asleep when Grushenka returned. She hardly dared to go back into the bed alongside of him.
But he did not wake up, he did not stir. Sleep was far away from Grushenka's eyes. She lay awake, staring through the darkness of the room at the man next to her, at her beloved, the one and only. She did not cry because fate would take him away from her the next day, she just prayed for him and she was happy until the early morning hours closed her eyes for a short rest. It was a grey morning of drizzling rain and they were three tired and moody travelers. They spoke very little. The horses made haste to reach the next stable while the coachman uttered faint curses and did not bother to wipe the raindrops from his wet face. They ate hurried meals by the wayside and the spirit of adventure and sentiment of the previous night was forgotten. When Grushenka left them for a moment in an inn, Fladilow wanted to collect the laurels for the night before. Winking with his eye after the disappearing girl, he commented on her unusual love-making qualities. He was surprised at the answer he got and could no more understand his friend than the other could get the meaning of his words. “Lousy!” remarked Mihail. “Just lousy! Take a piece of timber and screw a hole in it and you'd get a better reaction. Isn't it so?” This puzzled them both. Especially when Fladilow swore that since that Swedish girl in Stockholm, of whom he had spoken so often before, he had not had such a wonderful time, except with Grushenka.
To which Mihail answered, “Pooh!” and the matter was dropped.
They reached the towers of Moscow after dark, passing the gates without molestation after Mihail had presented his pass. The clattering and rumbling coach entered the ill-lit streets of the poor quarters. Grushenka begged to be permitted to take leave. The men wondered what business she had in this city, but they stopped the carriage assuring her that if they could do anything for her at any time they were at her service. When Grushenka departed, Mihail kissed her on both cheeks and felt a sudden attachment to this mysterious beauty. Before they finally parted she felt Mihail press something into her hand. “Password to the gates of heaven and hell!” he cried merrily, and the coach drove on at a quick pace.
Grushenka stood on the sidewalk. She was alone. In her hand were a few gold pieces. She began to cry. He had paid her. What a disgrace!
She knew the neighborhood well enough and started a hasty run along the houses, keeping in the shadows, until she came to an old, dilapidated two story house. She moved around the building to a back entrance which was open and ascended a creaking wooden stair, dimly lit by small oil lamps. On the top floor she stopped and knocked on one of the many doors which were around this landing. First she knocked faintly, then more boldly, with great fear in her heart that her only girl friend Martha might not live here any more. She had not seen her since she had gone to the Sokolows, in fact had never had the opportunity to tell her about her change in life. What would happen to her now if she could not find shelter with Martha? Finally there was a faint rustling inside and a terrified small voice asked who was outside. “Grushenka,” answered the girl, her heart leaping with joy.
“Grushenka, you little dove!”… and soon the girls lay in each other's arms, kissing each other's cheeks and crying on each other's breast to celebrate their having found each other again.
CHAPTER NINE
Marta's history can be told very briefly. It is a story of which there are many similar. She was born out of wedlock to a mother who was the daughter of a rich and independent farmer; her mother had been driven from home when she was heavy with child. In time, Marta had been given in servitude to a modiste. This modiste, Mademoiselle Laura Cameron, kept a fashionable hat and gown store in one of the few elegant thoroughfares of Moscow. Marta was not yet fourteen years of age when she became a servant of this sweet, lisping but keenly selfish woman who exercised parental rights over the little girl and abused her with hard work and harsh treatment. In exchange she paid her small wages which Marta had to deliver to her mother, who received the money by making her signature on a slip of paper. This signature consisted of three crosses, because mother and daughter could not read nor write. Maria's mother refused some offers to sell the girl as a serf. She had taken a room in the poorer quarters and had done such odd jobs as a woman could find, barely enough to keep them alive. Worried and exhausted by hardship, she had finally consented to die, leaving her little girl to shift alone.
