Resurrection

"Well, and how did you give him the powder? In his drink?"

"How did I give it? I put them in and gave it him."

"Why did you give it him?"

She did not answer, but sighed deeply and heavily.

"He would not let me go," she said, after a moment's silence, "and I was quite tired out, and so I went out into the passage and said to Simeon, 'If he would only let me go, I am so tired.' And he said, 'We are also sick of him; we were thinking of giving him a sleeping draught; he will fall asleep, and then you can go.' So I said all right. I thought they were harmless, and he gave me the packet. I went in. He was lying behind the partition, and at once called for brandy. I took a bottle of 'fine champagne' from the table, poured out two glasses, one for him and one for myself, and put the powders into his glass, and gave it him. Had I known how could I have given them to him?"

"Well, and how did the ring come into your possession?" asked the president. "When did he give it you?"

"That was when we came back to his lodgings. I wanted to go away, and he gave me a knock on the head and broke my comb. I got angry and said I'd go away, and he took the ring off his finger and gave it to me so that I should not go," she said.

Then the public prosecutor again slightly raised himself, and, putting on an air of simplicity, asked permission to put a few more questions, and, having received it, bending his head over his embroidered collar, he said: "I should like to know how long the prisoner remained in the merchant Smelkoff's room."

Maslova again seemed frightened, and she again looked anxiously from the public prosecutor to the president, and said hurriedly:

"I do not remember how long."

"Yes, but does the prisoner remember if she went anywhere else in the lodging-house after she left Smelkoff?"

Maslova considered for a moment. "Yes, I did go into an empty room next to his."

"Yes, and why did you go in?" asked the public prosecutor, forgetting himself, and addressing her directly.

"I went in to rest a bit, and to wait for an isvostchik."

"And was Kartinkin in the room with the prisoner, or not?"

"He came in."

"Why did he come in?"

"There was some of the merchant's brandy left, and we finished it together."

"Oh, finished it together. Very well! And did the prisoner talk to Kartinkin, and, if so, what about?"

Maslova suddenly frowned, blushed very red, and said, hurriedly, "What about? I did not talk about anything, and that's all I know. Do what you like with me; I am not guilty, and that's all."

"I have nothing more to ask," said the prosecutor, and, drawing up his shoulders in an unnatural manner, began writing down, as the prisoner's own evidence, in the notes for his speech, that she had been in the empty room with Kartinkin.

There was a short silence.

"You have nothing more to say?"

"I have told everything," she said, with a sigh, and sat down.

Then the president noted something down, and, having listened to something that the member on his left whispered to him, he announced a ten-minutes' interval, rose hurriedly, and left the court. The communication he had received from the tall, bearded member with the kindly eyes was that the member, having felt a slight stomach derangement, wished to do a little massage and to take some drops. And this was why an interval was made.

When the judges had risen, the advocates, the jury, and the witnesses also rose, with the pleasant feeling that part of the business was finished, and began moving in different directions.

Nekhludoff went into the jury's room, and sat down by the window.

CHAPTER XII.

TWELVE YEARS BEFORE.

"Yes, this was Katusha."

The relations between Nekhludoff and Katusha had been the following:

Nekhludoff first saw Katusha when he was a student in his third year at the University, and was preparing an essay on land tenure during the summer vacation, which he passed with his aunts. Until then he had always lived, in summer, with his mother and sister on his mother's large estate near Moscow. But that year his sister had married, and his mother had gone abroad to a watering-place, and he, having his essay to write, resolved to spend the summer with his aunts. It was very quiet in their secluded estate and there was nothing to distract his mind; his aunts loved their nephew and heir very tenderly, and he, too, was fond of them and of their simple, old-fashioned life.