Zinovy Borisych walked mournfully about the room.
“Well, and how have you passed your time here?” Zinovy Borisych again began asking his wife.
“Our joys here, I expect, are known to everybody: we don’t go to balls, nor to theaters likewise.”
“And it seems you take little joy in your husband,” Zinovy Borisych hazarded, glancing out of the corner of his eye.
“We’re not so young as to lose our minds when we meet. How do you want me to rejoice? Look how I’m bustling, running around for your pleasure.”
Katerina Lvovna ran out again to fetch the samovar and again sprang over to Sergei, pulled at him, and said: “Look sharp, Seryozha!”
Sergei did not quite know what it was all about, but he got ready anyhow.
Katerina Lvovna came back, and Zinovy Borisych was kneeling on the bed, hanging his silver watch with a beaded chain on the wall above the headboard.
“Why is it, Katerina Lvovna, that you, in your solitary situation, made the bed up for two?” he suddenly asked his wife somehow peculiarly.
“I kept expecting you,” replied Katerina Lvovna, looking at him calmly.
“I humbly thank you for that… And this little object now, how does it come to be lying on your bed?”
Zinovy Borisych picked up Sergei’s narrow woolen sash from the sheet and held it by one end before his wife’s eyes.
Katerina Lvovna did not stop to think for a moment.
“Found it in the garden,” she said, “tied up my skirt with it.”
“Ah, yes!” Zinovy Borisych pronounced with particular emphasis. “We’ve also heard a thing or two about your skirts.”
“What is it you’ve heard?”
“All about your nice doings.”
“There are no such doings of mine.”
“Well, we’ll look into that, we’ll look into everything,” Zinovy Borisych replied, moving his empty cup towards his wife.
Katerina Lvovna was silent.
“We’ll bring all these doings of yours to light, Katerina Lvovna,” Zinovy Borisych went on after a long pause, scowling at his wife.
“Your Katerina Lvovna is not so terribly frightened. She’s not much afraid of that,” she replied.
“What? What?” cried Zinovy Borisych, raising his voice.
“Never mind – drop it,” replied his wife.
“Well, you’d better look out! You’re getting a bit too talkative!”
“Why shouldn’t I be talkative?” Katerina Lvovna retorted.
“You’d better watch yourself.”
“There’s no reason for me to watch myself. Wagging tongues wag something to you, and I have to take all kinds of insults on myself! That’s a new one!”
“Not wagging tongues, but certain knowledge about your amours.”
“About what amours?” cried Katerina Lvovna, blushing unfeignedly.
“I know what.”
“If you know, then speak more clearly!”
Zinovy Borisych was silent and again moved the empty cup towards his wife.
“Clearly there’s nothing to talk about,” Katerina Lvovna answered with disdain, defiantly throwing a teaspoon onto her husband’s saucer. “Well, tell me, who have they denounced to you? Who is my lover according to you?”
“You’ll find out, don’t be in such a hurry.”
“Is it Sergei they’ve been yapping about?”
“We’ll find out, we’ll find out, Katerina Lvovna. My power over you no one has taken away and no one can take away… You’ll talk yourself…”
“Ohh, I can’t bear that!” Katerina Lvovna gnashed her teeth and, turning white as a sheet, unexpectedly rushed out the door.
“Well, here he is,” she said a few seconds later, leading Sergei into the room by the sleeve. “Question him and me about what you know. Maybe you’ll find out a lot more than you’d like!”
Zinovy Borisych was at a loss. He glanced now at Sergei, who was standing in the doorway, now at his wife, who calmly sat on the edge of the bed with her arms crossed, and understood nothing of what was approaching.
“What are you doing, you serpent?” he barely brought himself to utter, not getting up from his armchair.
“Question us about what you know so well,” Katerina Lvovna replied insolently. “You thought you’d scare me with a beating,” she went on, winking significantly. “That will never be; but what I knew I would do to you, even before these threats of yours, that I am going to do.”
“What’s that? Get out!” Zinovy Borisych shouted at Sergei.
“Oh, yes!” Katerina Lvovna mocked.
She nimbly locked the door, put the key in her pocket, and again sprawled on the bed in her little jacket.
“Now, Seryozhechka, come here, come, darling,” she beckoned the clerk to her.
Sergei shook his curls and boldly sat down by his mistress.
“Oh, Lord! My God! What is this? What are you doing, you barbarians!?” cried Zinovy Borisych, turning all purple and getting up from his chair.
“What? You don’t like it? Look, look, my bright falcon, how beautiful!”
Katerina Lvovna laughed and passionately kissed Sergei in front of her husband.
At the same moment, a deafening slap burned on her cheek, and Zinovy Borisych rushed for the open window.
Chapter Eight
“Ah… ah, so that’s it!.. Well, my dear friend, thank you very much. That’s just what I was waiting for!” Katerina Lvovna cried. “Now it’s clear… it’s going to be my way, not yours…”
In a single movement she pushed Sergei away from her, quickly threw herself at her husband, and before Zinovy Borisych had time to reach the window, she seized him by the throat from behind with her slender fingers and threw him down on the floor like a damp sheaf of hemp.
Having fallen heavily and struck the back of his head with full force against the floor, Zinovy Borisych lost his mind completely. He had never expected such a quick denouement. The first violence his wife used on him showed him that she was ready for anything, if only to be rid of him, and that his present position was extremely dangerous. Zinovy Borisych realized it all instantly in the moment of his fall and did not cry out, knowing that his voice would not reach anyone’s ear but would only speed things up still more. He silently shifted his eyes and rested them with an expression of anger, reproach, and suffering on his wife, whose slender fingers were tightly squeezing his throat.
Zinovy Borisych did not defend himself; his arms, with tightly clenched fists, lay stretched out and twitched convulsively. One of them was quite free; the other Katerina Lvovna pinned to the floor with her knee.
“Hold him,” she whispered indifferently to Sergei, turning to her husband herself.
Sergei sat on his master, pinning down both his arms with his knees, and was about to put his hands around his throat under Katerina Lvovna’s, but just then he cried out desperately himself. Seeing his offender, blood vengeance aroused all the last strength in Zinovy Borisych: with a terrible effort, he tore his pinned-down arms from under Sergei’s knees and, seizing Sergei by his black curls, sank his teeth into his throat like a beast. But that did not last long: Zinovy Borisych at once uttered a heavy moan and dropped his head.
Katerina Lvovna, pale, almost breathless,