with horror that she might have
shared the same fate.
Katusha had begun to smoke some time before, and since the young shopman
had thrown her up she was getting more and more into the habit of
drinking. It was not so much the flavour of wine that tempted her as the
fact that it gave her a chance of forgetting the misery she suffered,
making her feel more unrestrained and more confident of her own worth,
which she was not when quite sober; without wine she felt sad and
ashamed. Just at this time a woman came along who offered to place her
in one of the largest establishments in the city, explaining all the
advantages and benefits of the situation. Katusha had the choice before
her of either going into service or accepting this offer--and she chose
the latter. Besides, it seemed to her as though, in this way, she could
revenge herself on her betrayer and the shopman and all those who had
injured her. One of the things that tempted her, and was the cause
of her decision, was the woman telling her she might order her own
dresses--velvet, silk, satin, low-necked ball dresses, anything she
liked. A mental picture of herself in a bright yellow silk trimmed with
black velvet with low neck and short sleeves conquered her, and she gave
up her passport. On the same evening the procuress took an isvostchik
and drove her to the notorious house kept by Carolina Albertovna
Kitaeva.
From that day a life of chronic sin against human and divine laws
commenced for Katusha Maslova, a life which is led by hundreds of
thousands of women, and which is not merely tolerated but sanctioned by
the Government, anxious for the welfare of its subjects; a life
which for nine women out of ten ends in painful disease, premature
decrepitude, and death.
Katusha Maslova lived this life for seven years. During these years she
twice changed houses, and had once been to the hospital. In the seventh
year of this life, when she was twenty-six years old, happened that for
which she was put in prison and for which she was now being taken to
be tried, after more than three months of confinement with thieves and
murderers in the stifling air of a prison.
CHAPTER III.
NEKHLUDOFF.
When Maslova, wearied out by the long walk, reached the building,
accompanied by two soldiers, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Nekhludoff, who
had seduced her, was still lying on his high bedstead, with a feather
bed on the top of the spring mattress, in a fine, clean, well-ironed
linen night shirt, smoking a cigarette, and considering what he had to
do to-day, and what had happened yesterday.
Recalling the evening he had spent with the Korchagins, a wealthy and
aristocratic family, whose daughter every one expected he would marry,
he sighed, and, throwing away the end of his cigarette, was going
to take another out of the silver case; but, changing his mind, he
resolutely raised his solid frame, and, putting down his smooth, white
legs, stepped into his slippers, threw his silk dressing gown over his
broad shoulders, and passed into his dressing-room, walking heavily
and quickly. There he carefully cleaned his teeth, many of which were
filled, with tooth powder, and rinsed his mouth with scented elixir.
After that he washed his hands with perfumed soap, cleaned his long
nails with particular care, then, from a tap fixed to his marble
washstand, he let a spray of cold water run over his face and stout
neck. Having finished this part of the business, he went into a third
room, where a shower bath stood ready for him. Having refreshed his
full, white, muscular body, and dried it with a rough bath sheet, he put
on his fine undergarments and his boots, and sat down before the glass
to brush his black beard and his curly hair, that had begun to get thin
above the forehead. Everything he used, everything belonging to his
toilet, his linen, his clothes, boots, necktie, pin, studs, was of the
best quality, very quiet, simple, durable and costly.
Nekhludoff dressed leisurely, and went into the dining-room. A table,
which looked very imposing with its four legs carved in the shape of
lions’ paws, and a huge side-board to match, stood in the oblong room,
the floor of which had been polished by three men the day before. On
the table, which was covered with a fine, starched cloth, stood a silver
coffeepot full of aromatic coffee, a sugar basin, a jug of fresh cream,
and a bread basket filled with fresh rolls, rusks, and biscuits; and
beside the plate lay the last number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, a
newspaper, and several letters.
Nekhludoff was just going to open his letters, when a stout, middle-aged
woman in mourning, a lace cap covering the widening parting of her hair,
glided into the room. This was Agraphena Petrovna, formerly lady’s maid
to Nekhludoff’s mother. Her mistress had died quite recently in this
very house, and she remained with the son as his housekeeper. Agraphena
Petrovna had spent nearly ten years, at different times, abroad with
Nekhludoff’s mother, and had the appearance and manners of a lady. She
had lived with the Nekhludoffs from the time she was a child, and had
known Dmitri Ivanovitch at the time when he was still little Mitinka.
“Good-morning, Dmitri Ivanovitch.”
“Good-morning, Agraphena Petrovna. What is it you want?” Nekhludoff
asked.
“A letter from the princess; either from the mother or the daughter.
The maid brought it some time ago, and is waiting in my room,” answered
Agraphena Petrovna, handing him the letter with a significant smile.
“All right! Directly!” said Nekhludoff, taking the letter and frowning
as he noticed Agraphena Petrovna’s smile.
That smile meant that the letter was from the younger Princess
Korchagin, whom Agraphena Petrovna expected him to marry. This
supposition of hers annoyed Nekhludoff.
“Then I’ll tell her to wait?” and Agraphena Petrovna took a crumb brush
which was not in its place, put it away, and sailed out of the room.
Nekhludoff opened the perfumed note, and began reading it.
The note was written on a sheet of thick grey paper, with rough edges;
the writing looked English. It said:
Having assumed the task of acting as your memory, I take the liberty of
reminding you that on this the 28th day of April you have to appear
at the Law Courts, as juryman, and, in consequence, can on no account
accompany us and Kolosoff to the picture gallery, as, with your habitual
flightiness, you promised yesterday; _a moins que vous ne soyez dispose
a payer la cour d’assise les 300 roubles d’amende que vous vous refusez