"Aunt Michaelovna!" shouted the little girl, "you have lost your
shawl."

Katiousha stopped, threw back her head, and, covering her face with
her hands, began to sob.

"He is gone!" she cried.

"While he is in a lighted car, sitting on a plush seat, jesting and
drinking, I stand here in the mud, rain and wind, crying," she
thought. She sat down on the ground and began to sob aloud. The little
girl was frightened, and, embracing her wet clothing, she said:

"Auntie, let's go home."

"I will wait for the next train, throw myself under the wheels, and
that will end it all," Katiousha was meanwhile thinking, not heeding
the girl.

She made up her mind to carry out her intention. But as it always
happens in the first moment of calm after a period of agitation, the
child, _his_ child, suddenly shuddered. Immediately all that which so
tortured her that she was willing to die, all her wrath and her
desire to revenge herself even by death, passed. She became calm,
arranged her clothing, put the shawl on her head, and went away.

She returned home exhausted, wet and muddy. From that day began in her
that spiritual transformation which ended in her present condition.
From that terrible night on she ceased to believe in God and in
goodness. Before that night she herself believed in God, and believed