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 ortly. He had to assume his new office on September 10th, and besides that he required a little time to settle in his new home, to remove all his things from the country, to buy things that were wanted, and see to a good many other things; in a word, to establish himself as he had already made up his mind to do, and as Praskhov'ya Tedorovna had resolved to do likewise.

And now when everything had been arranged so comfortably, and when he and his wife had once more but one common object before them, and, despite the fact that they lived very little together, harmonised more amicably than they had ever done since the first year of their marriage, Ivan Il'ich thought of removing his family at once; but his sister and brother-in-law, who had suddenly become particularly friendly and kinsmanlike towards Ivan Il'ich, would not hear of it, so Ivan Il'ich had to depart by himself.

Ivan Il'ich departed then, and the happy frame of mind produced by his success and his harmonious relations with his wife, each stimulating the other, never quitted him the whole time. He hit upon excellent quarters, the sort of dwelling he and his wife had long been dreaming about. Lofty, spacious reception rooms in the old style, a convenient grandiose cabinet, rooms for his wife and daughter, a class room for his son — as if expressly designed for them. Ivan Il'ich himself undertook all the arrangements, selected the carpets, bought the furniture — old-fashioned furniture in particular, which (he took care of that) was in a particularly comme il faut style — and the coverings of the furniture, and it all grew and grew into the ideal which he had set his mind on