Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/93

 Rh "That will never be," said Katerina Lvovna gaily, and she waved her arms.

"What do you mean—'never be'? As I understand it, it can't be otherwise. I, too, Katerina Lvovna, have a heart and can see my own torments."

"That's enough, why keep on talking about it?"

It pleased Katerina Lvovna to see this expression of jealousy in Sergei, and she laughed and began to kiss him again.

"But I repeat," continued Sergei, quietly drawing his head away from Katerina Lvovna's arms that were bare to the shoulders, "I must own too that my miserable position causes me to reflect, not once but ten times, how it will all end. If I were, so to speak, your equal; if I were a gentleman, or a merchant, I would never part from you, Katerina Lvovna, in my whole life; but you can judge for yourself what sort of a man I am compared to you. When I see you now taken by your little white hand and led into the bedchamber, I must bear it all in my heart; and can even become in my own eyes a despised man for the rest of my life, Katerina Lvovna! I am not like the others who don't mind anything if they can only get pleasure from a woman. I feel what love is, and how like a black snake it is sucking my heart"

"Why are you telling me all this?" interrupted Katerina Lvovna.