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THEN Sergei suddenly stopped talking about the heir. As soon as Sergei ceased talking about him, Katerina Lvovna could not get Fedia Lyamin out of her mind or her heart. She became pensive and even less loving to Sergei. When she was asleep, when she was looking after the business, or when she was praying to God, she had but one thought in her mind: "Why is it so? Why indeed should I lose the capital through him? I have suffered so much, I have taken so much sin on my soul," thought Katerina Lvovna, "and he comes here without any trouble and takes it away from me. If at least he were a man, but this child—this boy . . . ."
The early frosts were setting in. Of course no news of Zinovey Borisych came from anywhere. Katerina Lvovna became bigger and went about always more pensive. In the town there was much gossip about her. They wondered why the young Izmaylova, who had so far been barren, and had always grown thin and pined away, now suddenly began to grow larger. All this time the
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