of her wooers would be hard, spoiled, as she was, more or less, by the
comparative ease she enjoyed in the manor.

She had just passed her sixteenth year when the ladies were visited by
their nephew, a rich student, and Katiousha, without daring to confess
it to him, or even to herself, fell in love with him. Two years
afterward, while on his way to the war, he again visited his aunts,
and during his four days' stay, consummated her ruin. Before his
departure he thrust a hundred ruble bill into her hand.

Thenceforward life ceased to have any charms for her, and her only
thought was to escape the shame which awaited her, and not only did
she become lax in her duties, but--and she did not know herself how it
happened--all of a sudden she gave vent to her ill temper. She said
some rude things to the ladies, of which she afterward repented, and
left them.

Dissatisfied with her behavior, they did not detain her. She then
obtained employment as servant in the house of the commissary of rural
police, but was obliged to give up the position at the end of the
third month, for the commissary, a fifty-year old man, pursued her
with his attentions, and when, on one occasion, he became too
persistent, she flared up, called him an old fool, and threw him to
the ground. Then she was driven from the house. She was now so far
advanced on the road to maternity that to look for a position was out
of the question. Hence she took lodgings with an old midwife, who was
also a wine dealer. The confinement came off painlessly. But the
midwife was attending a sick woman in the village, infected Katiousha
with puerperal fever, and the child, a boy, was taken to a foundling
asylum where, she was told, he died immediately after his arrival