Resurrection | Page 7

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,