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When he rang the bell at Lionel's lodgings, it was with no very clear idea of the message or counsel he was bringing with him; but the news he now received put all these things out of his head. The house-porter appeared, looking somewhat concerned. "Yes, sir, Mr. Moore is up-stairs; but I'm afraid he's very unwell." "What is the matter?" Maurice asked, instantly.
The girls, by tradition, dare not do this with their hands, which have been denied during the night. And the house-porter has adorned the house-entrance, which is carved in the Russian style, with two little felled birch-trees. And so with all the houses the thin white trunks with their scant dying verdure adorn the exterior near the stoops, bannisters and doors.
"Vasily! why don't you bring her in?" "She won't come!" answered a voice, and then the spot moved towards the policeman. I halted and asked the police-officer, "What is it?" He said, "They are taking a girl from the Rzhanoff house to the station- house; and she is hanging back, she won't walk." A house-porter in a sheepskin coat was leading her.
Many men entered, making a loud noise with their boots first a police official, then another, then a detective in gold-rimmed spectacles, a house-porter, another house-porter, a muzhik, a policeman, another muzhik, another house-porter. More and more came; they filled the room, and still they came huge, moody, silent fellows. Elisaveta felt it stifling; she awoke.
This greatly puzzled the people who were acquainted with him, and never a week went by without the house-porter propounding the question: "When a gentleman of such quiet habits earns eight thousand francs a year at his office and never spends a cent, what can he do with his money?"
Iona sees a house-porter with a parcel and makes up his mind to address him. "What time will it be, friend?" he asks. "Going on for ten.... Why have you stopped here? Drive on!" Iona drives a few paces away, bends himself double, and gives himself up to his misery. He feels it is no good to appeal to people.
Then leaving the doors open, she rushed down three flights of stairs in her slippers, consumed with the thought that she alone could bring back a doctor. After the house-porter had opened the door Helene found herself upon the pavement, with a ringing in her ears and her mind distracted.
"He was a soldier, my good friend," the old man answered in a weak voice. "He left the service at the same time as you did. He was a soldier, and now, to be sure, he is at Petersburg at a hydropathic establishment. The doctor treats the sick with water. So he, to be sure, is house-porter at the doctor's." "Here it is written down," said the old woman, taking a letter out of her pocket.
Then there was a long row of potted scarlet geraniums and large white daisies which the house-porter had ranged by the window; and when he opened the note that had been forwarded with these he found that the wife of a famous statesman had observed as she drove along Piccadilly that the flowers in his balcony wanted renewal and begged his acceptance of this graceful little tribute.
He, on his side, had none to produce, none at least but a statement of his house-porter on his own admission a most casual and intermittent personage that between the hours of ten o'clock and midnight no less than three ladies in deep black had flitted in and out of the place. This proved far too much; we had neither of us any use for three.
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