Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/115

 Rh drinking tea. "Now, Katerina Lvovna, all our affairs will turn to ashes."

"Why to ashes, Serezha?"

"Because it will all be divided now. What use will it be to carry on a trifling business?"

"What, Serezha, will it be too little for you?"

"No, it's not about myself I'm thinking. I'm just wondering if we shall have the same happiness."

"How so? 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."

"What do I care, Serezha?"

"It may be true, Katerina Lvovna, that perhaps for you it has no interest, but for me, because I respect you, and also to the eyes of the world, mean and envious though they are, it will be terribly painful. You can feel, of course, as you like, but I in my judgment can see that, under these circumstances, I can never be happy."

Sergei began to play upon Katerina Lvovna to this tune; that through Fedia Lyamin he had become the most unhappy man, being deprived in future of the power to exalt and distinguish her,