“Is it possible that she has recognised me?” thought Nekhlúdoff, and the blood rushed to his face. But Máslova 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 Kartínkin? 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 beforehand 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 Kartínkin and her,” she said, pointing to Bótchkova.
“That’s a lie; I never went in,” Bótchkova began, but was stopped.
“In their presence I took out four notes,” continued Máslova, frowning, without looking at Bótchkova.
“Yes, but did the prisoner notice,” again asked the prosecutor, “how much money there was when she was getting out the forty roubles?”
Máslova shuddered when the prosecutor addressed her; she did not know why it was, but she felt that he wished her evil.
“I did not count it, but only saw some one-hundred-rouble notes.”
“Ah! The prisoner saw one-hundred-rouble notes. That’s all?”
“Well, so you brought back the money,” continued the president, looking at the clock.
“I did.”
“Well, and then?”
“Then he took me back with him,” said Máslova.
“Well, and how did you give him the powder? In his drink?”
“How did I give it? I put them in and gave it him.”
“Why did you give it him?”
She did not answer, but sighed deeply and heavily.
“He would not let me go,” she said, after a moment’s silence, “and I was quite tired out, and so I went out into the passage and said to Simeon, ‘If he would only let me go, I am so tired.’ And he said, ‘We are also sick of him; we were thinking of giving him a sleeping draught; he will fall asleep, and then you can go.’ So I said all right. I thought they were harmless, and he gave me the packet. I went in. He was lying behind the partition, and at once called for brandy. I took a bottle of ‘fine champagne’ from the table, poured out two glasses, one for him and one for myself, and put the powders into his glass, and gave it him. Had I known how could I have given them to him?”
“Well, and how did the ring come into your possession?” asked the president. “When did he give it you?”
“That was when we came back to his lodgings. I wanted to go away, and he gave me a knock on the head and broke my comb. I got angry and said I’d go away, and he took the ring off his finger and gave it to me so that I should not go,” she said.
Then the public prosecutor again slightly raised himself, and, putting on an air of simplicity, asked permission to put a few more questions, and, having received it, bending his head over his embroidered collar, he said: “I should like to know how long the prisoner remained in the merchant Smelkóff’s room.”
Máslova again seemed frightened, and she again looked anxiously from the public prosecutor to the president, and said hurriedly:
“I do not remember how long.”
“Yes, but does the prisoner remember if she went anywhere else in the lodging-house after she left Smelkóff?”
Máslova considered for a moment. “Yes, I did go into an empty room next to his.”
“Yes, and why did you go in?” asked the public prosecutor, forgetting himself, and addressing her directly.
“I went in to rest a bit, and to wait for an isvóstchik.”
“And was Kartínkin in the room with the prisoner, or not?”
“He came in.”
“Why did he come in?”
“There was some of the merchant’s brandy left, and we finished it together.”
“Oh, finished it together. Very well! And did the prisoner talk to Kartínkin, and, if so, what about?”
Máslova suddenly frowned, blushed very red, and said, hurriedly, “What about? I did not talk about anything, and that’s all I know. Do what you like with me; I am not guilty, and that’s all.”
“I have nothing more to ask,” said the prosecutor, and, drawing up his shoulders in an unnatural manner, began writing down, as the prisoner’s own evidence, in the notes for his speech, that she had been in the empty room with Kartínkin.
There was a short silence.
“You have nothing more to say?”
“I have told everything,” she said, with a sigh, and sat down.
Then the president noted something down, and, having listened to something that the member on his left whispered to him, he announced a ten-minutes’ interval, rose hurriedly, and left the court. The communication he had received from the tall, bearded member with the kindly eyes was that the member, having felt a slight stomach derangement, wished to do a little massage and to take some drops. And this was why an
