in was over, the witnesses were removed to an adjoining room, leaving
only Kitaeva, Maslova's mistress. She was asked what she knew of the
affair. Kitaeva, with a feigned smile, a German accent, and
straightening her hat at every sentence, fluently and circumstantially
related the following:

Simon came first to her house for Liubasha.[E] In a little while
Liubasha returned with the merchant. "The merchant was already in
ecstasy," slightly smiling, said Kitaeva, "and he continued to drink
and treat himself, but as he was short of money he sent to his room
this same Liubasha, for whom he acquired a predilection," she said,
looking at Maslova.

It seemed to Nekhludoff that Maslova smiled at this, and the smile
seemed to him disgusting. A strange feeling of squeamishness mingled
with compassion rose in his breast.

"What opinion did you entertain of Maslova?" timidly and blushingly
asked the attorney assigned by the court to defend Maslova.

"Very excellent," answered Kitaeva. "The girl is very well educated
and elegant in her manners. She was raised in a very good family, and
could read French. She sometimes drank a little too much, but she
never forgot herself. She is a very good girl."

Katiousha looked at her mistress, then suddenly turned her eyes on the
jury and rested them on Nekhludoff, her face becoming serious and even
stern. One of the stern eyes squinted. These strangely gazing eyes
were turned on Nekhludoff for a considerable time. Notwithstanding the
terror that seized him, he could not remove his own gaze from those