VIII


On the evening of the same day, Anna Vassilyevna was sitting in her
drawing-room and was on the verge of weeping. There were also in the
room her husband and a certain Uvar Ivanovitch Stahov, a distant
cousin of Nikolai Artemyevitch, a retired cornet of sixty years old, a
man corpulent to the point of immobility, with sleepy yellowish eyes,
and colourless thick lips in a puffy yellow face. Ever since he had
retired, he had lived in Moscow on the interest of a small capital
left him by a wife who came of a shopkeeper's family. He did nothing,
and it is doubtful whether he thought of anything; if he did think, he
kept his thoughts to himself. Once only in his life he had been
thrown into a state of excitement and shown signs of animation, and
that was when he read in the newspapers of a new instrument at the
Universal Exhibition in London, the 'contro-bombardon,' and became
very anxious to order this instrument for himself, and even made
inquiries as to where to send the money and through what office. Uvar
Ivanovitch wore a loose snuff-coloured coat and a white neckcloth,
used to eat often and much, and in moments of great perplexity, that
is to say when it happened to him to express some opinion, he would
flourish the fingers of his right hand meditatively in the air, with a
convulsive spasm from the first finger to the little finger, and back
from the little finger to the first finger, while he articulated with
effort, 'to be sure . . . there ought to ... in some sort of a way.'

Uvar Ivanovitch was sitting in an easy chair by the window, breathing
heavily; Nikolai Artemyevitch was pacing with long strides up and
down the room, his hands thrust into his pockets; his face expressed
dissatisfaction.