Nikolai Leskov

“ Are you already tired of my love?"
"Don't talk nonsense," answered Sergei shortly, and bending down kissed Katerina Lvovna lazily.
"You're fickle, Serezha," said Katerina Lvovna, feeling jealous. "You're not constant."
"I won't accept these words as applying to me," said Sergei quietly.
"Why do you kiss me in that way?"
Sergei became quite silent.
"It is only husbands and wives" continued Katerina Lvovna playing with his curls, "who take the dust off each others lips in that way. Kiss me now so that the young blossoms of the apple tree above us shall fall to the earth." ”

“ Then you have seen miracles?"
"Who has not seen miracles, Vladyko?"
"Yet . . . ."
"Why 'yet'? Wherever you look there are miracles—there is water in the clouds, the earth is borne up by the air like a feather; here we are, you and I—dust and ashes—but we move about and think; that is also a miracle to me; we shall die and turn to dust, but our soul will go to Him who has placed it in us. It is a miracle to me that it will go naked, without anything? Who will give it wings to fly away like a dove and rest there?" ”

“ Katerina Lvovna thought as she staggered along, not seeing the ground under her feet.
But now, more than ever, her pride would not allow her to take the first step towards reconciliation. During this time Sergei became more and more intimate with Sonetka, and all began to whisper that the unapproachable Sonetka, who like an eel twirled round everybody's hands without being caught, had somehow become much more tame.
"Do you see that," said Fiona to Katerina Lvovna, "you cried about me. Now what have I done to you? I had my chance, but it's over. You'd better look to Sonetka." ”

“ Ah, Vladyko, why do you want to have everything at once. God's work goes its own way, without bustle. Were there not six water pots at the wedding of Cana, and they were certainly not all filled at the same time, but one after the other. Why Father, even Christ, great wonderworker that he was, first spat on the blind Jew's eyes, and then opened them; but these people are more blind than the Jews. How can we demand much from them all at once? Let them touch the hem of His garment—His goodness is felt, and He will entice them to Himself. ”

“ I could not yet believe that I had lost my Kiriak, and wanted to stand up in the sledge and call to him, but at the same moment I felt smothered, as if I had been choked with all this frozen dust, and I fell down into the snow, giving my head a somewhat severe blow on the edge of the sledge. I had no strength to rise again, and even if I had had the strength, my savage would not have allowed me to do so. He held me fast and said:
"Lie still, Bachka, lie quiet; you will not die. The snow will cover us up, it will be warm. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I am not like the others who don't mind anything if they can only get pleasure from a woman. I feel what love is, and how like a black snake it is sucking my heart. . . ."
"Why are you telling me all this?" interrupted Katerina Lvovna.
She was sorry for Sergei.
"Katerina Lvovna, I must talk about it? How can I help talking about it? Supposing everything is explained and described to him; supposing, not only at some distant time, but even tomorrow, Sergei will no longer be here in flesh or in spirit?"
"No, no, don't talk about it, Serezha. This can never be. ”

“ Sergei obeyed Katerina Lvovna; he did not slide down the column but hid under a shelf in the gallery.
Meanwhile Katerina Lvovna heard her husband come to the door and listen, holding his breath. She could even hear the rapid beating of his jealous heart; but she had no sorrow for him, only an evil laugh seized her.
"What's done can't be undone," she thought smiling and breathing like an innocent child.
This lasted for about ten minutes, but at last Zinovey Borisych got tired of standing on the other side of the door listening to his wife's breathing in her sleep, so he knocked. ”

“ The savage was silent.
"What is it, friend?" I said. "Why are you silent?"
"No, Bachka."
"What do you mean by 'No, Bachka.'"
"He won't save me, Bachka; for Him the Zaysan beats, the Shaman beats, the Lama drives away reindeer."
"So that's the chief misfortune!"
"Yes, Bachka."
"You must bear the misfortune for Christ's sake."
"Why, Bachka—He is compassionate, Bachka. When I die, He Himself will be sorry for me. Why should we wrong Him?" ”

