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"Ah, let me alone, let me alone!" she said, and going back to her

bedroom she sat down in the same place as she had sat when

talking to her husband, clasping tightly her thin hands with the

rings that slipped down on her bony fingers, and fell to going

over in her memory all the conversation. "He has gone! But has he

broken it off with her?" she thought. "Can it be he sees her? Why

didn't I ask him! No, no, reconciliation is impossible. Even if

we remain in the same house, we are strangers-strangers forever!"

She repeated again with special significance the word so dreadful

to her. "And how I loved him! my God, how I loved him!... How I

loved him! And now don't I love him? Don't I love him more than

before? The most horrible thing is," she began, but did not

finish her thought, because Matrona Philimonovna put her head in

at the door.

"Let us send for my brother," she said; "he can get a dinner

anyway, or we shall have the children getting nothing to eat till

six again, like yesterday."