“Your name?” With a sigh of weariness the presiding justice turned to the next prisoner without looking at her, and consulted a paper before him.  He was so accustomed to the business that to expedite matters he could try two cases at once.

Bochkova was forty-two years old, a burgess of the town of Koloma; by occupation a servant—­in the same Hotel Mauritania.  Was never arrested before, and had received a copy of the indictment.  She gave the answers very boldly and with an intonation which seemed to add to every answer.

“Yes, Bochkova, Euphemia, have received a copy, and am proud of it, and will permit no one to laugh at me.”

Without waiting to be told to sit down, Bochkova sat down immediately after the questioning ceased.

“Your name?” asked the presiding justice of the third prisoner.  “You must rise,” he added, gently and courteously, seeing Maslova still in her seat.

With quick movement Maslova rose with an air of submissiveness, and throwing back her shoulders, looked into the face of the presiding justice with her smiling, somewhat squinting black eyes.

“What are you called?”

“They used to call me Lubka,” she answered, rapidly.

Meanwhile Nekhludoff put on his pince-nez and examined the prisoners while they were questioned.

“It is impossible,” he thought, looking intently at the prisoner.  “But her name is Lubka,” he thought, as he heard her answer.

The presiding justice was about to continue his interrogation when the member with the eye-glasses, angrily whispering something, stopped him.  The presiding justice nodded his assent and turned to the prisoner.

“You say ‘Lubka,’ but a different name is entered here.”

The prisoner was silent.

“I ask you what is your real name?”

“What name did you receive at baptism?” asked the angry member.

“Formerly I was called Katherine.”

“It is impossible,” Nekhludoff continued to repeat, although there was no doubt in his mind now that it was she, that same servant ward with whom he had been in love at one time—­yes, in love, real love, and whom in a moment of mental fever he led astray, then abandoned, and to whom he never gave a second thought, because the recollection of it was too painful, revealed too manifestly that he, who prided himself of his good breeding, not only did not treat her decently, but basely deceived her.

Yes, it was she.  He saw plainly the mysterious peculiarity that distinguishes every individual from every other individual.  Notwithstanding the unnatural whiteness and fullness of her face, this pleasant peculiarity was in the face, in the lips, in the slightly squinting eyes, and, principally, in the naive, smiling glance, and in the expression of submissiveness not only in the face, but in the whole figure.

“You should have said so,” again very gently said the presiding justice.  “What is your patronymic?”