Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/132

 116 "Why did you do it?" she was asked.

"For him," she answered pointing to Sergei, who hung his head.

The criminals were taken to prison, and this terrible case, which had attracted general attention and indignation, soon came up for judgment. At the end of February Sergei and the widow of the third guild merchant, Katerina Lvovna, were condemned to be flogged on the market-place of their town, and then to be sent to penal servitude. In the beginning of March, on a cold frosty morning the executioner inflicted the appointed number of blue-red lashes on Katerina Lvovna's bare, white back and then also administered the allotted portion of strokes on Sergei's shoulders, and branded his handsome face with the three marks of a convict.

During the whole of this time, for some reason, Sergei aroused much more sympathy than Katerina Lvovna. Dirty and bloodstained he stumbled when he descended from the black scaffold, but Katerina Lvovna came down quietly, only taking care that the thick shift and coarse convict jacket should not come in contact with her lacerated back. Even in the prison hospital, when they handed her child to her she only said: "What do I want with him!" turned to the wall and without a groan, without a complaint, fell with her bosom on the hard pallet.