"What name did you receive at baptism?" asked the angry member.
"Formerly I was called Katherine."
"It is impossible," Nekhludoff continued to repeat, although there was no doubt in his mind now that it was she, that same servant ward with whom he had been in love at one time—yes, in love, real love, and whom in a moment of mental fever he led astray, then abandoned, and to whom he never gave a second thought, because the recollection of it was too painful, revealed too manifestly that he, who prided himself of his good breeding, not only did not treat her decently, but basely deceived her.
Yes, it was she. He saw plainly the mysterious peculiarity that distinguishes every individual from every other individual. Notwithstanding the unnatural whiteness and fullness of her face, this pleasant peculiarity was in the face, in the lips, in the slightly squinting eyes, and, principally, in the naive, smiling glance, and in the expression of submissiveness not only in the face, but in the whole figure.
"You should have said so," again very gently said the presiding justice. "What is your patronymic?"
"I am illegitimate," said Maslova.
"But yet you were named after your godfather?"
"Michailova."
"What crime could she have committed?" Nekhludoff thought meanwhile, his breath almost failing him.
"What is your surname—your family name?" continued the presiding justice.