Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/108

 92 only hasten the end. He looked round in silence, and with an expression of wrath, reproach and suffering, his eyes rested on his wife, whose thin fingers were tightly squeezing his throat.

Zinovey Borisych did not defend himself; his arms, with tightly clenched fists, lay stretched out jerking spasmodically; one of them was quite free; the other Katerina Lvovna pressed to the floor with her knee.

"Hold him," she whispered to Sergei in an indifferent voice and again turned to her husband.

Sergei sat down on the master, pressing his two arms down with his knees, and tried to seize him by the throat under Katerina Lvovna's hands, but at the same moment he uttered a cry of despair. The sight of the man who had wronged him, and the desire for bloody revenge aroused in Zinovey Borisych all his remaining strength, and with a violent effort he was able to free his imprisoned arms from the weight of Sergei's knees, and seizing hold of Sergei's black locks he bit at his throat like a wild beast. But it was not for long; Zinovey Borisych groaned heavily and his head fell back.

Katerina Lvovna, pale and hardly breathing, stood over her husband and lover; in her right hand she had a heavy metal candlestick, which she was holding by the top with the heavy part