said somebody, five minutes later at Katerina Lvovna's locked door.
"Who's there?" asked Katerina Lvovna, frightened.
"Don't be afraid! It's I, Sergei," answered the clerk.
"Sergei? What do you want?"
"I have a little business with you, Katerina Lvovna; I want to ask your gracious self about a small matter. Allow me to come in for a moment."
Katerina Lvovna turned the key and let Sergei in.
"What do you want?" she said, going to the window.
"I have come to you, Katerina Lvovna, to ask if you have some book you could give me to read. It helps to drive away boredom."
"No, Sergei, I have no books. I do not read them," answered Katerina Lvovna.
"It's so dull!" Sergei complained.
"Why should you feel dull?"
"Good gracious, how can I help feeling dull? I'm a young man; we live here like in a monastery, and the only future to be seen is that we shall go on stagnating in this solitude till we are under the coffin-lid. It makes one sometimes despair."
"Why don't you get married?"
"It's easy, madam, to say get married. Whom can one marry here? I'm only an unimportant man. A master's daughter won't marry me, and owing to poverty, as you yourself know, Katerina Lvovna, I have not much education. How could such a girl know anything about real love? Surely you have noticed how rich merchants understand it. Now you, one may say, would be a comfort to any man who has any feelings, but they keep you in a cage like a canary-bird."
"Yes, I am dull," exclaimed Katerina Lvovna involuntarily.
"How can one help being dull, madam, in such a life? Even if you had another, as others have, it would be impossible to see him."
"Why, what do you mean? It's not that at all. If only I had had a child, I think I should be merry with it."
"Yes, but allow me to say madam, even a child comes from somewhere and not out of the clouds. Do you think, that now having lived so many years with masters, and having seen the sort of life the women have among merchants, we also don't understand? The song says: 'Without a dear friend, sadness and grief possess thee.' And this sadness, I must inform you, Katerina Lvovna, has made my heart feel so tender, that I could take a steel knife to cut it out of my breast and throw it at your little feet. It would be easier, a hundred times easier for me then . . . ."
Sergei's voice shook.
"Why are you telling me about your heart? I have nothing to do with it. Go away . . . ."
"No, allow me, madam," said Sergei, trembling all over and taking a step towards Katerina Lvovna. "I know, I see, I feel and understand quite well that your lot is no better than mine in this world; but now," said he, drawing a long breath, "now at this moment, all this is in your hands, and in your power."
"What do you mean?—Why have you come to me?—I shall throw myself out of the window," said Katerina Lvovna, feeling herself under the intolerable power of an indescribable terror, and she caught hold of the window sill.
"My life! My incomparable one, why should you throw yourself out of the window?" whispered Sergei boldly, and tearing the young mistress away from the window he pressed her in a close embrace.
"Oh, oh, let me go," Katerina Lvovna sighed gently, becoming weak under Sergei's hot kisses, and she pressed, contrary to her own wish, closer to his strong body.
Sergei lifted the mistress up in his arms like a child and carried her to a dark corner.
A silence fell upon the room, which was only broken by the soft regular ticking of a watch, belonging to Katerina Lvovna's husband, which hung over the head of the bed; but this did not disturb them.
"Go," said Katerina Lvovna half an hour later, without looking at Sergei, as she arranged her disordered hair before a small mirror.
"Why should I go away from here now," answered Sergei in a joyful voice.
"My father-in-law will lock the door."
"Eh, my dear, my dear! What sort of people have you known, that you think the only road to a woman is through a door? To come to you, or to go from you there are doors everywhere for me," said the young fellow, pointing to the columns that supported the gallery.
IV
For more than a week Zinovey Borisych did not return, and the whole time his wife spent every night, till the white dawn, with Sergei.
In those nights much happened in Zinovey Borisych's bedroom: wine from the father-in-law's cellar was drunk; dainty sweetmeats eaten; many kisses taken from the mistress's sugared lips, and black locks toyed with on the soft pillows. But not every road is smooth: some have ruts.
Boris Timofeich could not sleep. The old man in his coloured print shirt wandered about the quiet house; he went up to one window, went up to another, looked out, and saw Sergei in a red shirt quietly sliding down the column from his daughter-in-law's window. "What's this?"
Boris Timofeich hurried out and caught the young fellow by the leg. Sergei turned round wanting to give him a box on the ear, with his whole strength, but stopped, remembering the noise it would make.
"Tell me where you have been, you young thief?" said Boris Timofeich.
"Wherever it was, Boris Timofeich," said Sergei, "I am no longer there."
"Have you spent the night with my daughter-in-law?"
"Well, as to that, master, I know where I have passed the night; but, Boris Timofeich, listen to my words; what is done can't be undone, father. Don't disgrace your merchant's house by taking extreme measures. Tell me what you require of me now? What amends do you want?"
"You asp, I want to give you five hundred lashes," answered Boris Timofeich.
"As you will—it's my fault," agreed the young man. "Tell me where to go; do as you please—you may drink my blood."
Boris Timofeich took Sergei to his little stone store-room, and lashed him with his whip until he had no more strength. Sergei did not utter a groan, but instead he chewed half his shirt sleeve away.
Boris Timofeich left Sergei in the store-room for the bruises on his back to heal, gave him an earthen jug of water, locked the door with a great padlock, and sent for his son.
In Russia even now you can't drive fast over by-ways, and Katerina Lvovna could not live a single hour without Sergei. Her awakened nature had suddenly developed to its full breadth, and she had become so resolute that it was impossible to restrain her. She found out where Sergei was, talked with him through the iron door, and hurried away to look for the keys. "Daddy, let Sergei out," said she coming to her father-in-law.
The old man turned green. He had never expected such brazen-faced insolence
