Once only, when, after the war, he went to see his aunts in hopes of meeting Katúsha, and heard that soon after his last visit she had left, and that his aunts had heard she had been confined somewhere or other and had gone quite to the bad, his heart ached. According to the time of her confinement, the child might or might not have been his. His aunts said she had gone wrong, that she had inherited her mother’s depraved nature, and he was pleased to hear this opinion of his aunts’. It seemed to acquit him. At first he thought of trying to find her and her child, but then, just because in the depths of his soul he felt so ashamed and pained when thinking about her, he did not make the necessary effort to find her, but tried to forget his sin again and ceased to think about it. And now this strange coincidence brought it all back to his memory, and demanded from him the acknowledgment of the heartless, cruel cowardice which had made it possible for him to live these nine years with such a sin on his conscience. But he was still far from such an acknowledgment, and his only fear was that everything might now be found out, and that she or her advocate might recount it all and put him to shame before everyone present.
XIX
In this state of mind Nekhlúdoff left the Court and went into the jurymen’s room. He sat by the window smoking all the while, and hearing what was being said around him.
The merry merchant seemed with all his heart to sympathise with Smelkóff’s way of spending his time. “There, old fellow, that was something like! Real Siberian fashion! He knew what he was about, no fear! That’s the sort of wench for me.”
The foreman was stating his conviction, that in some way or other the expert’s conclusions were the important thing. Peter Gerásimovitch was joking about something with the Jewish clerk, and they burst out laughing. Nekhlúdoff answered all the questions addressed to him in monosyllables and longed only to be left in peace.
When the usher, with his sideways gait, called the jury back to the Court, Nekhlúdoff was seized with fear, as if he were not going to judge, but to be judged. In the depth of his soul he felt that he was a scoundrel, who ought to be ashamed to look people in the face, yet, by sheer force of habit, he stepped on to the platform in his usual self-possessed manner, and sat down, crossing his legs and playing with his pince-nez.
The prisoners had also been led out, and were now brought in again. There were some new faces in the Court witnesses, and Nekhlúdoff noticed that Máslova could not take her eyes off a very fat woman who sat in the row in front of the grating, very showily dressed in silk and velvet, a high hat with a large bow on her head, and an elegant little reticule on her arm, which was bare to the elbow. This was, as he subsequently found out, one of the witnesses, the mistress of the establishment to which Máslova had belonged.
The examination of the witnesses commenced: they were asked their names, religion, etc. Then, after some consultation as to whether the witnesses were to be sworn in or not, the old priest came in again, dragging his legs with difficulty, and, again arranging the golden cross on his breast, swore the witnesses and the expert in the same quiet manner, and with the same assurance that he was doing something useful and important.
The witnesses having been sworn, all but Kitáeva, the keeper of the house, were led out again. She was asked what she knew about this affair. Kitáeva nodded her head and the big hat at every sentence and smiled affectedly. She gave a very full and intelligent account, speaking with a strong German accent. First of all, the hotel servant Simeon, whom she knew, came to her establishment on behalf of a rich Siberian merchant, and she sent Lubóv back with him. After a time Lubóv returned with the merchant. The merchant was already somewhat intoxicated—she smiled as she said this—and went on drinking and treating the girls. He was short of money. He sent this same Lubóv to his lodgings. He had taken a “predilection” to her. She looked at the prisoner as she said this.
Nekhlúdoff thought he saw Máslova smile here, and this seemed disgusting to him. A strange, indefinite feeling of loathing, mingled with suffering, arose in him.
“And what was your opinion of Máslova?” asked the blushing and confused applicant for a judicial post, appointed to act as Máslova’s advocate.
“Zee ferry pesht,” answered Kitáeva. “Zee yoong voman is etucated and elecant. She was prought up in a coot family and can reat French. She tid have a trop too moch sometimes, put nefer forcot herself. A ferry coot girl.”
Katúsha looked at the woman, then suddenly turned her eyes on the jury and fixed them on Nekhlúdoff, and her face grew serious and even severe. One of her serious eyes squinted, and those two strange eyes for some time gazed at Nekhlúdoff, who, in spite of the terrors that seized him, could not take his look off these squinting eyes, with their bright, clear whites.
He thought of that dreadful night, with its mist, the ice breaking on the river below, and when the waning moon, with horns turned upwards, that had risen towards morning, lit up something black
