“You d----d Jewess!” I retorted fiercely, and ran out of the shop. I went to my mother and told her of the incident. She was horrified. “But now she won’t take you back. What shall we do without your wages, Marusia? How shall we pay the rent? We shall have to go begging again.” And she began to cry. After some time my employer came after me, rebuking me for my quick temper. “How could I have known that you were so anxious to go to the theatre?” she asked. “All right, I’ll give you fifteen kopeks every Sunday so that you can go.” I became a regular Sunday occupant of the gallery, watching with intense interest the players, their strange gestures and manners of speech. Five years I worked for Nastasia Leontievna, assuming more important duties as I grew older. Early in the morning I would rise, open the shutters, knead the dough, and sweep or scrub the floors. I finally grew weary of this daily grind and began to think of finding other work. But my mother was ill and my father worked less and less, drinking most of the time. He grew more brutal, beating us all unmercifully. My sisters were forced to stay away from home. Shura married at sixteen, and I, fourteen years old, became the mainstay of the family. It was often necessary to get my pay in advance in order to keep the family from starving. The temptation to steal came to me suddenly one day. I had never stolen anything before, and Nastasia Leontievna repeatedly pointed out this virtue in me to her friends. “Here is a _moujitchka_ who doesn’t steal,” she would say. But one day, on unpacking a barrel of sugar delivered at the shop, I found seven sugar-loaves instead of the usual six. The impulse to take the extra loaf of sugar was irresistible. At night I smuggled it stealthily out of the shop and took it home. My father was dismayed. “What have you done, Marusia? Take it back immediately,” he ordered. I began to cry and said that the sugar was not really Nastasia Leontievna’s, that the error had been made at the refinery. Then my father consented to keep it. I returned to the shop and went to bed, but my eyes would not close; my conscience troubled me. “What if she suspects that a loaf of sugar was missing? What if she discovers that I have stolen it?” And a feeling of shame came over me. The following day I could not look straight into Nastasia Leontievna’s eyes. I felt guilty. My face burned. At every motion of hers my heart quivered in anticipation of the terrible disclosure. Finally she noticed that there was something the matter with me. “What’s wrong with you, Marusia?” she questioned, drawing me close to her. “Are you not well?”