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"I don't know... to-morrow...."

"Then you are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna to-morrow?" Sonia's

voice shook.

"I don't know. I shall know to-morrow morning.... Never mind

that: I've come to say one word...."

He raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly noticed that he

was sitting down while she was all the while standing before him.

"Why are you standing? Sit down," he said in a changed voice,

gentle and friendly.

She sat down. He looked kindly and almost compassionately at her.

"How thin you are! What a hand! Quite transparent, like a dead

hand."

He took her hand. Sonia smiled faintly.

"I have always been like that," she said.

"Even when you lived at home?"

"Yes."

"Of course, you were," he added abruptly and the expression of

his face and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly.

He looked round him once more.

"You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs?"

"Yes...."

"They live there, through that door?"

"Yes.... They have another room like this."

"All in one room?"

"Yes."