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THE story of the prisoner Maslova was nothing out of the ordinary. Her mother had never been married and was the daughter of a serf-woman who worked in the farm-yard of two maiden ladies living in the country. Every year this unmarried girl had given birth to a child and, as generally happens in the country, the baby was baptized but afterwards the mother did not suckle the unwelcome useless little stranger, who hindered her in her work, and the child was soon dead of starvation.

Five children died in this way. Each was baptized, starved and allowed to expire. The sixth, begotten by an itinerant gipsy, was a girl who would have shared the fate of the others had it not so chanced that one of the two maiden ladies went to the farm-yard to reprimand the dairymaids for sending up cream that smelt of the cow. Lying in the cowshed was the mother with a fine healthy new-born baby. The mistress upbraided them on account of the cream and also for allowing a woman who had just given birth to lie in the cowshed, and was about to leave when she caught sight of the new baby. Her heart was touched and she offered to be godmother to the child. This she duly did and then, out of compassion for her godchild, gave the mother milk and money, and so the girl lived. And for ever afterwards the old ladies called her ‘the rescued one’.

The child was three years old when her mother fell ill and died. The grandmother, the old cow-woman, found the infant a burden and so the maiden ladies took her into the house with them. The little black-eyed baby grew into an extremely lively and attractive girl and was a great comfort to the old ladies.

The younger of the two, Sophia Ivanovna, had the kindlier nature – it was she who had stood godmother to the child – and the elder, Marya Ivanovna, was rather stern. Sophia Ivanovna dressed the little girl in pretty clothes, taught her to read and wanted to bring her up like a lady. Marya Ivanovna thought the child should be trained to work and be a good servant; so she was exacting with her and punished and even beat her when she was in a bad temper. Thus, between these two influences, the girl grew up half servant, half young lady. They called her Katusha, a sort of compromise between Katka and Katenka.¹ She sewed, kept the house tidy, polished the metalwork of the ikons with chalk, roasted, ground and served the coffee, did light laundry work and sometimes sat and read aloud to the ladies.

Though she had more than one offer for her hand she would not marry: she felt that life as the wife of any of the working-men who courted her would he too hard, spoilt as she was by the comforts of the manor.

Thus she lived until her sixteenth year. Just after her sixteenth birthday the student nephew of the old ladies, a rich young prince, came on a visit to his aunts, and Katusha, though she did not dare to acknowledge the fact to him or even to herself, fell in love with him. Then two years later this same nephew stayed four days with his aunts on the way to join his regiment, and the night before he left he seduced Katusha and, thrusting a hundred-rouble note into her hand, departed. Five months after his departure she knew for certain that she was pregnant.

From that moment everything became hateful and her one thought was of how to escape the disgrace which awaited her, and she not only went about her duties in a listless, negligent fashion but one day, without knowing how it happened, she burst out. Repenting bitterly afterwards, she spoke insolently to her mistresses and asked to be allowed to leave.

And the ladies, seriously displeased with her, let her go. From them she went as a housemaid in the family of the district police-officer, but only stayed three months because the police-officer, a man of fifty, began to pester her with his attentions, and once when he was being particularly insistent she lost her temper, called him a fool and an old devil, and gave him such a push in the chest that he fell. She was dismissed for her rudeness. It was useless to look for another place – the time of her confinement was drawing near – and she took lodgings with the village midwife, a widow who also trafficked in liquor. It was an easy birth; but the midwife, who was looking after a sick woman in the village, infected Katusha with puerperal fever, and the child, a boy, was sent to the foundling hospital, where, according to the old woman who took him there, he died at once.

When Katusha came to the midwife’s she possessed in all a hundred and twenty-seven roubles – twenty-seven which she had earned and the hundred given her by her seducer. When she left, six roubles was all that remained. She did not know how to save money, and spent on herself and gave to anyone who asked her. The midwife charged her forty roubles for two months’ board and lodging, including the tea she drank; twenty-five went for the child to be taken away; and forty the midwife borrowed to buy a cow; and nearly twenty roubles disappeared on clothes and sweetmeats; so that when Katusha recovered she had no money and had to look for a place. She found one at a forester’s. The forester was a married man, but like the police-officer before him he, too, from the very first day began badgering her. She detested him and tried to avoid him. But he was a man of experience and too crafty for Katusha – besides, he was her master and could send her wherever he liked and, having waited his moment, he seized her. His wife found out and, catching her husband alone with Katusha one day, rushed and started hitting the girl. Katusha defended herself and there was a fight, which ended in her being turned out of the house without her wages. Then Katusha went to her aunt in the city. The aunt’s husband was a bookbinder and had once been comfortably off, but now he had lost all his customers and taken to drink, squandering at the tavern every kopeck he could lay hands on.

