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months have passed since Viérotchka was rescued from the cellar. The Lopukhófs' affairs have prospered. He has had a fair number of pupils; he obtained work of a certain publisher, to translate a text-book on geography. Viéra Pavlovna also found two pupils, not of the highest grade, but still not to be despised. Together they have an income of eighty rubles a month. But such an income scarcely allows any one to live luxuriously, but they ran no risk of running into poverty. Their means have gradually increased, and they have calculated that in four months or even sooner they can set up their own establishment. And this was afterwards realized.

The system of their lives was arranged, of course not absolutely in accordance with Viérotchka's half-jesting, half-serious plan proposed on the day of their fantastic engagement, but nevertheless it was very much like it. The old man and woman at whose house they lived, gossiped together about the strange way in which the young couple lived—as though they were not young people at all, not even like husband and wife; like nobody else in the world.

"Well, now, Petrovna, it seems to me just as queer as it does to you. You could not tell for the life of you whether she wan't his sister and he her brother!"

"You think that's a good comparison, do you? Between brother and sister there ain't any ceremony at all. But look at them! He gits up, puts on his clo'es, and sits down and waits till the samovar is brought. Then he makes tea and calls her, and she too comes out all dressed. What kind of a brother and sister's that? You had better say this: being as there's poor folks who through their poverty have to live two families in one apartment; and you might compare them to such!"

"And how is it, Petrovna, that a husband can't go into