he contrary, she seemed to be content with,
and even took pride in it. And yet it could not be different.

It is usually thought that a thief or murderer, acknowledging the
harmfulness of his occupation, ought to be ashamed of it. The truth is
just the contrary. People, whom fate and their sinful mistakes have
placed in a given condition, form such views of life generally that
they are enabled to consider their condition useful and morally
tenable. In order, however, to maintain such views they instinctively
cling to such circles in which the same views are held. We are
surprised when we hear thieves boasting of their cleverness, or
murderers boasting of their cruelty, but that is only because their
circle is limited, and because we are outside of it.

This was the case also with Maslova. She was sentenced to penal
servitude, and yet she formed such views of life and her place in it
that she could find reasons for self-approval and even boast before
people of her condition.

The substance of this view was that the greatest welfare of all men,
without exception--young, old, students, generals, educated and
uneducated--consisted in associating with attractive women, and that
therefore all men, while pretending to occupy themselves with other
business, in reality desire nothing else. Now, she is an attractive
woman, and can satisfy that desire of theirs, or not, as she wishes,
hence she is a necessary and important person. All her life, past and
present, attested the justice of this view.

Whomever she met during ten years, beginning with Nekhludoff and the
old commissary of police, and ending with the jailers, all wanted her.
She had not met any one who did not want her. Hence the world appeared
to her as an aggregation of people who watched her from all sides and
by all possible means--deceit, violence, gold or craftiness--strewn to
possess her.

With such an idea of life, Maslova considered herself a most important
person. And she cherished this view above all else in the world,
because to change it would be to lose that standing among people which
it assured her. And in order not to lose her standing she
instinctively clung to that circle which held the same views of life.
Seeing, however, that Nekhludoff wished to lead her into another
world, she resisted it, feeling that in that other world into which he
was luring her she would lose her present standing which gave her
confidence and self-respect. For the same