I have sinned and wronged you all unknowingly, playing tricks with my gun the other day. Who could tell that you, too, were stricken by grievous sickness? It happens to me at times," he added in a hoarse, ailing voice, frowning and unconsciously looking away from Ordynov. "My trouble comes upon me like a thief in the night without knocking at the gate! I almost thrust a knife into her bosom the other day . . ." he brought out, nodding towards Katerina. "I am ill, a fit comes, seizes me—well, that's enough. Sit down—you will be our guest."
Ordynov was still staring at him intently.
"Sit down, sit down!" the old man shouted impatiently; "sit down, if that will please her! So you are brother and sister, born of the same mother! You are as fond of one another as lovers!"
Ordynov sat down.
"You see what a fine sister you've got," the old man went on, laughing, and he showed two rows of white, perfectly sound teeth. "Be fond of one another, my dears. Is your sister beautiful, sir? Tell me, answer! Come, look how her cheeks are burning; come, look round, sing the praises of her beauty to all the world, show that your heart is aching for her."
Ordynov frowned and looked angrily at the old man, who flinched under his eyes. A blind fury surged up in Ordynov's heart. By some animal instinct he felt near him a mortal foe. He could not understand what was happening to him, his reason refused to serve him.
"Don't look," said a voice behind him.
Ordynov looked round.
"Don't look, don't look, I tell you, if the devil is tempting you; have pity on your love," said Katerina, laughing, and suddenly from behind she covered his eyes with her hands; then at once took away her hands and hid her own face in them. But the colour in her face seemed to show through her fingers. She removed her hands and, still glowing like fire, tried to meet their laughter and inquisitive eyes brightly and without a tremor. But both looked at her in silence—Ordynov with the stupefaction of love, as though it were the first time such terrible beauty had stabbed his heart; the old man coldly and attentively. Nothing was to be seen in his pale face, except that his lips turned blue and quivered faintly.
Katerina went up to the old man, no longer laughing, and began clearing away the books, papers, inkstand, everything that was on the table and putting them all on the window-sill.
