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"They who forced them to go killed them," said Nekhludoff, with irritation, feeling that she looked at this, too, with her husband's eyes. "Oh, Lord!" said Agraphena Petrovna, who had come up to them. "Yes, we have not the slightest idea of what is being done to these unfortunate beings.
When Agraphena Petrovna came in, he told her, with more firmness than he thought himself capable of, that he no longer needed this lodging nor her services. There had been a tacit understanding that he was keeping up so large and expensive an establishment because he was thinking of getting married. The giving up of the house had, therefore, a special meaning.
Nekhludoff paid no attention, and turned to his sister. "How glad I am that you have come." "I have been here a long time," she said. "Agraphena Petrovna is with me." And she pointed to Agraphena Petrovna, who, in a waterproof and with a bonnet on her head, stood some way off, and bowed to him with kindly dignity and some confusion, not wishing to intrude. "We looked for you everywhere."
"Yes, Agraphena Petrovna told me. I went there. Thanks, very much. But " At this moment the hotel waiter brought in a silver tea-set. While he set the table they were silent. Then Nathalie sat down at the table and made the tea, still in silence. Nekhludoff also said nothing. At last Nathalie began resolutely. "Well, Dmitri, I know all about it." And she looked at him.
Agraphena Petrovna had spent nearly ten years, at different times, abroad with Nekhludoff's mother, and had the appearance and manners of a lady. She had lived with the Nekhludoffs from the time she was a child, and had known Dmitri Ivanovitch at the time when he was still little Mitinka. "Good-morning, Dmitri Ivanovitch." "Good-morning, Agraphena Petrovna. What is it you want?" Nekhludoff asked.
He came back in the evening, when the gas was lit, and drove from the railway station to his house, where the rooms still smelt of naphthaline. Agraphena Petrovna and Corney were both feeling tired and dissatisfied, and had even had a quarrel over those things that seemed made only to be aired and packed away.
"A letter from the princess; either from the mother or the daughter. The maid brought it some time ago, and is waiting in my room," answered Agraphena Petrovna, handing him the letter with a significant smile. "All right! Directly!" said Nekhludoff, taking the letter and frowning as he noticed Agraphena Petrovna's smile.
When Corney had gone away with the supper things, Nekhludoff moved to the tea urn and was about to make himself some tea, but hearing Agraphena Petrovna's footsteps, he went hurriedly into the drawing-room, to avoid being seen by her, and shut the door after him. In this drawing-room his mother had died three months before.
The Rogozhinskys had come to Moscow alone, having left their two children a boy and a girl at home, and stopped in the best rooms of the best hotel. Nathalie at once went to her mother's old house, but hearing from Agraphena Petrovna that her brother had left, and was living in a lodging-house, she drove there.
Agraphena Petrovna shook her head. "See about the things? Why, they'll be required again," she said. "No, they won't, Agraphena Petrovna; I assure you they won't be required," said Nekhludoff, in answer to what the shaking of her head had expressed. "Please tell Corney also that I shall pay him two months' wages, but shall have no further need of him."
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