Then two years later this same nephew stayed four days with his
aunts before proceeding to join his regiment, and the night
before he left he betrayed Katusha, and, after giving her a
100-rouble note, went away. Five months later she knew for
certain that she was to be a mother. After that everything seemed
repugnant to her, her only thought being how to escape from the
shame that awaited her. She began not only to serve the ladies in
a half-hearted and negligent way, but once, without knowing how
it happened, was very rude to them, and gave them notice, a thing
she repented of later, and the ladies let her go, noticing
something wrong and very dissatisfied with her. Then she got a
housemaid's place in a police-officer's house, but stayed there
only three months, for the police officer, a man of fifty, began
to torment her, and once, when he was in a specially enterprising
mood, she fired up, called him "a fool and old devil," and gave
him such a knock in the chest that he fell. She was turned out
for her rudeness. It was useless to look for another situation,
for the time of her confinement was drawing near, so she went to
the house of a village midwife, who also sold wine. The
confinement was easy; but the midwife, who had a case of fever in
the village, infected Katusha, and her baby boy had to be sent to
the foundlings' hospital, where, according to the words of the
old woman who took him there, he at once died. When Katusha went
to the midwife she had 127 roubles in all, 27 which she had
earned and 100 given her by her betrayer. When she left she had
but six roubles; she did not know how to keep money, but spent it
on herself, and gave to all who asked. The midwife took 40
roubles for two months' board and attendance, 25 went to get the
baby into the foundlings' hospital, and 40 the midwife borrowed