“ Katerina Lvovna did not defend herself: she only looked more fixedly at the waves and her lips moved. Between Sergei's base talk she heard the roar and sighing of the rising and breaking waves. Suddenly out of one broken billow she saw the blue head of Boris Timofeich appear, from another her husband looked out, and rolled about embracing Fedia's drooping head. Katerina Lvovna tried to remember a prayer and moved her lips, but her lips only whispered: "How you and I loved each other; sat long autumn nights together; sent people from the light of day by violent deaths." ”

“ Zinovey Borisych was silent and again pushed his cup towards her.
"Apparently you have nothing to say," cried Katerina Lvovna with contempt angrily throwing a tea spoon on her husband's saucer. "Well, can't you say who has been accused? Who in your eyes is my lover?"
"You will hear; no need to hurry so."
"Is it about Sergei, perhaps, that they have been lying to you?"
"We shall find out, we shall find out, Katerina Lvovna; nobody can take away our authority over you, and nobody has a right to do so . . . . You yourself will tell us. . . ." ”

“ IF I had the temerity of the happy chosen of Heaven, who through their great faith are enabled to penetrate into the secrets of the Will of God, then I would perhaps dare to permit myself the supposition that probably God Himself was satisfied with the conduct of Postnikov's humble soul, which He had created. But my faith is small; it does not permit my mind to penetrate so high. I am of the earth, earthy. I think of those mortals who love goodness, simply because it is goodness and do not expect any reward for it, wherever it may be. ”

“ This insult passed all measure, and there was also no limit to the feeling of wrath which boiled up at that moment in Katerina Lvovna's soul. Not knowing what she did she rushed forward and fell unconscious on Fiona's breast and was caught in her arms.
On that full bosom, which so lately had diverted with its sweet depravity Katerina Lvovna's faithless lover, she now sobbed out her own unbearable sorrow, and pressed herself close to her stupid and coarse rival, as a child would to its mother. They were now equal. They were both of equal price and both cast away. ”

“ I would carry you to Arabia the Blessed," answered Sergei to her remark.
"Young man, you don't argue correctly," said the peasant who was filling the sacks. "What is of weight in us? Is it our body that weighs? Our body, my good fellow, counts for nothing on the scales: it's our strength, our strength, that weighs—not our body!"
"Yes, when I was a girl, I was terribly strong," said Katerina Lvovna, who was unable to restrain herself. "Not every man could get the better of me." ”

“ Formerly my gait was of the lightest, but now, ever since Arkadie Il'ich had carried me off senseless in the cold, where I must have frozen them, I had no longer any strength in the toes for dancing. I became the same sort of woman in striped linen that Drosida was. God only knows how long I would have lived on in this melancholy way if something had not happened. One evening, when I was sitting in my hut, just before sunset, looking out of the window at the calves, suddenly a small stone fell into the room through the window. ”

“ Katerina Lvovna thought in her dream. "We have never had a cat in our bedroom and now see what a fine one has got in." She again tried to catch the cat, but again it was not there. "What can it be? I wonder if it is a cat at all?" thought Katerina Lvovna. A panic seized her and drove both her dream and her sleep quite away. Katerina Lvovna looked round the room; there was no cat anywhere, only handsome Sergei lying there and with his strong hand pressing her breast to his hot face. ”

“ She seldom went to visit anyone, and even when she drove with her husband to any of his merchant friends, it was no pleasure. The people were all strict: they watched how she sat down, how she walked across the room, how she got up. Now Katerina Lvovna had a passionate nature, and having been brought up in poverty she was accustomed to simplicity and freedom: running with pails to the river for water, bathing under the pier in a shift, or scattering sun-flower seeds over the gate on to the head of any young fellow who might be passing by. ”

“ The prisoners went out into the yard; the chained and the unchained Sergei and Fiona, Sonetka and Katerina Lvovna; the schismatic fettered to the Jew, the Pole on the same chain with the Tarter.
All crowded together, then formed into some sort of order and started.
It was a most desolate picture: a small number of people torn from the light and deprived of every shadow of hope of a better future—sinking into the cold black mud of the common road. ”

