Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/111

 Rh streak of dawn appeared in the eastern sky, and the apple trees, faintly tinted with gold, looked through the green fence of the garden into Katerina Lvovna's room.

The old clerk, with a short fur coat thrown over his shoulders, yawning and crossing himself, crept across the yard from the barn to the kitchen.

Katerina Lvovna pulled the shutters carefully up by their strings, and attentively looked at Sergie as if she wanted to read his soul.

"Well, now you are a merchant," said she placing her white hands on Sergei's shoulders.

Sergei did not answer her.

Sergei's lips trembled and he shook all over as if with ague. Only Katerina Lvovna's lips were cold.

After two days large blisters caused by the use of a heavy spade and crow-bar appeared on Sergei's hands; but, because of them, Zinovey Borisych was so well stowed away in his cellar, that without the aid of his widow or her lover nobody could have found him till the day of the Last Judgment.