Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/91

 Rh "You're fickle, Serezha," said Katerina Lvovna, feeling jealous. "You're not constant."

"I won't accept these words as applying to me," said Sergei quietly.

"Why do you kiss me in that way?"

Sergei became quite silent.

"It is only husbands and wives" continued Katerina Lvovna playing with his curls, "who take the dust off each others lips in that way. Kiss me now so that the young blossoms of the apple tree above us shall fall to the earth."

"In this way, in this way," whispered Katerina Lvovna embracing her lover and kissing him with passionate abandonment.

"Listen, Serezha to what I tell you," began Katerina Lvovna a little later, "why is it that everybody with one voice says that you are a deceiver?"

"Who cares to tell lies about me?"

"Well, people say so."

"Perhaps, at some time, I may have been false to those who were quite unworthy."

"And pray why did you have anything to do with the unworthy, you fool? It is stupid to make love to the worthless."

"It's all very well to talk! Is this a matter one can reason about? Temptation leads you astray. You have acted towards a woman quite simply,