Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/86

 70 here?" thought Katerina Lvovna. "I put some cream on the window sill; I am sure the rascal has lapped it up. I must turn him out," she decided and wanted to seize hold of him and put him out of the room, but he seemed to slip away between her fingers like a mist. "How has this cat come here?" Katerina Lvovna thought in her dream. "We have never had a cat in our bedroom and now see what a fine one has got in." She again tried to catch the cat, but again it was not there. "What can it be? I wonder if it is a cat at all?" thought Katerina Lvovna. A panic seized her and drove both her dream and her sleep quite away. Katerina Lvovna looked round the room; there was no cat anywhere, only handsome Sergei lying there and with his strong hand pressing her breast to his hot face.

Katerina Lvovna rose, sat down on the bed, kissed and caressed Sergei many times, arranged the disordered feather bed, and went into the garden to drink tea. The sun was already low, and a beautiful, enchanting evening was settling down on the hot earth.

"I have slept too long," said Katerina Lvovna to Aksinia as she sat down on a carpet under the flowering apple tree to drink tea. "What does this mean, Aksinia?" she asked the cook as she wiped a saucer with the tea-cloth.