“I want to ask, was the prisoner previously acquainted with Simeon Kartinkin?” said the public prosecutor, without looking at Maslova, and, having put the question, he compressed his lips and frowned.

The president repeated the question.  Maslova stared at the public prosecutor, with a frightened look.

“With Simeon?  Yes,” she said.

“I should like to know what the prisoner’s acquaintance with Kartinkin consisted in.  Did they meet often?”

“Consisted in? . . .  He invited me for the lodgers; it was not an acquaintance at all,” answered Maslova, anxiously moving her eyes from the president to the public prosecutor and back to the president.

“I should like to know why Kartinkin invited only Maslova, and none of the other girls, for the lodgers?” said the public prosecutor, with half-closed eyes and a cunning, Mephistophelian smile.

“I don’t know.  How should I know?” said Maslova, casting a frightened look round, and fixing her eyes for a moment on Nekhludoff.  “He asked whom he liked.”

“Is it possible that she has recognised me?” thought Nekhludoff, and the blood rushed to his face.  But Maslova turned away without distinguishing him from the others, and again fixed her eyes anxiously on the public prosecutor.

“So the prisoner denies having had any intimate relations with Kartinkin?  Very well, I have no more questions to ask.”

And the public prosecutor took his elbow off the desk, and began writing something.  He was not really noting anything down, but only going over the letters of his notes with a pen, having seen the procureur and leading advocates, after putting a clever question, make a note, with which, later on, to annihilate their adversaries.

The president did not continue at once, because he was consulting the member with the spectacles, whether he was agreed that the questions (which had all been prepared be forehand and written out) should be put.

“Well!  What happened next?” he then went on.

“I came home,” looking a little more boldly only at the president, “and went to bed.  Hardly had I fallen asleep when one of our girls, Bertha, woke me.  ’Go, your merchant has come again!’ He”—­she again uttered the word he with evident horror—­ “he kept treating our girls, and then wanted to send for more wine, but his money was all gone, and he sent me to his lodgings and told me where the money was, and how much to take.  So I went.”

The president was whispering to the member on his left, but, in order to appear as if he had heard, he repeated her last words.

“So you went.  Well, what next?”

“I went, and did all he told me; went into his room.  I did not go alone, but called Simeon Kartinkin and her,” she said, pointing to Botchkova.

“That’s a lie; I never went in,” Botchkova began, but was stopped.

“In their presence I took out four notes,” continued Maslova, frowning, without looking at Botchkova.