"Who's there?" asked Katerina Lvovna, frightened.
"Don't be afraid! It's I, Sergei," answered the clerk.
"Sergei? What do you want?"
"I have a little business with you, Katerina Lvovna; I want to ask your gracious self about a small matter. Allow me to come in for a moment."
Katerina Lvovna turned the key and let Sergei in.
"What do you want?" she said, going to the window.
"I have come to you, Katerina Lvovna, to ask if you have some book you could give me to read. It helps to drive away boredom."
"No, Sergei, I have no books. I do not read them," answered Katerina Lvovna.
"It's so dull!" Sergei complained.
"Why should you feel dull?"
"Good gracious, how can I help feeling dull? I'm a young man; we live here like in a monastery, and the only future to be seen is that we shall go on stagnating in this solitude till we are under the coffin-lid. It makes one sometimes despair."
"Why don't you get married?"
"It's easy, madam, to say get married. Whom can one marry here? I'm only an unimportant man. A master's daughter won't marry me, and owing to poverty, as you yourself know, Katerina
