Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/135

 Rh against the corners of the corridor with me, you'd do better to give me the money."

"I only gave a quarter, Serezhenka," said Katerina Lvovna in self defence.

"Isn't a quarter money? How many quarters have you picked up on the way? You've distributed many apparently."

"But, Serezha, we have seen each other."

"Well, what good is that? What sort of joy have we in meeting after all this suffering? You ought to curse your life and not think of meetings."

"It's all the same to me, Serezha, if I can only see you."

"That's all nonsense," answered Sergei.

Sometimes Katerina Lvovna bit her lips to blood at such answers, and sometimes in the darkness of their nocturnal meetings tears of anger and vexation rose to her eyes, that had never wept before; but she bore everything; was always silent, and tried to deceive herself.

In this manner, in these new relations to each other, they reached Nizhni Novgorod. There the party was joined by another detachment of convicts, on their way to Siberia from the Moscow district.

In this large gang, among a number of all sorts of people, there were in the women's division two very interesting characters; one was the wife of a