CHAPTER II.

The history of the prisoner Maslova was a very common one.  Maslova was the daughter of an unmarried menial who lived with her mother, a cowherd, on the estate of two spinsters.  This unmarried woman gave birth to a child every year, and, as is the custom in the villages, baptized them; then neglected the troublesome newcomers, and they finally starved to death.

Thus five children died.  Every one of these was baptized, then it starved and finally died.  The sixth child, begotten of a passing gypsy, was a girl, who would have shared the same fate, but it happened that one of the two old maidens entered the cow-shed to reprimand the milkmaids for carelessness in skimming the cream, and there saw the mother with the healthy and beautiful child.  The old maiden chided them for the cream and for permitting the woman to lie in the cow-shed, and was on the point of departing, but noticing the child, was moved to pity, and afterward consented to stand godmother to the child.  She baptized the child, and in pity for her god-daughter, furnished her with milk, gave the mother some money, and the babe thrived.  Wherefore the old maidens called it “the saved one.”

The child was three years old when the mother fell ill and died.  She was a great burden to her grandmother, so the old maidens adopted her.  The dark-eyed girl became unusually lively and pretty, and her presence cheered them.

Of the two old maidens, the younger one—­Sophia Ivanovna—­was the kindlier, while the older one—­Maria Ivanovna—­was of austere disposition.  Sophia Ivanovna kept the girl in decent clothes, taught her to read and intended to give her an education.  Maria Ivanovna said that the girl ought to be taught to work that she might become a useful servant, was exacting, punished, and even beat her when in bad humor.  Under such conditions the girl grew up half servant, half lady.  Her position was reflected even in her name, for she was not called by the gentle Katinka, nor yet by the disdainful Katka, but Katiousha, which stands sentimentally between the two.  She sewed, cleaned the rooms, cleaned the ikons with chalk, ground, cooked and served coffee, washed, and sometimes she read for the ladies.

She was wooed, but would marry no one, feeling that life with any one of her wooers would be hard, spoiled, as she was, more or less, by the comparative ease she enjoyed in the manor.

She had just passed her sixteenth year when the ladies were visited by their nephew, a rich student, and Katiousha, without daring to confess it to him, or even to herself, fell in love with him.  Two years afterward, while on his way to the war, he again visited his aunts, and during his four days’ stay, consummated her ruin.  Before his departure he thrust a hundred ruble bill into her hand.

Thenceforward life ceased to have any charms for her, and her only thought was to escape the shame which awaited her, and not only did she become lax in her duties, but—­and she did not know herself how it happened—­all of a sudden she gave vent to her ill temper.  She said some rude things to the ladies, of which she afterward repented, and left them.