Katerina Read Online Free PDF Page B

observing them, it appears. They too watched my steps closely. They noticed, for example, that I didn’t go out to have a good time on Saturday nights. The lady of the house was content, but she didn’t express her approval in so many words. Direct speech isn’t common with them.
    My loveliest hours were spent with the boys. Boys are boys; though it’s true they have an extra dose of cleverness, they’re not spirits.
    After a few months I gave in to temptation and went back to the tavern. My acquaintances were astounded: “What’s the matter with you, Katerina?”
    “Nothing at all.” I tried to apologize.
    Nevertheless, something within me had changed. I had a couple of drinks, but my spirits didn’t soar. Everyone around me, the young and the not so young, looked coarse andclumsy to me. I kept on drinking, but I didn’t get drunk.
    “Where are you working?”
    “With the Jews.”
    “The Jews are having a bad influence on you,” a young woman said to me.
    “I have no other work.”
    “You could join me. I’m working in a canteen.”
    “I’m used to it already.”
    “You mustn’t get used to them.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. They have a bad influence. After a year or two a person starts making their gestures. I knew a girl, a good friend, who worked for the Jews. After two years she lost the look of a healthy person. Her face got pale, and her movements had no freedom—a kind of trembling of the jaws. Our life is different. I wouldn’t work for them for any amount of money.”
    I won’t hide the truth. At that time I felt a strong attraction toward the master of the house. I don’t know what aroused me—his height, his pale face, his prayers in the early morning hours, the coat, or perhaps the footsteps at night. My young body, which had known disgrace and pain, was aroused. In secret, I waited for the night when he would approach my bed.
    Apparently, the Jews are very sensitive. Without saying a word, the lady of the house kept me away from the kitchen at mealtimes, and on the Sabbath I wasn’t permitted to be in the dining room. The distance didn’t blunt my desire. On the contrary, it intensified. In the village I had been drawn to the shepherd, and in the city the boys had lusted for my flesh and devoured it. This time it was a differentdesire. But what could I do, bite my own flesh? Had I had the courage, I would have gone to the priest and confessed, but I was afraid the priest would reproach me and impose fasts and vows. I didn’t then understand that my desires were rooted: Imperceptibly, I had become bound up with the Jews.
    My friends at the tavern were right: The Jews have a quiet power to charm. When I first came to their house, it had seemed that they were turned inward and gloomy and that they took little interest in strangers. Sometimes they seemed stooped, as though pervaded by depression. And sometimes arrogance flashed from their eyes and I didn’t seem to exist. But after two years of service a change took place. Waves of stares began to touch me; first I felt it with the children, and later with the lady of the house. They aren’t indifferent, it turned out. But my dreams in those days were shamefully wild. I know that dreams speak vainly. Nevertheless, their power was evil and great. In my dreams it was only I and the master of the house sitting at a table, drinking glass after glass. His touch was not like the Ruthenians’. He caressed my neck gently. So it was, night after night.
    I had other dreams too, harder to bear than those, that would terrify me like the sights of the church on fast days. In my dreams, I saw a flock of Jews standing at the mouth of a pit. Strong lights were aimed at them, but they stood their ground, not moving. We have killed Jesus once and for all, and we won’t permit his resurrection; their eyes were furious. The strong lights kneaded their flesh, and they stood their ground, as though they had become a single mass, blocking the