a thing she repented of later, and the ladies let her go, noticing something wrong and very dissatisfied with her.  Then she got a housemaid’s place in a police-officer’s house, but stayed there only three months, for the police officer, a man of fifty, began to torment her, and once, when he was in a specially enterprising mood, she fired up, called him “a fool and old devil,” and gave him such a knock in the chest that he fell.  She was turned out for her rudeness.  It was useless to look for another situation, for the time of her confinement was drawing near, so she went to the house of a village midwife, who also sold wine.  The confinement was easy; but the midwife, who had a case of fever in the village, infected Katusha, and her baby boy had to be sent to the foundlings’ hospital, where, according to the words of the old woman who took him there, he at once died.  When Katusha went to the midwife she had 127 roubles in all, 27 which she had earned and 100 given her by her betrayer.  When she left she had but six roubles; she did not know how to keep money, but spent it on herself, and gave to all who asked.  The midwife took 40 roubles for two months’ board and attendance, 25 went to get the baby into the foundlings’ hospital, and 40 the midwife borrowed to buy a cow with.  Twenty roubles went just for clothes and dainties.  Having nothing left to live on, Katusha had to look out for a place again, and found one in the house of a forester.  The forester was a married man, but he, too, began to annoy her from the first day.  He disgusted her, and she tried to avoid him.  But he, more experienced and cunning, besides being her master, who could send her wherever he liked, managed to accomplish his object.  His wife found it out, and, catching Katusha and her husband in a room all by themselves, began beating her.  Katusha defended herself, and they had a fight, and Katusha got turned out of the house without being paid her wages.

Then Katusha went to live with her aunt in town.  The aunt’s husband, a bookbinder, had once been comfortably off, but had lost all his customers, and had taken to drink, and spent all he could lay hands on at the public-house.  The aunt kept a little laundry, and managed to support herself, her children, and her wretched husband.  She offered Katusha the place of an assistant laundress; but seeing what a life of misery and hardship her aunt’s assistants led, Katusha hesitated, and applied to a registry office for a place.  One was found for her with a lady who lived with her two sons, pupils at a public day school.  A week after Katusha had entered the house the elder, a big fellow with moustaches, threw up his studies and made love to her, continually following her about.  His mother laid all the blame on Katusha, and gave her notice.