The aunt kept a small laundry and managed to support herself, her children and her good-for-nothing husband. She offered Maslova a place in her laundry. But seeing the hard life of her aunt’s laundresses Maslova hesitated, and went to the employment offices in search of domestic employment. She found a place with a lady who had two sons at the high-school. A week after she entered her service the elder boy, who was in the sixth form and already had a moustache, abandoned his studies and started following Maslova about everywhere, giving her no peace. His mother laid all the blame on Maslova and paid her off. She could not find another situation, but it so happened that in the employment office she met a lady with bracelets on her plump bare arms and rings on her fingers. Hearing that Maslova was looking for a place, this lady gave the girl her address and asked her to call. Maslova went. The lady received her very kindly, offered her cakes and sweet wine, and sent her maid somewhere with a note. In the evening a tall man with long greying hair and a grey beard came into the room; this old man at once sat down beside Maslova and with flashing eyes, and smiling, began to look her over and joke with her in a familiar sort of way. The mistress of the house called him into another room and Maslova heard her say, ‘A fresh one, straight from the country.’ Then she took Maslova aside and told her that the man was a writer with a lot of money who would not grudge her anything if he found her to his liking. She was to his liking and the writer gave her twenty-five roubles, promising to see her often. The money very soon went in paying her aunt for her board and buying a new dress, ribbons and a bonnet. A few days later the writer sent for her again. She went. He gave her another twenty-five roubles and offered her an apartment of her own.

While living in the apartments which the writer had rented for her Maslova fell in love with a jolly young shop assistant who lived in the same house. She told the writer, and moved to other, smaller lodgings. But the shop assistant, after promising marriage, left without a word and went to Nizhni, evidently throwing her over, and Maslova found herself alone. She would have liked to continue in the apartment by herself, but this was not allowed. The inspector of police said she could only live there like that if she got a yellow licence ¹and submitted herself to regular medical examinations. So she went back to her aunt. Her aunt, seeing her fine dress, the mantle and bonnet, received her with respect and no longer dared to offer her laundry work: as she understood things, her niece had risen above that. Nor did it occur now to Maslova to wonder whether or not to become a laundress. She now looked with pity at the back-breaking lives led in the front rooms by the pale laundresses – some of them already consumptive – with their thin arms washing and ironing in a temperature of nearly 90°, the atmosphere full of soapy steam, and windows open summer and winter. She looked at them and shuddered at the thought that she, too, might have accepted such drudgery.

And it was just about this time, when Maslova was in very dire straits, no new protector having made his appearance, that she was approached by a procuress who provided girls for brothels.

Maslova had long ago acquired the habit of smoking, but it was only during her liaison with the shop assistant, and especially after he left her, that she began to drink. She liked wine not only for its flavour but most of all because it made her forget all the misery she had suffered, and gave her abandon and confidence in her own worth, which she never felt except under the influence of drink. Without wine she felt depressed and ashamed.

The procuress regaled her aunt and then, having plied Maslova with drink, offered to place her in the best establishment in the town, picturing to her all the advantages and benefits of such a life. Maslova had the choice either of going into service, to be humiliated, subjected to the unwelcome attentions of men and forced into a series of secret, casual adulteries; or of entering upon a secure, quiet life, sanctioned by law, with open, legitimate, well-paid and regular adultery – and she chose the latter. Besides, she thought that in this way she could be revenged on her first betrayer, and the shop assistant, and all the other people who had wronged her. Another thing that tempted her and greatly influenced her decision was the woman’s promise that she could order any dresses she liked – velvet, poult-de-soie, silk – ball-gowns with low necks and bare arms. The mental picture of herself arrayed in bright yellow silk trimmed with black velvet – décolletée – was irresistible, and she handed over her identity papers. That same evening the procuress called a cab and took her to the notorious establishment kept by Madame Kitayeva.

And from that moment there began for Maslova that life of chronic violation of every commandment, divine and human, a life which hundreds of thousands of women lead, not only with the consent but under the patronage of a government concerned for the welfare of its subjects: a life which for nine out of ten women ends in painful disease, premature old age and death.

Heavy sleep until late in the afternoon followed the orgies of the night. At three or four o’clock a weary rising from a dirty bed, seltzer water to counteract the effects of too much drink, coffee, listless pacing up and down the rooms in peignoirs, bed-jackets or dressing-gowns, gazing out of the windows from behind the drawn curtains, half-hearted squabbling with one another; then ablutions, pomading, perfuming of body and hair, trying on dresses, disputes about them with the proprietress, contemplation of oneself in the looking-glass, the painting of face and eyebrows; fatty, sweet food; then dressing in gaudy silks cut to expose the body, and coming down into the much ornamented, brilliantly lit parlour. Then the guests arrive, there is music, dancing, sweetmeats, wine, smoking and debauchery with young men, middle-aged men, men half children and decrepit old men, unmarried and married, merchants, clerks, Armenians, Jews, Tartars; with rich and poor, healthy and diseased, tipsy and sober, men rough and men gentle, military men and civilians, students and schoolboys – with men of all classes, ages and characters. And cries and jests, brawls and music, and tobacco and wine, and wine and tobacco, and music from evening to daybreak. And only in the morning release and heavy slumber. And so on every day throughout the week. At the end of the week the drive to the government offices – to the police-station where doctors in government service subject these women to a medical examination, sometimes with dignified gravity, sometimes with playful levity, doing away with the modesty nature bestows on man and also on beast to protect them against transgression, and then hand them a licence for the continuation of the transgressions which they and their partners have been committing all the week. And another week starts. And so it goes on, day after day, summer and winter, weekdays and holidays.

Thus Maslova spent seven years. During this time she changed houses twice, and once went to hospital. It was in the seventh year of her life in the brothel and the eighth dating from her first fall, and when she was twenty-six years old, that the incident occurred for which she was arrested and was now being brought to the court-house after six months in gaol with murderers and thieves.