“ I saw it, if not by the passionless face of my driver, by the restless, irregular and troubled movements of his dogs, which seemed to be jumping about, fidgeting, and always throwing themselves from side to side. My savage had much trouble with them, but his unchanging passionless indifference did not desert him for a moment; he only seemed to work with his long stick with greater attention, without which on this day we should have been thrown out at least a hundred times, and left either in the middle of the wilderness or else by the woods which we were constantly skirting. ”

“ Everything was snout; he himself had a snout, his wife had a snout, his reindeer had a snout, his god Shigemony had a snout. Why should a bishop not have a snout too? My grace could put up with this easily, but the difficulty was to endure his breath, the stink of dried fish, and some other disgusting odour—probably the stench of his own stomach—I could not stand it.
"It's enough," I said. "Stop, you have warmed me; now, don't blow any more."
"No, Bachka, we must blow, it will be warmer." ”

“ Those who acquire faith for daughters and herds, acquire not faith, but only daughters and herds, and the offering from their hands will be for Thee like the blood of swine. But where are my means of educating, of enlightening him, when these means do not exist, and when it seems as if it had been decreed that they should not be in my hands? No, my Kiriak, is right: a seal is here and the hand that is not liberated will not be able to break it, and I remembered the words of the prophet Habakkuk: "Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry." ”

“ Five hundred travellers conducted by the Obushy met a spirit, who, in order to frighten them, appeared in the most terrible and disgusting forms, and asked them: "Have you ever seen such monsters?" "We have more dreadful ones," answered the Obushy. "Who are they?" "All who are envious, greedy, lying, and revengful; after death they become monsters, much more terrible and disgusting than these." The spirit hid himself and changed into such a lean and gaunt man that the veins stuck to his bones, and then appeared again to the travellers and said: "Have you such people?" ”

“ Let these snow-covered clods of His valleys be dear to him, and when his day comes let him cease to exist, let him cast off his life as a vine sheds its ripe fruit, as a wild olive tree sheds its blossoms. . . . It is not for me to put his feet in the stocks nor to track his footsteps, when He Who Is has written with His finger the law of love in his heart and has led him aside from evil paths. ”

“ I asked.
"Little ornaments, Vladyko."
"What sort of little ornaments?"
"Ornaments for the little savage girls. They come to the fair and I give them ornaments."
"So that's how you give pleasure to the unbelieving heathen."
"Oh, Vladyko! Why do you always keep on saying the unbelieving, the unbelieving? All were created by one God, these poor blind people ought to be pitied."
"They must be enlightened, Father Kiriak."
"To enlighten?" he said. "It is a good thing Vladyko, to enlighten. ”

“ What has he got to do with this priest?"
"Our people are there, Bachka, our people live there, indeed good people, Bachka. He is sorry. Bachka . . . . sorry for them, Bachka—he has hurried to be baptized for them."
"What sort of a 'Shaytan' is this brother of yours? How dare he do such a thing?"
"Why not, Bachka, it's nothing; for him it's all the same, Bachka, but for them, Bachka, the Zaysan won't beat them, and the lamas won't drive their reindeer away." ”

“ Five minutes later Sergei, in a Romanov short fur coat trimmed with thick seal skin, joined her there.
"Have they closed the shutters?" Katerina Lvovna asked him.
"They have closed them," answered Sergei, snuffing the candles with the snuffers, and stopped near the stove.
They were both silent.
"Vespers will not be finished soon to-day?" asked Katrina Lvovna.
"To-morrow is a big festival; the service will be long," answered Sergei.
There was again silence.
"I'd better go to Fedia; he is alone," said Katerina Lvovna, rising.
"Alone?" asked Sergei, looking at her askance. ”

“ Why should we not have happiness, Serezha?"
"Because I love you so much that I want, Katerina Lvovna, to see you a real lady, and not as you have lived so far," answered Sergei Filipich, "and now it will be just the contrary; with the decrease of the capital we will have to sink even lower than before." ”