Maria did not dare tell this to her employer, because she feared that Madame Laura would make a real serf out of her right away, taking her into the house where she kept a few girls already. Instead, she received the small wages and signed with the crosses as if her mother were still alive. This and many more things she told Grushenka, who in turn related her story. Of course, this all took several days-rather nights, because Maria went to her work early and came home at sunset. Meanwhile Grushenka stayed in the poor room, sleeping in the big bed and not going out for fear that she would be picked up by the police or by the searchers of Sophia. However, with the gold pieces which Mikhail had left in Grushenka's little hand, they had a wonderful time-together, eating and drinking what money could buy.
But it was apparent that this could not go on forever, so they decided that Maria should tell her mistress that a cousin of hers had arrived in the city and desired to enter her services. Moved by Maria's raving description, Madame Laura consented to take a look at Grushenka and thus they went one fine morning to the store of this commanding lady. Maria had bought Grushenka some clothes such as a farm girl might wear when she came to the city: a multi-colored blouse, a pleated skirt, a kerchief to be wound around the head, all very becoming to Grushenka, who, much to her advantage, displayed the tan on her cheeks which the country life on Sokolov's estate had left there. Maria-stout and stocky, with a round, good-hearted face, certainly not pretty, but young and unspoiled-hesitated several times on the way. Of course she had given her girl friend a description of Madame Laura and her establishment, and, of course, Grushenka had seen hard treatment in her almost twenty years of serfdom and did not expect to be treated with lad gloves. But had not Marta given too good an account of that which would be in store for Grushenka? To ease her mind, she told Grushenka frankly that she had suppressed many unpleasant features which the work for Madame Laura would carry with it. Grushenka, however, had decided to go through with it. What could she do? There were no labor markets where jobs could be found.
Labor was conducted by the members of a family in small enterprises; the bigger ones bought serfs. Some trades requiring craftmanship, such as carpentry or pottery, hired workers, but only through their own guilds. Furthermore, if Grushenka should really have the luck to be hired by Madame Laura, could not she and Marta live together and continue those heavenly nights, during which Grushenka could rave about her heavenly Mikhail? Work and mistreatment? Was Grushenka not used to that since early childhood? Marta made the sign of the cross and they entered Madame Laura's. Through a gilded door covered with fresh garlands of flowers they came info a huge salesroom with a low ceiling and elegant furniture. Grushenka's eye, trained through her work as clothes horse for the Princess, detected with pleasure the thick array of woman's styles, expensive materials, good craftsmanship- this must be a store for the very rich! Crossing the room, they entered the second salesroom, consisting of a small hallway which parted half, a dozen private rooms equipped with huge mirrors, easy chairs and couches. Of course there were no customers at this early morning hour, but a few attractive girls were busy cleaning and dusting. The third room on the ground floor was Madame's sumptuously furnished private office. Madame Laura was not yet in; in fact, she would not come before noon, and Grushenka went with Marta to the sewing room on the next floor. Fifteen or more girls already sat at their work, sewing, cutting and trying on the hats, gowns, dresses and underwear created under the supervision of two elderly expert modistes. Marta joined the workers while Grushenka sat modestly on a chair and watched, eager to do this kind of work so pleasing to her female instinct for beautifying. At last one of the girls came from downstairs, notifying Marta and Grushenka that they were wanted by the mistress. Madame Laura received the girls with her sweetest smile complimenting them on being two such lovely cousins.
She scrutinized Grushenka with sharp eyes, asking her whether she had learned sewing with “her dear mother” and asking many questions about her and Marta's home village, but not waiting for any answers.
Everything seemed to go well as the girls shamefacedly stuttered a few words but did not dare to glance at each other. But Madame Laura's keen sense of people, which had brought her her clientele and fortune, suspected that something was wrong. For example, where did this girl, supposed to have come from the country, get those silk stockings and those shoes? Then she detected the well manicured and soft hands, which surely were not those of a tramp from a village.
Madame Laura moved around to her desk chair of rosewood with brass heads on the arms. She had Marta close the door and put Grushenka in the full light opposite herself. She concentrated her attention all the more on
