LITMIR.BIZ

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you having me as a lover? I’d like to be your husband before the pre-eternal holy altar: then, even considering myself as always lesser than you, I could still show everybody publicly how I deserve my wife by my honoring her…”

      Katerina Lvovna was bemused by these words of Sergei, by this jealousy of his, by this wish of his to marry her – a wish that always pleases a woman, however brief her connection with the man before marriage. Katerina Lvovna was now ready, for the sake of Sergei, to go through fire, through water, to prison, to the cross. He made her fall so in love with him that her devotion to him knew no measure. She was out of her mind with happiness; her blood boiled, and she could no longer listen to anything. She quickly stopped Sergei’s lips with her palm and, pressing his head to her breast, said:

      “Well, now I know that I’m going to make a merchant of you and live with you in the most proper fashion. Only don’t upset me for nothing, while things still haven’t gotten there.”

      And again there were kisses and caresses.

      The old clerk, asleep in the shed, began to hear through his sound sleep, in the stillness of the night, now whispering and quiet laughter, as if mischievous children were discussing some wicked way to mock a feeble old man; now ringing and merry guffaws, as if lake mermaids were tickling somebody. It was all Katerina Lvovna frolicking and playing with her husband’s young clerk, basking in the moonlight and rolling on the soft rug. White young blossoms from the leafy apple tree poured down on them, poured down, and then stopped pouring down. Meanwhile, the short summer night was passing; the moon hid behind the steep roofs of the tall storehouses and looked askance at the earth, growing dimmer and dimmer; a piercing cat duet came from the kitchen roof, then spitting, angry snarling, after which two or three cats, losing hold, tumbled noisily down a bunch of boards leaning against the roof.

      “Let’s go to sleep,” Katerina Lvovna said slowly, as if worn out, getting up from the rug and, just as she had lain there, in nothing but her shift and white petticoat, she went off across the quiet, the deathly quiet merchant’s yard, and Sergei came behind her carrying the rug and her blouse, which she had thrown off during their mischief-making.

      Chapter Seven

      As soon as Katerina Lvovna blew out the candle and lay down, completely undressed, on the soft featherbed, sleep drew its cloak over her head. Having had her fill of play and pleasure, Katerina Lvovna fell asleep so soundly that her leg sleeps and her arm sleeps; but again she hears through her sleep how the door seems to open again and last night’s cat drops like a heavy lump onto the bed.

      “What, really, is this punishment with the cat?” the tired Katerina Lvovna reasoned. “I just now locked the door on purpose, with my own hands, the window is shut, and he’s here again. I’ll throw him out right now.” Katerina Lvovna went to get up, but her sleepy arms and legs refuse to serve her; and the cat walks all over her, and purrs in such a peculiar way, as if he were speaking human words. Katerina Lvovna even got gooseflesh all over.

      “No,” she thinks, “the only thing to do is make sure to bring some holy water to bed tomorrow, because this peculiar cat has taken to me.”

      But the cat purrs in her ear, buries his snout, and then speaks clearly: “What sort of cat am I! As if I’m a cat! It’s very clever of you, Katerina Lvovna, to reason that I’m not a cat at all, but the distinguished merchant Boris Timofeich. Only I’m feeling bad now, because my guts are all burst inside me from my daughter-in-law’s little treat. That’s why I’ve been reduced down like this,” he purrs, “and now seem like a cat to those with little understanding of who I really am. Well, how’s life going for you, Katerina Lvovna? Are you keeping faithfully to your law? I’ve come from the cemetery on purpose to see how you and Sergei Filippych warm your husband’s bed. Purr-purr, but I can’t see anything. Don’t be afraid of me: you see, my eyes rotted out from your little treat. Look into my eyes, my friend, don’t be afraid!”

      Katerina Lvovna looked and screamed to high heaven. Again the cat is lying between her and Sergei Filippych, and the head of this cat Boris Timofeich is as big as the dead man’s, and in place of eyes there are two fiery circles spinning, spinning in opposite directions!

      Sergei woke up, calmed Katerina Lvovna, and fell asleep again; but sleep had totally deserted her – luckily.

      She lies with open eyes and suddenly hears a noise as if someone has climbed the gate in the yard. Now the dogs come rushing, then quiet down – must have started fawning. Now another minute passes, and the iron latch clicks, and the door opens. “Either I’m imagining it all, or it’s my Zinovy Borisych come home, because the door’s been opened with the spare key,” thought Katerina Lvovna, and she hurriedly gave Sergei a shove.

      “Listen, Seryozha,” she said, and she propped herself on her elbow and pricked up her ears.

      Someone was indeed coming up the stairs, stepping carefully on one foot after the other, approaching the locked door of the bedroom.

      Katerina Lvovna quickly leaped out of bed in nothing but her shift and opened the window. At the same moment, barefoot Sergei jumped out onto the gallery and twined his legs around the post, which he had more than once used to climb down from his mistress’s bedroom.

      “No, don’t, don’t! Lie down here… don’t go far,” Katerina Lvovna whispered and threw his shoes and clothes out to him, and herself darted back under the blanket and lay waiting.

      Sergei obeyed Katerina Lvovna: he did not slide down the post, but huddled on the gallery under a bast mat.

      Meanwhile, Katerina Lvovna hears her husband come to the door and listen, holding his breath. She even hears the quickened beating of his jealous heart; but it is not pity but wicked laughter that is bursting from Katerina Lvovna.

      “Go searching for yesteryear,” she thinks to herself, smiling and breathing like an innocent babe.

      This lasted for some ten minutes; but Zinovy Borisych finally got tired of standing outside the door and listening to his wife sleeping: he knocked.

      “Who’s there?” Katerina Lvovna called out, not at once and as if in a sleepy voice.

      “It’s me.”

      “Is that you, Zinovy Borisych?”

      “It’s me,” replied Zinovy Borisych. “As if you don’t hear!”

      Katerina Lvovna jumped up just as she was, in her shift, let her husband into the room, and dove back into the warm bed.

      “It’s getting cold before dawn,” she said, wrapping the blanket around her.

      Zinovy Borisych came in looking around, said a prayer, lit a candle, and glanced around again.

      “How’s your life going?” he asked his spouse.

      “Not bad,” answered Katerina Lvovna and, getting up, she began to put on a calico bed jacket.

      “Shall I set up the samovar?” she asked.

      “Never mind, call Aksinya, let her do it.”

      Katerina Lvovna quickly slipped her bare feet into her shoes and ran out. She was gone for about half an hour. During that time she started the samovar herself and quietly fluttered out to Sergei on the gallery.

      “Stay here,” she whispered.

      “How long?” Sergei asked, also in a whisper.

      “Oh, what a dimwit you are! Stay till I tell you.”

      And Katerina Lvovna herself put him back in his former place.

      From out there on the gallery, Sergei could hear everything that went on in the bedroom. He hears the door open again and Katerina Lvovna return to her husband. He hears every word.

      “What were you doing there so long?” Zinovy Borisych asked his wife.

      “Setting up the samovar,” she replied calmly.

      There was a pause. Sergei hears Zinovy Borisych hang up his coat on the coat rack. Now he is washing, snorting and splashing water all over; now he asks for a towel; the talk begins again.

      “Well,

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