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DIAMONDS TO SIT ON 4 to grow any wiser now. She was terribly mean, and it was only because he was so poor that she could not be any meaner. Her voice was so deep and so powerful that even Richard Coeur de Lion would have been envious of it. And, above all, she had dreams. She was always having dreams. She dreamt of maidens in belts, of horses decked out in gold cloth, of porters playing harps, of archangels walking about in sheepskin coats, and of knitting-needles that clicked and jumped about rooms. Clavdia Ivanovna Petukhov was a stupid old woman. Besides, she had whiskers on her upper lip that looked like the bristles in a shaving-brush.

Hippolyte went out of the house in rather a bad temper.

Bezenchuk, the undertaker, was leaning against the door of his shop. He had had so many financial crashes and had soaked so much in drink that his eyes were bright yellow and flashed like a cat’s.

‘Good morning, friend,’ he shouted across to Hippolyte.

Hippolyte politely raised his greasy felt hat.

‘How’s your dear mother-in-law, may I ask?’

‘H’m. H’m,’ answered Hippolyte rather vaguely, and shrugged his shoulders as he passed the undertaker.

‘Ah, well,’ said Bezenchuk, ‘God grant her good health. Business is bad these days. Such losses, my dear sir, such losses!’

He folded his arms again and continued leaning against the door.

Hippolyte was stopped again at the Nymphs’. There were three owners of this shop. They all three bowed to him and asked in a chorus about his mother-in-law’s health.

‘Quite well, quite well,’ he replied. ‘She dreamt last night of a girl with golden hair.’

The three Nymphs looked at each other and sighed deeply.