Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/147

 Rh up, but nobody was there, only not far off somebody under a coat tittered malevolently. Katerina Lvovna recognized Sonetka's laugh.

This insult passed all measure, and there was also no limit to the feeling of wrath which boiled up at that moment in Katerina Lvovna's soul. Not knowing what she did she rushed forward and fell unconscious on Fiona's breast and was caught in her arms.

On that full bosom, which so lately had diverted with its sweet depravity Katerina Lvovna's faithless lover, she now sobbed out her own unbearable sorrow, and pressed herself close to her stupid and coarse rival, as a child would to its mother. They were now equal. They were both of equal price and both cast away.

They were equal!—the caprice of a passing moment—Fiona; and she who had committed that drama of love, Katerina Lvovna.

Nothing was an insult to Katerina Lvovna now. Having shed her tears she became hardened and with wooden calmness prepared to go out to the roll-call.

The drum sounded Rapa-ta-tap. The prisoners went out into the yard; the chained and the unchained Sergei and Fiona, Sonetka and Katerina Lvovna; the schismatic fettered to the Jew, the Pole on the same chain with the Tarter.