knowing that she must submit to the cruel and surprising injustice that had been done her.  What astonished her most was that young men—­or, at any rate, not old men—­the same men who always looked so approvingly at her (one of them, the public prosecutor, she had seen in quite a different humour) had condemned her.  While she was sitting in the prisoners’ room before the trial and during the intervals, she saw these men looking in at the open door pretending they had to pass there on some business, or enter the room and gaze on her with approval.  And then, for some unknown reason, these same men had condemned her to hard labour, though she was innocent of the charge laid against her.  At first she cried, but then quieted down and sat perfectly stunned in the prisoners’ room, waiting to be led back.  She wanted only two things now—­tobacco and strong drink.  In this state Botchkova and Kartinkin found her when they were led into the same room after being sentenced.  Botchkova began at once to scold her, and call her a “convict.”

“Well!  What have you gained? justified yourself, have you?  What you have deserved, that you’ve got.  Out in Siberia you’ll give up your finery, no fear!”

Maslova sat with her hands inside her sleeves, hanging her head and looking in front of her at the dirty floor without moving, only saying:  “I don’t bother you, so don’t you bother me.  I don’t bother you, do I?” she repeated this several times, and was silent again.  She did brighten up a little when Botchkova and Kartinkin were led away and an attendant brought her three roubles.

“Are you Maslova?” he asked.  “Here you are; a lady sent it you,” he said, giving her the money.

“A lady—­what lady?”

“You just take it.  I’m not going to talk to you.”

This money was sent by Kitaeva, the keeper of the house in which she used to live.  As she was leaving the court she turned to the usher with the question whether she might give Maslova a little money.  The usher said she might.  Having got permission, she removed the three-buttoned Swedish kid glove from her plump, white hand, and from an elegant purse brought from the back folds of her silk skirt took a pile of coupons, [in Russia coupons cut off interest-bearing papers are often used as money] just cut off from the interest-bearing papers which she had earned in her establishment, chose one worth 2 roubles and 50 copecks, added two 20 and one 10-copeck coins, and gave all this to the usher.  The usher called an attendant, and in his presence gave the money.

“Belease to giff it accurately,” said Carolina Albertovna Kitaeva.