oking, but of
late she had been getting more and more accustomed to drink. The wine
attracted her, not because of its taste, but because it enabled her to
forget her past life, to comfort herself with ease, and the confidence
of her own worth that it gave her. Without wine she was despondent and
abashed. There was the choice of two things before her; either the
humiliating occupation of a servant, with the certain unwelcome
attentions of the men, or a secure, quiet and legitimatized position
of everybody's mistress. She wished to revenge herself on her seducer,
as well as the clerk, and all those that brought misfortune upon her.
Besides, she could not withstand the temptation of having all the
dresses her heart desired--dresses made of velvet, gauze and
silk--ball dresses, with open neck and short sleeves. And when Maslova
imagined herself in a bright yellow silk dress, with velvet trimmings,
decolette, she made her choice.

From this day on Maslova began to lead a life to which hundreds of
thousands of women are driven, and which, in nine cases out of ten,
ends in painful disease, premature decrepitude and death.

After a night's orgies there would come a deep slumber till three or
four o'clock in the afternoon; then the weary rising from a dirty
couch; seltzer-water to remove the effect of excessive drinking,
coffee. Then came the sauntering through the rooms in dressing-gown,
looking through the windows; the languid quarrels; then the perfuming
of her body and hair, the trying on of dresses, and the quarrels with
the mistress which they occasioned; contemplating herself in the
mirror, rouging her face, darkening her eyebrows. Then came the sweet,
rich food, the bright silk dress, the entry into the brightly lighted
parlor, the arrival of the guests, music, dancing, confectionery, wine
and cigarettes.

Thus Maslova lived for seven years. On the eighth, when she had
reached her twenty-sixth year, there happened that for which she had
been jailed, and for which she was now led to the court, after six
months of confinement among thieves and murderers.

CHAPTER III.

At the time when Maslova, exhausted by the long walk, was approaching
with the armed convoy the building in which court was held, the same
nephew of the ladies that brought her up, Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch
Nekhludoff, who deceived her, lay on his high, soft, spring
feather-bed, in spotless Holland linen, smoking a cigarette. He was
gazing befo